Bosch Fawstin’s award winning Mohammed cartoon. More stuff available at Mr Fawstin’s website http://fawstin.blogspot.co.uk/

The cancellation of the Mohammed Cartoon exhibition in London following advice from the Security Services (MI5) and the police is a not unexpected turn of events. The event was having difficulty in finding a venue willing to be brave enough to host it and support the right of people to speak freely on matters of religion.

Anne-Marie Waters of Shariah Watch, writing on the Brietbart website said:

“ Waters revealed the security services believed the event would be attacked, leading to a “very real possibility that people could be hurt or killed – before, during, and after the event”. The organisers of the event had approached over 200 galleries with requests to host the exhibition and were turned down by almost all of them. After the final gallery, which had initially agreed had a change of heart the Draw Mohammed exhibition was left homeless.

Waters regrets that the lack of a single gallery space in the country willing to stand up for the Mohammed cartoons and the pressure from counter terror police to cancel event confirmed her suspicions that Britain had become a “frightened nation”

She’s right about the fact that Britain has become a frightened nation, and a nation that those who fought for the freedoms that Britons now fear to exercise, would scarcely recognise. I’m ashamed of my country that it has come to this with the police and MI5 quivering before these Islamic savages and failing to stand up for the rights of Britons. I must admit that although I supported this project, and still do, that I expected something like this to happen. For a start there is the fear by venue owners of the prospect of Islamic violence affecting their staff and their property, plus the fear of the authorities and the bully-boys of the far Left, calling them ‘racist’ and besmirching the venue’s reputation. I would not be surprised if the police and MI5 leaned on the potential venues somewhat (and you can bet your bottom dollar that these agencies know what are the likely venues that Shariah Watch would be speaking to) maybe by saying to the venue management (or even the organisers of the even) that the police cannot guarantee help if trouble breaks out.

Anne-Marie Waters did the right thing in attempting to put this on but I think there are some lessons to be learned from the collapse of it.

1. We now know somewhat more of the extent of the threat of Islamic violence and because MI5 and the police have behaved like this, we can judge that this threat is far greater than our politicians have told us that it is. If the problems from Islam were purely down to a ‘tiny minority of extremists’ as we keep getting told by the authorities and politicians, then the sort violent threats and fear of violent threats would not be an issue. The admission by the police and Security Service that violence before, during and after a Motoons event, shows that the problem with Muslims and violence is much more than would be due to the presence of a ‘tiny minority of extremists’.

2. The second lesson that could be learned is that the police are desperate to keep a lid on a growing problem of both Islam and those angered by Islam. There are only so many insults, attacks and rapes that the ordinary Briton will put up with before they start getting ‘tooled up’. The authorities fear Muslim violence but they also fear a citizen reaction to that violence.

3. Thirdly, although the idea of a Motoons exhibition in a large fixed venue is a good one, it is also an plan that contains a great vulnerability and that is from the venue itself. A venue can be quite easily bullied or cajoled or threatened by both the police and Muslims and their lefty Quislings into a late cancellation of the event. Maybe it is time to adopt a much more ‘Samizdat‘ and cellular approach to get the message out there that Islam is not a religion of peace. If there can be ‘pop-up’ shops, then why not a ‘pop-up’ Motoons event or maybe even a campaign of fly posting various self created or legitimately acquired Motoons? Sure some of these events will end up being shut down by the authorities, either by threats to those behind the pop-up Motoons event or against local venues, but many will not get shut down. A diverse moving target capable of independent action is far less of a target than a one-off exhibition in a gallery.

4. The next lesson from the cancellation of the Motoons exhibition is about accessibility. When I heard about the event I was excited and made plans to attend, until that is I saw a website stating that the price for attending this exhibition was £35. That too my mind is a bit steep and financially excludes many of those who may learn the most from the event. Assuming that this figure of £35 is correct and bearing in mind that the event needed to be self financing it is still a lot of money for many people.

5. The final lesson to be learned is that the police are not automatically on the side of the Briton, they have become appeasers of Islam primarily because senior officers have the belief that appeasement of various kinds brings peace. It does not, it only brings more and more demands from those who are being appeased. The police therefore are just as likely to threaten or cajole or bully those who speak up against such Shariah-creep as enforcement of Islamic blasphemy laws as the Muslim maniacs. With the police when it comes to Freedom vs Islam, we really do need to ask them: ‘Which side are you on, boys’?

Queen Elizabeth I was quoted as once saying that on the subject of religion, she had no right to ‘make windows in men’s souls’, yet in advising capitulation to the very real threat of Islamic violence, MI5 and the Police have made it quite plain to the rest of us, that they have assumed that power which even the Monarch once refused to exercise. Islam wishes to control the contents of men’s hearts and for that reason if not for any other, is why it must be resisted.

It’s a great shame that this event has had to be cancelled but let’s hope that it doesn’t put off the organisers from having another go (BTW as a side issue, I’m not too keen on AMD’s UN free speech talking shop idea) or put off others from doing their own ‘Motoons’ event. It is to be hoped that this cancellation will encourage more people to become involved in the campaign to reclaim our right to speak freely from the clutches of Islamic clerics and Islamic thugs.

There’s a lot at stake here and the more people speak up, the better it will be. If we do not speak up now then we along with our children and grandchildren, will find that we and they will be unable to speak up in the future.

Links

Brietbart article on the cancellation of the Motoons event.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/08/18/draw-mohammed-uk-exhibition-cancelled-after-security-service-pressure/

Quotes from Queen Elizabeth the First

http://www.elizabethi.org/contents/quotes/

Britannica entry for ‘Samizdat’.

http://www.britannica.com/technology/samizdat