Islamist Sharia drama at London’s Conway Hall
Oh my, this is a corker of a story. Last night in Conway Hall in Holborn, London, the Al-Muhajiroun lot had booked in for a debate about sharia law under the auspices of the Global Issues Society. Conway Hall is owned by the South Place Ethical Society, and is pretty much the home of atheism and humanism: it’s used by the British Humanist Association, the National Secular Society, SPES, the Central London Humanists Group, the London Atheists group, CFI UK (etc.).
Anyway, according to reports from The Guardian and New Humanist Blog, it all fucking kicked off. Go read the New Humanist blog post for all the details, but it involves sex segregation, people getting “extremely aggressive”, the police getting called, mobs chanting in Arabic - the full works. Thankfully, nobody got hurt.
These stories prove the immense awesomeness of the management of Conway Hall. And they also show what liberal society is up against: Islamism so illiberal and extremist they cannot have a debate in a venue in central London without ensuring men and women sit separately, and without interfering with other people using the building.
I went to a debate a while back in east London that was organised through a group called “Dialogue With Islam” that had similar silliness but to a lesser extent. The Islamists there made similar attempts to ensure that the room was split between men and women, but then us hell-bound secularists came in and screwed it all up by all sitting mixed in the area they had designated for women. Over on the (Muslim) men’s half of the room, there was a tightly-knit group of young men with a man who was obviously an imam in the middle. Whenever he got up to speak, if anyone heckled, this group would shout out “you’ve got to respect what this man says, he’s a great man” etc. Craziness. Pure, unadulterated craziness.
