Wednesday 9 July 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Liz Anderson

Liz suggests


The real Inayat Bunglawala

Monday, 17th December 2007

The Guardian's Comment is Free site is running a none-too-serious awards post, in which commenters are asked to nominate their winners.

I rarely link to the site because most of the pieces, let alone the comments, are oh-so-predictable - that is when they are not downright offensive. (I have made an exception when I have highlighted the regular anti-Semitic posts which the moderators appear not to take exception to.) 

Oliver Kamm and David T have, however, pointed out the use of CiF in one particular respect: exposing the mindset of the Muslim Council of Britain's Inayat Bunglawala. Blogging is especially useful in this respect: the immediacy of it sometimes exposes thoughts which a writer might, on reflection, realise were best kept to him or herself.

Bunglawala nominates Oliver Kamm for his own award: 

Worst: That warmongering bastard Oliver Kamm (sorry - I added that category myself).
As Oliver notes:
"Inayat" is Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain, a sinecurist whose talents were neatly encapsulated by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair a few months ago: "A preposterous and sinister individual named Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain and a man with a public record of support for Osama bin Laden, was made a convener of Blair's task force on extremism despite his stated belief that the BBC and the rest of the media are 'Zionist controlled.'"
You can see where Bunglawala made this clear here. His exact words were:
The chairman of Carlton Communications is Michael Green of the Tribe of Judah. He has joined an elite club whose members include fellow Jews Michael Grade and Alan Yentob...[They are] close friends… so that's what they mean by a 'free media'.
There are plenty more examples of how this man who puts up the facade of moderation has a very different agenda. As the Telegraph has reported:
In January 1993, Mr Bunglawala wrote a letter to Private Eye, the satirical magazine, in which he called the blind Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman "courageous" - just a month before he bombed the World Trade Center in New York. After Rahman's arrest in July that year, Mr Bunglawala said that it was probably only because of his "calling on Muslims to fulfil their duty to Allah and to fight against oppression and oppressors everywhere".

Five months before 9/11, Mr Bunglawala also circulated writings of Osama bin Laden, who he regarded as a "freedom fighter", to hundreds of Muslims in Britain.

David T highlights another giveaway of the real Bunglawala:
When he puts finger to keyboard, he gives himself away. It is telling that one of the bloggers who he nominates for an award is a particularly zany character who calls himself "GiyusandTrolls". You will be hard pressed to find postings by "giyusandtrolls9" (who also posts as "falseflagmedia" and sometimes posts as "RetroDeletionPolice") on CiF. That is because s/he is a racist conspiracy nut, who posts stuff on links between zionism and freemasonry, and similar topics of appeal to those on the Islamist far right.
Remember that next time you hear him coming over all moderate, or the MCB claiming to represent mainstream moderate Muslim opinion.

Blogs: Clive Davis | Melanie Phillips | Americano | Coffee House | Trading Floor

Actions: Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink  |   Comments (4)

Subscribe now

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments

Post a comment


Your comment:*

Your name:*

Your email address:*
(We won't publish this)

*Required information

Please click the button only once - your comment will not be published immediately

Joshua

December 17th, 2007 4:13pm

Speaking of Bunglawala, check out this incredible post at LGF: "A Death Threat from Reuters" -- http://tinyurl.com/og66q

Verity

December 17th, 2007 8:51pm

Joshua - I was going to email Stephen about this then I saw you had beaten me to it. This episode with Bunglawangla went on for around three weeks. Johnson happens to be somewhat cleverer than the frightfully elegant, self-regarding Bangalawangla and tracked him, as you know. The poster became so spiteful that Charles put an extra site meter on his regular meter - this one for visits (not necessarily posts) from Reuters. It was fascinating to see which subjects got the Reuters poster salivating. Six, seven, eight, ten times in a day were not unusual at one point. I just now checked LGF and Charles is running with a muslim story as his lead, and I see that Reuters has made four visits today so far, and it's only around one or two p.m. where LGF is.

Michael N

December 18th, 2007 12:47am

Mr Pollard, we your readers are not in a position to ensure that a single person in a position of political influence is exposed to these facts. You, perhaps, are. If you can, please do so. Britain needs to wake up to the threat posed by people like the lying, loathesome Bunglawala.

Verity

December 18th, 2007 3:22pm

What is astounding about the continued presence of Bungalow Boy is, the rinky-dink Muslim Council deal never clips his craziness back. Perhaps Mr Bari receives messages from outer space through his tragic wig that vicious moonbat Bungalow Boy is somehow advancing the cause of multiculti happiness and light.

Stephen Pollard's Blog Roll

Oliver Kamm
Politics, economics and culture from the master. Unmissable.

Daniel Finkelstein's Times Comment Central
A daily must-read. 

Tim Worstall 
Lots of interesting nibbles - and a ruthless swatter of economic gibberish.

Marginal Revolution
Tyler Cowen's riveting economic blog.

Harry's Place
Must-read left of centre blog from writers who understand the threat to the West. 

Thought Experiments
The peerless Bryan Appleyard's blog.

Opera Chic
An American in Milan, on opera.

Intermezzo
A London-based classical music enthusiast.

Jessica Duchen's classical music blog
Does what it says on the tin.

Samizdata
Libertarian blog, packed every day.

Norm's blog
The thoroughly sensible thoughts of renowned left-wing academic Norman Geras, Professor of Government at Manchester. And cricket, too.

Public Interest
Peter Briffa's inimitable take on The Yazzmonster and other assorted demons.

Reform
The public sector reform group; their website is an invaluable source of data and ideas.

Centre for the New Europe
The leading European public policy think tank.

Spectator recommends

A List of Luxury Hotels in Rome

Selected by tablet hotels for their personality and attention to detail.

Discounts on Luxury Hotels in Rome, Italy

Huge savings. Lowest prices guaranteed on hotels in Rome. Book online or call now and save.


Spectator classifieds

ROME CENTRE

PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique

City Breaks. ROME and PARIS

ROME and PARIS: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit  www.romanreference.com  and  www.parisreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.

Jewellery. RUFFS (Estd. 1904).

Goldsmiths by Design Welcome to Ruffs!  You have found a company of Goldsmiths that specialises in the manufacture, amongst other