The EDL: In defence of nothing at all
Published on Thursday, 02 February 2012 04:04 Written by Ketlan Ossowski
I've had a number of conversations recently with people who have wondered exactly why the English Defence League exists. What precisely, the key question has been, is it for?
What are we to make of an organisation that fills towns and cities around the country with violent demonstrations, none of which are wanted by residents, all of which damage business (both figuratively and literally), all of which are a constant drain on police resources and all of which have the knock-on effects of creating fear and mistrust in the community, generally ending up with numerous arrests and a number of injuries.
The EDL attempts to present itself as some kind of bizarre 'human rights' organisation, defending English culture from attack from all sides - all sides roughly being translated as Muslims. It defends, it says, freedom and free speech and, it claims, is the final bulwark of Christianity against an uncaring world.
All this is deeply reminiscent of the BNP's claims over the last few years and just as laughable, if not more so.
Precisely which aspects of English culture are being defended by a bunch of shaven-headed drunks rampaging through a town yelling 'Allah is a paedo' at the tops of their voices? Who, apart from other bald and pissed football hooligans, joins these idiots as they damage shops and town centres in defence of the values they claim to hold so dear? And what precisely are those values anyway?
I was always taught that some of the most valued traits of the English were tolerance, a sense of fairness and a self-effacing sense of humour. Nobody I know has ever mentioned any of these traits with regard to the EDL.
Free speech? Strangely, organisations like the EDL and the BNP always drone on about free speech, right up to the point where they are happily denying free speech to everyone else. An excellent example is that of the group's own forums. When Nick Griffin began to be roundly criticised on the BNP's own forum for his dictatorial style and cronyism, contributors who made the criticisms were immediately removed. Eventually, the criticism became so difficult to deal with that the party closed the forum down completely. Free speech, huh?
Similarly, when EDL members began to criticise Tommy Robinson's organisational skills - particularly where goods were ordered and paid for but never delivered - the official forums started to be regularly and ruthlessly culled. Criticising Muslims for real or imagined crimes is perfectly acceptable: criticising the leadership is not. So much for free speech.
One of the oddest aspects of the EDL (as far as I'm concerned) is the amount of tosh that's talked on its forums, both official and otherwise, about the need to defend Christianity. Personally, I think Christianity is perfectly well able to defend itself if it chooses to, but my major question is, against what? Islam? Judaism? If Christianity needs to defend itself against anything at all, it should be from a culture that teaches us to ignore all so-called Christian values in favour of the self-obsession, short-termism and greed that is promoted by all the major political parties.
There are regular EDL-organised demonstrations against the building of new mosques, particularly where it involves taking over a long-redundant church, which generally causes apoplexy on the forums or the EDL's many Facebook pages. Why? If the church is no longer needed, find another use for it.
There's a particularly fine old church in Lancaster that was converted into a highly-successful pub a few years back. Nobody complains about it and if it hadn't been made into a pub, it might have been knocked down and made into yet another car park to go with the other ten million car parks in Lancaster, or yet another small, pointless and doomed shopping arcade. It's a pub now, but there's no logical reason why it shouldn't have become a mosque, if one was needed.
In any case, one wonders how many of these EDL buffoons who complain about Christianity losing ground in society actually get their fat arses down to their nearest church pew on a regular basis. Given the EDL propensity for violence and mayhem, I'd be willing to bet I could count them on the fingers of one hand.
Any group that thinks a defence of its values can be represented by a violent and racist riot or an overweight idiot dressed in nothing but a mankini and a pig's head, is not only a group that deserves complete contempt but is also one that ninety-nine people in a hundred would consider utterly moronic. The EDL, in fact.