After achieving victory in the municipal election, a video of the recently elected British councillor for Leeds city council yelling “Allah-hu-Akbar” has gone viral over the internet. Father-of-three Mothin Ali, 42, gained notoriety for his passionate victory speech in Leeds, during which he declared that his election was a “victory for the people of Gaza.”
Following the results, Ali gave a victory speech in which he declared that the public was “fed up with being let down by a Labour council and that we will not be silenced. We’ll let Gaza’s voice be heard. We’ll speak up on behalf of Palestine. Allahu Akbar!”
As per the report, Ali was one of several dozen candidates across Britain who defeated their respective Labour Party opponents by promising their campaign on the Gaza war. Naheed Zohra Gultasib, who won the seat from Walsall, also said that this win was for the people of Gaza and that the Labour Party need not take the Green Party for granted. Notably, Gultasib was the one who left the Labour Party in November last year over the party’s stand against a ceasefire in Gaza.
About Mothin Ali wearing a Palestinian scarf
Ali’s rise to prominence within the UK Green Party developed with his victory in the Leeds Council elections, where he received more than 3,000 votes and won the Gipton and Harehills seats. Ali has significant ties within the community having been born and raised in Leeds. He is the director of his accounting firm and a Leeds Beckett University alumnus. Ali is successful professionally, yet he has hobbies outside of accounting and numbers.
Ali is considered a devout Muslim, whose utterances after being elected in the local polls also reflect his passionate support for the Ummah, an Arabic term that refers to Pan-Islamism. While Ali operates a YouTube channel, ‘My Family Garden’, with his wife and three children, wherein he talks about organic farming, he is also a zealous advocate of Palestinians and attracted attention recently for his trenchant criticism of Israel over the Gaza war.
Ali showed support for the Palestinian cause in several TikTok videos, calling Gaza “the biggest concentration camp in the world.” His remarks also sparked discussion and criticism as he extended support to Palestine and Hamas after the brutal October 7 attack that led to the deaths of over 1,200 Israelis.
Ali’s viewpoints on social media sparked intense conversations, particularly regarding his remarks about Israel’s actions in Gaza. His accusations of ethnic cleansing and likening of Israeli forces to “white supremacists” drew criticism from many quarters. However, Ali’s electoral victory, despite the controversies surrounding his political stance, reflects a broader trend of growing support for pro-Palestinian sentiments within certain communities in Britain and other Western nations.
The rising wave of Islamism in the UK, Europe, and the US
To many in the UK, the mainstreaming of Islamism, as manifested by Ali’s victory, has come as a rude shock. But to the keen observers of Britain’s changing cultural and social dynamics, it has only reaffirmed their belief that the UK, like many of the Western nations, is inexorably entangling and intertwining itself with the rising wave of Islamism.
Islamism and the similar ideology supporting terrorist activities in other parts of the world are spreading rapidly across British territory. Earlier, during the Leicester violence, several Islamists including the Islamist scholar Mohammed Hijab, provoked the local Muslims to wage violence against Hindus in the country. Hijab, through his incendiary speeches, goaded the local Muslim community to launch attacks on Hindus.
A video of Hijab blaming and mocking the Hindus and their religion went viral on the internet in September 2022. Hijab, who is claimed to be a notorious Islamist influencer also gained attention when the Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023. He led a frenzied mob of Islamists, with their faces covered in masks, and wrote “Muslim patrol in Leicester,” in his Instagram post. In the video posted by Hijab, his followers could also be seen raising pro-Palestine slogans.
Besides, the changing population demography is also helping to cement radical Islamism among a restless population that is yet to come to terms with the end of what they refer to as the ‘Glorious period’ when Britain was a colonial power. The population of Muslims in the country is steadily rising. According to the data, the Muslim population of the United Kingdom in 2023 was 4.13 million, representing 6.3% of the population. This marked an increase from 4.9% (2.7 million) in 2011. Reports also claim that the Muslim communities have contributed to 33% of the increase in the population of England and Wales between 2011 and 2021.
Given this major demographic shift and the rise of Islamist influencer leaders like the Hijab, the Muslims residing in the country are allegedly adopting violent methods and getting down on the streets, raising their voices against non-Muslims, in their bid to fulfil the religious obligation of pursuing the goal of Dar-ul-Islam (House of Islam), and homogenising an innately cosmopolitan society.
With Ali’s election to power, those who cherish secular and democratic ideals in Britain should be wary of the possible subversion of democracy by elected radicalists. Such sentiments are not uncommon in other Western nations, which are grappling with a similar scourge that threatens to upend their social and cultural fabric as Islamic radicals attain political relevance and power to inform policy decisions that run counter to the Western ideals of democracy and pluralism.
While it is most apparent in Britain, France, on Continental Europe across the English strait, has also been in the grips of Islamism, which emerges on the surface now and then, often with gory incidents. The ghastly attack on Samuel Paty, a teacher who was beheaded by an Islamic radical over charges of blasphemy, in 2020, and its aftermath brought to the fore challenges Islamism posed for the democratic and secular ethos espoused by France. After France ordered a crackdown on Islamists in its borders, several Muslim countries opposed the move, pressurising the Macron government to go soft on the radicals and thus emboldening the Islamic fanatics operating within France.
In addition to this, several European ISIS fighters, who had joined the terror ranks in Syria with the fantasy of establishing a Muslim caliphate, are now returning to Europe, leading to the eventual undermining of democracy and subversion of individual rights and freedom.
Across the Atlantic, the United States isn’t safe from the threat that Islamism poses to the peace and tranquillity of the world’s oldest democracy. Arguably, the United States is among few of the countries in the world most affected by the menace of growing Islamic radicalisation. The election of contentious characters to the US Senate and political institutions demonstrates the seriousness of the matter. US politicians such as Ilhan Omar, infamous for her Islamist bent, speak to the threats facing the US democracy.
Ilhan Omar, who was elected to the House of Representatives from Minnesota on a Democrat ticket, is seen as someone running errands for the powerful Islamist lobbies, whose only aim is to push radical Islam in modern societies.
The origins of Omar, who hails from Somalia, have also been controversial. Omar arrived in the US at the age of 12 in 1995 as a refugee fleeing Somalia’s civil war. She became a citizen five years later, at the age of 17. In November 2016, she won the election to become the first Somali-American in the US Congress.
There are allegations that Omar married her biological brother to bypass the US immigration process. Former President Donald Trump had asked the Justice Department to investigate Ilhan Omar’s marriage to her brother and her subsequent migration to the US illegally.
Trump didn’t survive in office long enough to ensure that the investigation sees its logical conclusion, the entire episode and grave allegations levelled against Omar manifestly add weight to the suspicions of the undermining of the US democracy by Islamists and their vested interest groups.
India’s fight to curb Islamist terrorist activities
The West might be reluctant to admit that Islamists can indeed hijack their democracies and eviscerate them. But India has long been used to Islamists using democracy as an instrument to further their radicalism and militant ideology. Several institutions, although putatively democratic, are in the stranglehold of those who are either Islamists or known for pushing their talking points. Any attempts by the centre aimed at reformation are often countered with allegations of “fascism”, “authoritarianism”, etc.
For instance, after the Modi government annulled Article 370, a 20th-century relic that impeded the complete integration of Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of the country, several Islamists and their political partners in the parliament, vehemently opposed the move.
Indeed, Congress along with many political parties have been furthering the Islamist agenda under the garb of ‘working for the benefits of minorities’. Congress, and its national allies, routinely extended support to the Muslims under the guise of a ‘minority’ label, extending them unconstitutional reservations and fulfilling their unfavourable demands. This only emboldened Islamic outfits such as PFI, which kept coming up with a revised set of unfavourable demands and aims, including making India an ‘Islamic country’ by the year 2047.
The Islamists through such organisations provoked local Muslims to engage in Jihad against non-Muslims, especially women. This eventually has given a boost to the increase in cases of ‘Love Jihad’ and ‘Land Jihad’ in the country. The Muslims trap Hindu women, claim ownership, and grab the lands of Hindus, causing troubles with the support of the so-called secular political parties. The free hand allegedly offered to the Muslim Waqf Boards by the previous regimes, the political and ideological support granted to rioters as witnessed during anti-CAA protests and the ongoing hearing in the Delhi riots, championing rights for infiltrators such as Rohingyas, and the outsize concessions granted to Muslims on the grounds of minority welfare are all subliminal efforts aimed at compromising democratic institutions and gradually shaping them conform to Islamist sensitivities.
Now, amid the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the opposition parties are even provoking the Muslims to practice ‘Vote Jihad’ which is again concerning given the democratic structure of the country.
Notably, the PM Modi government is making all efforts to identify these terroristic efforts and put a ban on such practices for the nation’s betterment and development. The govt imposed a ban on the PFI in the year 2022, the organization that had planned to make India an Islamic nation by the year it completed 100 years of independence. Detailed reports on the same can be read here.
All these instances illustrate how Islamists are now using democracy to attain their ulterior motives, which would eventually lead to the establishment of an oppressive medieval-era Sharia law and subsequent curtailment of individual rights and freedom.
Countries across the world, from India to the US, should realise the magnitude of the threat lurking before them and initiate necessary action should they wish to preserve their democracy and civilisation.
