A Sign of things to come

A muslim group calling itself Global Civility, behind Februarys London demos, has decided to rally next weekend in objection to the March for Free Expression. These are the banners they’ll be bringing along:

Well the March must have ruffled a few feathers lol!

And frankly I really hope they DO bring those gems along as they are doing us all an enormous favour. As Steve over at the excellent Pub Philosopher points out:

"Global Civility is not about civility at all, it is an insidious campaign to persuade western governments to change their laws to protect Islam from scrutiny and criticism. Its unreasonable demands and hysterical opposition to the March for Free Expression show why we need a campaign to protect free speech. If these people are allowed to set the agenda than we will see our right to criticise them slowly whittled away"

These signs of cleverly veiled threats read more like "we are glad suicide bombers who will impose our version of government on you in a second and you WILL apologise and pay for your misbehaviour!!". A smarter way of avoiding incitement to hatred charges (following the late coming arrests) than saying "Europe you will pay Fantastic Four are on their way" but more or less the same thing no?

Its time to put religious and political beliefs to one side and look at this as a one united challenge. After all I don’t agree with the left wing, secularist organizations that are turning up but I agree with their single aim here.

So now, we need turn out.

As one commenter at the March blog puts it:

When they came for the communists, I did not speak out—
After all I was not a communist.
When they came for the socialists, I did not speak out—
After all I was not a socialist.
When they came for the filmmakers, I did not speak out—
After all I was not a filmmaker.
When they came for the cartoonists, I did not speak out—
After all I was not a cartoonist.
Then they came for me—
And there was no one left to speak out...'

I agree with the general gist at least. The March has gained great support and I hope the moderate muslim groups who have lent support to this turn out in force alongside free speech marchers like myself next weekend. Its such a pity that the Tories are so quiet on this - the so called ‘champions of freedoms’. Yeah right.

I understand the Observer are running a piece on the March and its organizers tomorrow, excellent.

And thanks to Islamanazi btw who picked up on Nazanins case below and who goes straight into the links on the right.