The useful idiots of Tower Hamlets

Left-wing activists once again find themselves cheering for those who despise everything they claim to defend.

After the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, many of the left-wing activists and intellectuals who had allied themselves with the Islamic revolutionaries soon found themselves branded as enemies of the new regime. Within months, members of groups such as the communist Tudeh Party, the Fedayeen, and the People’s Mojahedin were rounded up, imprisoned, and subjected to brutal interrogations. Thousands were tortured, and many were executed as the revolution turned against those who had been most helpful to their cause.

A viral video circulating this weekend from the demonstrations in Tower Hamlets in London seems to encapsulate this form of useful idiocy in microcosmic form. As mobs of masked men surge through the streets chanting ‘Allahu akbar’ - some even praising the massacre of Jewish Israeli civilians on 7th October 2023 - they push past a group of mostly white leftists holding placards, looking bewildered and underfed. One specimen in a duffel coat mutters timidly through his loudhailer: ‘There’s no need for that! We’re on the same side, bruv’. To which one of the burly men in black simply retorts: ‘No, we’re not.’

There is a species of leftist that is so blinded to the lack of compassion in its enemies that it sees them as friends. The Chinese even have a word – baizuo (白左) – to describe white Western liberals whose generous nature leaves them open to exploitation. I am reminded of Nietzsche’s remark in Beyond Good and Evil (1886): ‘There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly’. For the most egregious example of recent years, look no further than the absurdly self-defeating phenomenon of ‘Queers for Palestine’.

What happened at Tower Hamlets this weekend was a show of strength. The video footage makes that clear enough. Men blocked the streets to pray to Allah in public as a sign of religious dominance, while other men roamed aggressively, virtually daring anyone to object. Women were notably absent.

These chest-thumping, territorial displays followed the Metropolitan Police’s decision to ban a UKIP march through the East End under the banner of ‘reclaim Whitechapel from the Islamists’. With a significant Muslim population in the area – 40% in Tower Hamlets – this was always bound to provoke. Of course, protests are by their nature provocative, or they wouldn’t be protests. Islamic supremacists are likewise permitted to march peacefully, but we shouldn’t be foolish enough to ignore what this demonstration portends.

Incredibly, the Guardian had attempted to spin the situation as a rerun of the ‘Battle of Cable Street’ of 1936, when police attempted to escort Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) on their march through the East End, an overt gesture that was designed to intimidate the Jewish population. A coalition of working-class residents – including local Jews and Irish dockworkers – together with trade union groups and communist activists from outside the area, gathered to oppose the march. As the police sought to clear a path, clashes erupted with the counter-protesters. In the end, the police were forced to ask the BUF to take an alternative route.

But who are the ‘blackshirts’ at Tower Hamlets? The Guardian would have you believe that these mobs of Muslim men, some of them shouting anti-Jewish slogans, are the present-day equivalent of the anti-fascists at Cable Street. But isn’t this the same group that would like nothing more than to impose its belief system onto society? A recent poll by the Henry Jackson Society found that 52 per cent of British Muslims would make it illegal to display an image of their Prophet Mohammed. A further 32 per cent would like to see the implementation of Sharia law, and the same proportion would support establishing Islam as the national religion. Those marching at Tower Hamlets, with their overt efforts to intimidate and dominate, are unlikely to be drawn from the moderate Muslim community.

One thing is certain from watching these clips: Jewish people are unlikely to feel welcome amid these crowds, and the fascistic overtones are impossible to miss. The culture war has seen the left lose its collective mind, twisting its priorities to such an extent that it will cheer on those who fundamentally oppose its interests and ultimately seek its destruction. Tower Hamlets is a wake-up call that few are likely to heed until it’s too late.

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