The left and the Islamic activist sector seem to be the natural home for entities that could be quite fairly described as a bunch of liars. On both sides of the Atlantic ocean, Left wing and Islamic groups have lied, smeared and aimed false accusations at their political and religious opponents, sometimes with very little come back for their actions.
One of the biggest liars on the Left about the subject of ‘hate’ has been the American Southern Poverty Law Centre. This group has produced for a number of years now a list of what it calls ‘hate groups’, a list that is laden with dishonesty and even includes respectable conservative organisations not linked to racialism or violence along with ex and reformist Muslims in the category of ‘hate groups.
However, this time the SPLC may have pushed one Muslim reformer too far by describing him as ‘an anti-Muslim extremist’. This is how they described Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam organisation and a noted Islamic reformist voice. Mr Nawaz was enraged at seeing his name mentioned in such a way, as it is woefully inaccurate, and threatened to sue SPLC for including his name on their ‘hate groups’ list.
The SPLC removed the list from their site, a list had been relied on for too long by mainstream media journalists, and I suspect that they may have done so to prevent other groups who have been slandered by the SPLC from taking similar action. The SPLC has long had a habit of ‘talking up’ the issue of political and racial extremism and all too often has treated respectable conservative groups as if they were the associates of the KKK. Mr Nawaz’s threat to the SPLC has, at least for the present, stopped the SPLC from earning vast amounts of donation money by shroud-waving about the relatively small problem of racialist extremists in the USA and by lumping decent conservatives in with them.
There may be a need or a perceived need for organisations to monitor groups of potentially violent nutcases, but SPLC have proven by their rank and long standing dishonesty with both figures and descriptions of ‘hate groups’ that they are not fit for this task. SPLC figures and reports have long been laughable among people with brains, because things like SPLC’s statistical sleight of hand in counting state chapters of groups they’ve targeted as separate national organisations. Their inclusion of people who are of no threat and are provably not ‘hateful’ has also made their reports a running joke.
It’s good to see this wealthy and influential organisation finally being held accountable for their actions. Any report on any subject should as far as possible be as accurate as it can be and as sourced as it can be. I have seen little evidence that SPLC cared much for evidence and relied instead of smears of their political opponents. Let’s hope the SPLC gravy train has finally hit the buffers.
