Asalaam Alaikum!
One of the things that is currently on my mind at the moment is the proposed march by the EDL in our city in less than 2 weeks.
One question on my mind is why are the council not trying to get a ban like Leicester did? The EDL were allowed to have their protest in Leicester but a static protest rather than marching through the city and disrupting everyone and everything? Is that not better? However, even the static march led to a lot of violence and arrests. I dread to think what is going to happen with them actually matching and a counter march also happening. A lot of the shops here are considering to shut for safety reasons and clearly their trade will be affected in one of the busiest periods in the year. Is anyone going to compensate them for this? Unlikely.
The question is what do we, as muslims, do in response? The local muslim community have advised all muslims to stay away from the area on the day. I am a bit sceptical as to whether the muslim youth are prepared to sit back and take it. However the general call is to ignore the EDL. I came across an article online that says Muslims must refuse to rise to EDL povocation and that ‘by ignoring planned EDL demonsrations and looking toward dialogue to dispel myths, Muslims can faciliate cohesion.’
Well said by the lady who wrote the article and she does talk sense (well worth a read). However I’m not sure simple dialogue is going to work. The media appear intent on ripping muslims to shred. Anything BAD to do with Islam is sensationalised and given extra coverage. Anything good is hardly mentioned. One of our local mosques went out in the local community and helped out in the soup kitchen for the homeless. I am yet to find an article on this. I only found out about it via the letters page where someone had thanked them.
If the media are so against us then what chance do we have?
However on this occasion I do support the muslim community staying away from these hooligans.