The Anjem Head-Fake

The “British” Muslim firebrand Anjem Choudary had announced his intention to visit the United States today so that he could stage a demonstration in front of the White House calling for sharia in America.

Those of us who are familiar with Mr. Choudary’s antics doubted that he would ever really show up here. The Islamist From Ilford is primarily a huckster, and his much-ballyhooed events are staged to garner as much media attention as possible.

Sometimes the promotion and then cancellation of an event can produce far more publicity — and be far less expensive — than actually staging the event. A grandiose agenda, an outrageous slogan, a prominent venue: for weeks in advance Anjem’s hirsute mug is on the front pages of the tabloids every day below screaming headlines quoting his latest incendiary statements. Then the day comes, and — poof! No event. Time to start gearing up for the next one.

Mr. Choudary specializes in these head-fakes, which serve his purposes admirably and cost him very little of his hard-earned jizya money. His face is constantly in the papers, and the publicity machine just keeps rolling on.

It’s easy to dismiss him as buffoon, but it’s important to remember that these imaginary extravaganzas serve the purposes of the Great Jihad quite effectively in several different ways:

1.		He costs the infidel massive quantities of money. Every time he plans and promotes a sharia-advocacy event, the security services and the police have to gear up for it, too. Whether the event takes place or not, it ends up costing the infidels a lot more than it costs him. It throws us off our stride and keeps us playing defense instead of offense.
2.		He makes the “moderates” look good. After experiencing the rhetoric of Anjem Choudary, a naïve Westerner will breathe a sigh of relief when he encounters Tariq Ramadan or Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. “Such reasonable men! Why, they’re just like us, only they go to a mosque instead of church. That Choudary fellow must surely be part of a tiny minority of extremists!”
3.		He demonstrates the weakness and ideological bankruptcy of the kuffar. Any non-Muslim state that puts up with the likes of Anjem Choudary — not to mention subsidizes him with state welfare benefits — has shown itself to be feeble, enervated, and ineffectual. This destroys the legitimacy of the infidel state in the eyes of Muslims, promotes Islamic solidarity, and helps galvanize less overtly radical Muslims for action.
4.		He keeps the meme on top. Regardless of how seriously he is taken, Anjem Choudary makes sure that Islam’s most important message stays at the top of the news: Islam will one day take over the world. Sharia is coming to Britain (or Belgium, or the Netherlands, or the USA).

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Yes, today was the day that the Anjem Choudary Traveling Circus was scheduled to perform in front of the White House. As expected, however, the whole thing was another head-fake.

Mr. Choudary put forward a set of excuses for canceling the event, but I don’t think he ever really intended to come here. He played the American media for suckers, and they fell for it. Big time.

According to Fox News:

Pro-Shariah Rally in D.C. Postponed Amid Opposition

A rally to advocate for Shariah law in the U.S. has been postponed amid a wave of opposition.

The Shariah4America rally, organized by the Islamic Thinkers Society and headed by controversial British Imam Anjem Choudary, aimed to gather Muslims and non-Muslims outside the White House Thursday afternoon to “let the tyrant Barack Obama and the American people know that a new constitution beckons the U.S. called the Shariah, and that this worldwide revolution will see it implemented inshaa’allah (God willing) very, very soon,” according to the rally’s website.

But Choudary, who said last year that the flag of Islam will one day fly over the White House, now says the protest will be postponed in light of the conflicts in the Middle East, the U.S. sending troops to Muslim countries, and “in light of the fact that our message to the American people has been distorted by the media.”

Critics of the rally had expressed doubt that Choudary would be able to drum up enough interest to execute the rally and questioned whether even he would show up.

Choudary, who told FoxNews.com Wednesday that all plans for the event — including his presence there — were still in effect, said Thursday that he is still in the U.K. and does not have another date for it.

Other groups, including members of the Muslim community, had planned their own events to show that they were not aligned with Choudary’s view that Islam requires the observance of Shariah law, which “has a solution for all affairs within society.”

Among other things, the Shariah4America website proposes ditching the U.S. Constitution for Shariah law, replacing the U.N. — whose sovereignty would no longer be recognized — with an International Shariah Court of Justice, converting the White House into a mosque, and terminating all treaties or promises made by previous governments to instead conduct foreign relations according to the demands of jihad.

Bearing in mind that Mr. Choudary might well be a no-show, AIFD and CSP called a press conference for the occasion, instead of planning a counter-protest. Even in the absence of its star Islamozealot, the press conference will still take place and highlight the danger of sharia in America:

“Shariah, any time it’s enacted by man, is not God’s law. It becomes man’s instrument of oppressive theocracy in the name of Islam,” Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), told FoxNews.com. “In order to be religion, you have to have a choice to accept or reject it. Otherwise, it’s not faith.”

AIFD called on “all people of conscience” to join a counter press conference lead by the Center for Security Policy Thursday, “to counter these ideas and demonstrate the fact that these are the very ideas that radicalize Muslims.”

The conference is still set to be held at Lafayette Park Thursday afternoon and will include several speakers.

“Frankly, Shariah is already in America in many ways; we don’t need somebody from the U.K. coming over to make that point, so we will still be holding it,” Christine Brim, chief operating officer of the Center for Security Policy, told FoxNews.com.

It’s not just CSP,” she added. “There are a bunch of groups that will be out there and we’re just going to talk about the conflict between Shariah and the Constitution, and the fact that the American people have a right to be concerned about it and speak out about it.”