The location of the possibly self-igniting mosque in London’s Muswell Hill.
Nearly a year ago, there was a suspicious fire at a mosque in North London. The fire occurred shortly after the Islamic murder of Drummer Lee Rigby and the usual suspects of the Left and the naïve immediately blamed sympathisers of the English Defence League.
However, what is very unusual for a crime that has been perceived by some as ‘Islamophobic’, there has been no arrest for this arson, even though 11 months have passed. Compare this to other similar offences. When there were arsons or attempted arsons at Islamic property in Hull and Harlow and at an Islamic school in Chislehust, Kent, arrests happened pretty quickly. Why not in this case? The police are normally very quick off the mark to earn Islamo-pandering brownie points when individual Muslims or Islamic property is targeted. In fact it could be said that the police are normally ten years quicker when it comes to dealing with anti-Islam crime, compared to how they have dealt with the growing problem of Islamic Grooming Gangs, which is to shove the offences under the carpet for as long as possible.
I couldn’t help but notice the involvement of the Citizens UK organisation. This is a Leftist/ Alinskyite organisation that has, in the past, run political cover for the extremist Islamists of the East London Mosque (ELM). For those who do not know, the East London Mosque is not only a mosque that has a bad reputation for putting on hate preachers, but is also one of the largest individual entities that make up the East London branch of Citizens UK, and therefore has great political influence on London Citizens. I suspect the ELM and other Islamic groups have far more influence on various Citizens UK branches than do the nice, but politically and Islamically naïve Churches and Synagogues who have also become involved in Citizens UK. There is a political gain for Islamist groups to get involved in groups like Citizens UK. The gain is that is they can use the fact that there are non-Muslim groups involved in the Citizens branch as a way of drawing attention away from some of the more distasteful aspects of Islam, or when they are caught out hosting hate preachers. You could say that, although other groups may be getting involved with Citizens UK or similar groups for good, legitimate and acceptable ‘social action’ reasons, it is likely to be that such ‘good’ groups will be used as a figleaf to cover the words and actions of the bad groups, such as Islamists.
Despite there being many well founded suspicions that this fire may be some sort of ‘insurance job’ or intra-Islamic attack, or even a fire deliberately set in order to gain public sympathy,the local paper covered this story in a very bland manner. This article by Daniel O’Brien of the Barnet News is so bland that it could almost have been constructed, either in whole or in part, out of a Citizens UK press release. Here’s the Barnet News article, in bold with my comments in plain text.
MEMBERS of the Somali Bravanese community are set to be handed a new home after the leaders of Barnet’s main political parties pledged more than £1million to rebuild their community centre, which was destroyed in an arson attack 11 months ago.
Why are political parties promising to spend our money on this? If they were not insured then tough titty, that is not the taxpayers’ fault. If it is a council building then why is this money being spent on this project when I’m sure that Barnet council could find a multitude of better things to spend money on. This is especially true as there are many well-founded suspicions that this fire did not occur as the mainstream media has reported it. I’ve been informed that some London Citizens staff and volunteers have been trying to divert questions about these suspicions by blaming a rumour started by ‘Islamophobic Tories’. The problem is this smear on the Tories doesn’t take into account that this Bravanese Centre had huge future plans but very little money to carry them out with. It certainly does seem like this fire is looking like some sort of godsend for the Bravanese Centre.
Speaking tonight at a ‘North London Citizens Assembly’ meeting at Finchley Reform Synagogue in Fallow Court Avenue, West Finchley, Conservative council leader Richard Cornelius said that if re-elected in this month’s local elections, his party would put forward £1.1million to help build a new home for the Islamic Somali Bravanese community. Opposition leader Alison Moore made the same commitment should Labour take power on May 22.
I don’t know about you but I feel a bit sickened to see Labour and Tories seeming to compete with one another to see who can give the most public money to and pander the most to this bunch of Somali Muslims. It really is an example of looking from pig to man and from man to pig and not being able to tell the difference.
The Bravanese Centre in Coppetts Road, Muswell Hill, which housed the Bravanese Welfare Association, was burnt down in the early hours of June 5. Officers investigating the scene discovered the letters “EDL” (the initials of the far-right anti-Islam group, the English Defence League) had been sprayed on the side of the centre.
This is very suspicious in itself and also feeds the suspicions that this was a ‘self igniting’ mosque as it is highly unlikely that a member of EDL (many of whom are known to police intelligence) would invite certain capture by drawing attention to themselves in this way. Writing ‘EDL’ on the wall of a burned out mosque, would however go a long way to diverting attention to whoever was the real firestarter.
The charity, which provides community support and education to the Bravanese community, has been forced to use temporary offices of East Finchley Library, in High Road, while carrying out lessons on evenings and weekends in Whetstone High Road. It was also given temporary use of the Finchley Reform Synagogue to celebrate Eid in the weeks after the fire.
When dealing with Islamic organisations it always helps to ask ‘what sort of education?’ I would hazard a guess that whatever they are teaching, it probably would not include modules on female empowerment. I’m a great believer in interfaith work, but for interfaith to be meaningful there must be trust and truth on all sides, too often we get neither from Islamic groups, and entities like Finchley Reform Synagogue will probably learn too late that despite the smiles, handshakes and PR opportunities, anti-Semitism runs very deep within Islam.
Tonight’s event was organised by the newly formed multi-faith group, North London Citizens, which includes the BWA, as well as several synagogues and local schools, and is part of social movement Citizens UK.
It’s not that new an organisation, this ‘North London Citizens’ has been in the building for at least a year or so to my knowledge. Again, as with the East London Mosque, we have an Islamic group using a Citizens UK group in order to gain a political and fiscal advantage. This meeting does have the stench of public shakedown of local prospective politicos for the benefit of a Citizens UK member.
During the meeting, Mr Cornelius and Ms Moore were asked to make a series of pledges ahead of the local elections.
Among those was a request to commit £1.1million to the rebuilding of the centre, as well as to establish a firm works timetable within seven weeks of the local election.
Seven weeks! They are not asking for a lot are they? What’s next on the Somali Muslim wish list, the moon on a stick?
“While neither councillor was willing to commit to a schedule both promised to put up the money when required, and to push for a time frame to be established as soon as possible.”
So the politicos are wary about establishing a timetable but are quite free and easy with taxpayer cash.
“Ms Moore said: “I know how important that centre is to the work you do and the identity you have as a community. At the moment you are in limbo and I think we need to work together to put that to an end,”
Mr Cornelius agreed he would stump up the funds, but added: “There has to be an opportunity for other people to use the building when it is not in use by the Bravanese community, but we do agree that it does need to be done.”
I wonder if Ms Moore thinks of the other communities that will find the public pot is empty because the ‘religion of special needs’ is being given a free pass yet again? Also, pardon my cynicism about the comment that the rebuilding should be for multiple purposes. We’ve all heard that one before. In fact I’ve covered a similar situation where an Islamic group was given control of a community building in Hainault, Essex on the understanding that it was to be for all the community and wasn’t to be turned into a mosque. In the Hainault case the local Islamic group was very disingenuous and brought in rules that would exclude many other sections of the community from the building. In law, this is known as indirect discrimination.
“At the same meeting Barnet Borough Commander, Chief Superintendent Adrian Usher said that the attack on the centre was still under investigation, and that he was “optimistic” the case would be solved.”
I’ll take Chief Supt Usher’s comment about ‘optimism’ with a large pinch of salt, for the reasons I gave earlier. If this was a genuine and provable attack by a right wing or patriot group against this mosque, there would have been nickings much, much earlier. The longer that the police cannot find this probably mythical ‘EDL’ attacker, the stronger will grow the suspicions that the police’s prime suspects do not fit the permitted ‘narrative’, so to speak.
“Immediately following the attack, hundreds of people attended a vigil to show their support for the Bravanese people. Paying tribute to the reaction of the community, Chief Supt Usher said: “Whoever set that fire did so in the end to separate and create rivalries and potentially ferment violence.
“If that was their intention then what a spectacular own goal that was. The amazing way the Jewish, Muslim and secular communities came together is something we should be proud of.”
A nice bit of standard diversity ‘boilerplate’ bullshit from Chief Supt Usher. Note well how the officer uses the involvement and support of naïve Lefty types, both religious and secular, as a way of saying all is well, nothing to see here.
I can’t help wondering if this sort of thing had happened to the premises of another religious group whether the politicians would be so eager to hand over cash extorted via taxation from the public?
