EDL? MAC? Same Thing! [Malatesta]

Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; / The British far right begat the EDL; and the EDL begat the SDL and their brethren (the WDL, the ADL and the DDL).

They also begat this post by Malatesta, reflecting on the EDL’s most recent protest versus fellow English mentalists ‘Muslims Against Crusades’.

EDL? MAC? Same Thing!
malatesta32
November 15, 2010

The Muslims Against Crusades (MAC) and English Defence League (EDL) are really 2 sides of the same idiot. Last week saw the MAC protesting in Trafalgar Square during the 2 minutes silence. It also saw the EDL in small numbers ‘protesting peacefully’ against them. But despite their apparent differences they often serve the same purpose in inflaming anti-Islamic sentiment and allowing the state to monitor extremists.

The MAC acted disgracefully and disrespectfully with their publicity seeking poppy burning stunt on Thursday. The EDL turned out about 40 members to confront them. The police separated them and saw that both the EDL and MAC got their publicity fix and achieved nothing. Sharia law was neither implemented nor stopped. Following the poppy burning incident the EDL and Casuals United have both reported increased interest in their websites and are claiming that they have gained many new members. However, signing up to Facebook and being an effective activist are completely different things: what matters is shoe leather on the cobbles not writing LOL next to some anti-Islamic web statement. The EDL demos have been getting smaller despite growing web traffic.

The EDL are politically naïve [and] do not understand either the Muslim community nor the array of opposition against them. The EDL think that anyone who disagrees with them automatically supports extremists like MAC. They think that UAF, local Muslim community associations and antifascists are all the same which is clearly not true. The EDL stereotype all Muslims as extremists as is clear from their web forum: they completely fail to differentiate between publicity seeking characters like MAC, who are no threat really, and the vast majority of Muslims in this country who simply want to get on with their lives peacefully. The MAC do not represent the Muslim community in general and are more like the delusional incompetents portrayed in 4 Lions, full of their own self-importance and following either an agenda that is unrealistic or 1 that is a wee bit more suspicious.

Earlier this year, The Independent published an interesting, if speculative, article on the secret services coercion of vulnerable Muslims in prison. Candidates facing either prison sentences, citizenship difficulties or deportation were approached in order to gain information on radical Islamicists in the UK. It is not too difficult to see the advantages of this, i.e., join up with a dodgy outfit like Anjem Choudhary’s Islam4UK or MAC, monitor what is going on and provide information to the feds. Also the publicising of groups like the MAC helps the state justify the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and promotes the extremist image of Islam.

And the exact same can be said for the EDL. That there are hooligans and criminals at the helm of the EDL is obvious: their glorious leader ‘Tiny’ Tommy Robinson AKA the more poshly named Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is under pressure from the feds on several fronts, for his organisation’s violent conduct on the streets of Britain and also for more mundane matters. The last couple of weeks have seen Tommy nicked over fraud allegations as well as at the demo on Thursday – which is the 6th time this year. Rumours have been flying around the internet that Tommy is being pressured and compromised by the state. The EDL leadership is a volatile mix of extremists from the BNP, Combat 18 and other fascist groups as well as more unsavoury characters from the various football firms. Their hoodies emblazoned with their hometowns, enormous amounts of CCTV monitoring, stop and searches and general surveillance allows the police to know exactly who is doing what and when on the far right.

Tommy’s blatant publicity stunt on Thursday of jumping over a barrier into a large bunch of coppers to ‘take the flag’ of the MAC was a calculated move. It meant he could get his wee face on telly to impress his mates and elevate himself to martyr status. Few political activists in their right minds would do this as it means an obvious nicking, a night in jail and the time wasting and expense of the judicial process. Tommy has been nominally charged with assaulting a copper but whether the charges stand given the amount of evidence is dubious: he basically leapt into the copper’s arms and was immediately surrounded and didn’t have time to do anything.

[youtube.com/watch?v=f7ZFVc2uwMY]

Some cruel wag suggested it gave Tommy a chance to speak with his MI5 handlers but ‘Malatesta’ finds that very hard to believe. Tommy also needed to save face after the embarrassment of having HIS flag snatched by Dutch Antifa the other week which has been widely publicised and can be seen here at about 9.50 in. The ‘No Surrender’ EDL then ran away.

[player.omroep.nl/?aflID=11633256]

What is just as interesting are the photos of other demonstrators. Over the last couple of weeks the Welsh Defence League ‘leader’ Jeff Marsh announced a name change to the Cymru Defence League due to the constant exposure of links with the Nazi Combat 18 outfit. C18 member Luke Pippen helped run the Casuals United website and organise things in Swansea with Marsh. This association is now over apparently but guess who turned up at the EDL demo on Thursday and was photographed wandering around with a loudhailer rallying the troops? Only the melon headed Luke Pippen of C18 whose chest sports a large swastika tattoo. Oh dear.

Homophobes

The non-homophobic EDL have also been rocked by a rather unpleasant row over on their forum. A member of the LGBT division approached some blokes in EDL tops in a pub and started talking to them only for the situation to rapidly descend into violence and the guy received a beating. Read all about it!

[s1.zetaboards.com/EDL_The_Forum/topic/3922963/1/]

This does not look good for the ‘gay friendly’ EDL and illustrates the kind of people the EDL attracts. It also shows that what the EDL say on their website and what goes on in reality are often mutually exclusive.

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
This entry was posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, Death, History, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

7 Responses to EDL? MAC? Same Thing! [Malatesta]

  1. Michael Read says:

    You know, I agree half way, when you concider that England, over the past few decades has mainly desolved into a Agnostic Front, until this trash arrived under Labour control and started all this crazy mumbo jumbo horse shit. Then theres govenment spending issues, councils, being run by far the far left and muslim orientated agenda’s-in laymans terms, buying out entire area’s of all major citys, under schemes like “the right to buy” gig. What people fail to know is, its the local councils who decided just how much of a dicount, the tenent gets on the property, its a scam, its unfair, and we have tens of thousands of homeless people, whom are over five generation british living on our streets. Its a shame, that the only people attempting to do anything about the deconstruction of the UK are the under class, the “chavs” i believe you call them, but that doesn’t say much for the interlect of the UK, seeing as all the UNI mebers are equally as fucking stupid, smashing up conservative propertys and crying “Anarchy” as they do so…in direct contrast there doing this because the govenment is removing there “funds”? I thought you wanted Anarchy folks? o! but when faced with out your govenment grants you dont have the first idea of how to fend for your selfs, So, yeah, Your all a laughing stock it seems. Id rather see a nuclear war then bow down to that filthy islamic scum.

  2. aussie says:

    i cant tell if they are the same thing because by the time i got to the end of it MAC had left my memory, maybe because of the one or two paragraphs based on them i think. a few assumptions im not sure are right andy, i used to think like these guys, truth is they dont think, they act on anger, more to do with there cultural expectations. constantly trying to justify there actions, good for them when it comes from both parties, because now they can justify there actions.

  3. @ndy says:

    E – E – Eejits
    Malatesta

    Just as folk around the UK have been protesting against the increase in student fees, public spending cuts and doing Christmas shopping, the English Defence League have been ‘peacefully protesting’ against Islamic extremists by doing the usual routine of turning up where they are not wanted, causing a lot of bother and then going home again thinking ‘a job well done.’ Yesterday, the EDL gathered in Preston and saw the town disrupted, local folk irritated and 14 arrests. Not only that, but the demo split into 2 groups that ended up fighting each other. They also had a little do in Nuneaton which also descended into the predictable violence. The EDL were hoping to make a national splash by having these 2 demos but they simply do not have the numbers to sustain this.

    Plod Bother

    The role of the police in these repetitious events deserves scrutiny. Yesterday, the EDL demo took place at the same time as a Preston NE/Milwall game. The EDL knew they could pick up a few sympathisers (though most supporters ignored them) and that the racists in the Milwall ranks were bound to cause a stir. Why would the police allow the demo for this day knowing the reputation of the Milwall hardcore? It had all the potential for violence and that is what happened. The police were once again underprepared whilst smoke grenades were going off and the ‘peaceful’ EDL were violent. Some members turned on their stewards – who were just as inadequate as in Leicester – and battered them in order to get out of the kettle and into the opposition. In Nuneaton, the EDL also got physical with the cops after their attack on the UAF was rebuffed. Some photos of the demo have been published here.

    Also, why did the police make such a mess of the Leicester demo? They had been making noises about large numbers of cops on the scene and co-operation from a dozen or so other forces. There were more cops than demonstrators on the day but they completely failed to impede the violence and disorder that lasted the entire day. In Bolton the police over-reacted towards the anti-EDL demo with some vigour resulting in plenty of nickings whilst they let the EDL carry on with disrupting the town. In Stoke, the police completely failed to contain the EDL who ran amok through a largely Asian area of town causing damage. And so on. This week Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Tudway, national co-ordinator for domestic extremism, claimed that the EDL were not an extremist right wing organisation. Which begs the question: how do you define extremist right wingers? Are racists, members of the BNP and other far right groups, hooligans and criminals whose group have a history of violence simply ‘rowdy’ rather than extremists?

    This looks like a shift of focus from the EDL in order to concentrate on the ‘extremists’ who are protesting about education and public sector jobs being axed. Which makes semi-sense in that the major concern for people in this country is not some silly Islamic extremist burning poppies (loathsome though they may be) but the fact that whilst banks are happy to keep their profits, they are even happier for us to cover their losses. Folk are concerned over the future for themselves and their children regarding education and also the fact that many jobs are going to be axed, benefits slashed and people are looking at a future that makes the 80s look like the 60s with a flowery hat on.

    The question is why do the police let the EDL cause the problems that they do knowing how the demos always spiral into violence? This is an age of severe economic problems with local councils facing the task of redundancies and public spending cuts. The police are also looking at cuts in funding and numbers. What do the EDL do? Turn up in places to cause trouble and leave the town with an estimated £500,000 bill. Thanks. The EDL are not unaware of this having previously threatened councils with demonstrations if they do “not keep the word Christmas in the annual celebrations and opt for Winter Festival, out of the politically correct appeasement of others to the detriment of our traditions.” Which is blackmail.

    Rock On Tommy!

    A couple of weeks ago, Searchlight released a photo of the EDL leader Tommy Robinson AKA Stephen Yaxley-Lennon at a BNP meeting. Many antifascist websites ran the picture and questioned the veracity of the EDL’s statements that they weren’t racist and Tommy had ‘never’ been a member of the BNP. And how did the EDL leadership respond? In their usual way. By keeping very quiet and hoping it would all go away. The EDL members who usually comment on ‘Malatesta’ articles did not respond either.

    Tommy has had a year of legal woes to say the least. He has been arrested 6 times this year, the most recent at the Remembrance Day demo where he attempted to ‘seize the flag’ of Islamic extremists. What he actually did was leap into the arms of waiting officers who immediately arrested him. Some have said that Tommy was trying to make up for his humiliation in Holland the other week where antifascists walked straight up to him and snatched his flag as the rest of the EDL ran off. Footage from this incident was posted all over the internet. See at 9.50.

    Tommy is the organiser of a violent far right group whose members include known football hooligans, fascists and other criminal elements. It is not too much of a speculation to say that the police may lean on him for information about them. He is in trouble over mortgage fraud allegations and his previous record of arrests and his time in prison for assaulting a cop are not going to do him any favours when he ends up in court. Tommy is basking in the media spotlight whilst he can for he knows his time is nearly up. And this is part of the EDL’s attraction: weekend warriors getting together, getting drunk and getting their faces on TV so they can boast about it in the pub to their mates. It makes them feel that they are ‘someone.’

    The EDL leader is also looking at serious schisms in his group. Whilst he publicly states that they are not violent or racist there is still that hardcore determined to cause trouble and Tommy has no control over them. The EDL are also keen to trumpet their non-homophobic stance but sadly several EDL lads battered a gay member last week which underscores that what the EDL website says and what the EDL actually does are usually drastically different. Again.

    NB: Copyright free. All the Malatesta Articles are available here.

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