100 Not Out, There are No Problems but Human Problems.

"The world is a dangerous place to live in not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it" Albert Einstein. 

This is the quote that starts the mission statement of the EDL web page. For those of you unfamiliar with the EDL they are the self proclaimed English Defence League, established in 2009 following the verbal abuse of soldiers returning to the UK from Afghanistan during a parade in Luton. Some ugly scenes occurred and the rest as they say is history.

Describing themselves as a human rights organisation, they use the term at least 5 times throughout their mission statement, but at no point do they refer to what articles they claim they are defending exactly. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified on December 10th 1948, they are a right for every man woman and child on the planet, yet the very fact that they have to exist at all is damning indictment of the so called civilisation we live in. I imagine very few people have actually read through the declarations, so to see the EDL page refer to their enforcement and support of human rights was surprising to say the least. The mission statement refers to supporting the right to free speech (when talking about the right to speak against so called radical Islam) the right for Muslim's to practice their religion in a more tolerant way than the 'original 7th century form' (with regard to supposed sharia-law being invoked in Britain) yet there are no direct references to the articles they claim to be in support of; which leads me to think that they have either heard of human rights and not actually read or understood them, or they just do not know them.

For the record the right to freedom of speech and opinion is covered by Article 19 and states;

 "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." 

Whilst the freedom to practice religion is covered by Article 18 which states; 

"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

That the people that created the EDL claim to be in support of these principles is a betrayal of the people that live and die by them on a daily basis as our own governments violate them everyday and, by the EDL's very own actions, they violate some of the most basic principles. 

The very first article states; 

Article 1 of the UD

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

As you browse through the website is clear to see that the EDL do not follow even the first article let alone support or defend any of the others they claim.

It would be easy now to sit here and go into a torrent of abuse at the EDL, its self appointed leader Steven Lennon, and his misguided followers as many others may have but the simple matter is this; like you or I they are just another group of humans, albeit damaged in some way like many of us are, and like the rest of us are products of their environment. No one is born 'racist' as society describes it, no one is born with hatred or intolerance. These are learned behaviours from their experiences and can be changed. Despite what you may have been told there is no evil or racist gene. 

As someone who in their younger years suffered violence from people both sides of the battle ground now drawn up by the EDL, I know how easy it is to be consumed with anger, mistrust and the feeling of isolation. Those experiences shape who you are, you must learn from them and I can say that I did, at a time where I could have chosen a different path to the one I am on now. It is because of these specific experiences I refuse to be drawn in to the mudslinging contest and aggressive nature of claim and counter claim of the EDL and their various opposition.

Hating the EDL will not make them go away, nor will it solve the issue of their existence or any extremist groups like them.

Where the efforts should be made is in highlighting our similarities, the facts that we have more in common with each other than the billionaire war criminals perpetually trying to drive a wedge between us. As long as we continue to be at each others throats the real threat to our liberties go unnoticed and unchallenged. We are all subject to the subtle and not so subtle efforts of the mainstream media to terrorise us in to hating each other and remain fearful. Much of this fear and mistrust is born of ignorance, and that is not to say this is intentional or otherwise, as explained earlier we are all products of our environment. If Steven Lennon had been adopted at birth and raised by a Muslim family he may well have ended up on the side of the very people he claims to have issue with. I mentioned earlier that there is no 'racist' gene, all our genes are responsible for are things such as our eye colour, features etc and as Jacque Fresco once said "It may give you a better brain than some, with better neural pathways etc, but if you are raised in a fascist state it will just mean you become a fascist quicker." 

As with all groups, there are varying degrees of sympathy towards the EDL. Newspapers such as The Daily Mail promote views in line with some of their rhetoric, which people who consider themselves to be 'middle class' take on board without question. This is again the reason why labelling them 'racist' or 'Nazi thugs' will not solve the problems created by the media, whose sole purpose it seems is to keep a perpetual state of fear and misunderstanding, with buzz words such as grooming, extremism and terror never too far from an article. It must also be considered that alongside the perpetual bombardment from the media, some of these sympathetic people or misguided followers of the EDL, may have had negative experiences with small sections from within communities. This will only serve to reinforce those messages and is why I say we must try to engage in positive experiences with those people. By being hateful towards them all we do is serve to reinforce the propaganda and lies that they are bombarded with over and over again on the social conditioning box.

To combat this we must start by educating the young who may be in an environment where certain rhetoric is all they hear, for instance the now infamous woman on the tram, Emma West, is an example of such and environment. We need to start reprogramming our language and remove the notion that people of different colour skin are of different races, reinforcing the message that we are one human species and family. We also need to address the lies in the media that constantly blame immigration for the downturn of the economy, rather than the bankers and the billions of pounds that the tax payer bailed them out with, and highlight the fact that technology is playing an increasing part of unemployment. We need to start pointing the finger in the right direction and I do not mean the far right, I mean at the government and their paymasters. 
There are people out there challenging the status quo, Morgan Freeman, Jacque Fresco and Ken O'Keefe to name a well known few, will you add your name to this list?


We must start to take responsibility for the world we have helped to create and help to shape it for the better by creating positive experiences for the people we interact with and not leave it someone else. My friend recently said to me that we often talk about creating a better world for our children, but never creating better children for our world. This is our challenge and we must face it.

BBC Big Questions- Steven Lennon Answers Questions on EDL