Fomenting hate between Muslims and Christians

Thursday, 01 October 2009 16:57

Paul Ray, author of the Lionheart blog, has posted a video entitled ‘Defending our Christian heritage and birthright’, ahead of the English Defence League's planned demonstration in Manchester on October 10th.

The video shows a number of sensationalist headlines on Muslims in the UK, predominantly from the Daily Mail, including familiar ones on the banning of Christmas, crucifixes and the tendency to treat Muslims as ‘special’.

The video includes a slide which reads: ‘today's interfaith dialogue is just the crossroads of the balance of power between religions’.

The Daily Mail and Jewish Chronicle columnist Melanie Phillips features on the video saying, ‘across the world we see that Christians are having a terrible time of it, in all kinds of countries we see Christians being oppressed, their churches being burnt down…’

The whole production signals that the EDL's rhetoric, far from being targeted merely at ‘Islamic extremists’, as they have claimed in the past, is actually testimony to an antipathy for Muslims and Islam in general. The message the video seeks to convey is not one of rejecting the presence of ‘extremist’ Muslims but of rejecting the presence of Muslims of any sort.

The video is disturbing in its content and there is no doubt that the EDL is attempting to sow strife by brandishing its absurd notion of ‘Islamification’ and driving a wedge between Muslims and Christians in the UK.

Until laws on inciting religious hatred offer a greater degree of protection to Muslims on par with the laws on inciting racial hatred, this sort of vilification is only likely to continue and, possibly, escalate.