...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Potemkin Expo: Jihad has two countenances. The face of hard jihad—the jihad of Osama, Hamas, Hellzbollocks and the rest—is is ugly, messy and bloody. The face of soft jihad, on the other hand, is colourful, festive and yummy in the tummy. Here a bit of the timesonline’s account of an event—London’s Islam Expo—where the soft jihad was in evidence for those who cared to look behind the facade.

…Visitors to Islam Expo would have witnessed such innocent activities as an Islamic arts and crafts workshop for under 12s, live Islamic storytelling performances and lute-playing and poetry recitals in the pomegranate and date gardens.

The old Comintern would have instantly recognised the first rate tradecraft involved in organising all this. Just as Moscow and its allies knew how to organise a “popular front” to draw non-communist progressives and liberals into their orbit of influence, so some Islamists have honed a keen sense of how to present a non-threatening face to the West and to the many hundreds of decent, apolitical Muslims who turned up for a family day out.

But behind the cultural soft power of Islam Expo, there is political hard power, and some of it comes in quite raw, unpalatable forms. The organisers gave floor space in the exhibition section to the genocidal regime in Sudan (festooned with pictures of happy-looking black Africans) and to the “Cultural Section” of the Iranian Embassy (representing an aspirant genocidal regime) and the Algerian junta (no spring picnic on human rights).

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:32 | link | comments

Comments: