Iggy Ostanin unearths troubling new evidence of anti-Muslim racism in a rediscovered personal blog of Britain’s Prime Minister
Some aspects of Boris Johnson’s history of Islamophobia are well known – like his 2018 article in which he said that Muslim women wearing burkas “look like letter boxes”. Others are known but not discussed enough. His ties to the far-right activist Steve Bannon, for instance, or the time he and the Vote Leave campaign stirred up fears about Turkey joining the EU during the 2016 Referendum campaign.
Some instances of Johnson’s Islamophobia go unnoticed by almost all UK media outlets, such as the recent finding that he wrote of the genocide in Bosnia: “All right, I say, the fate of Srebrenica was appalling. But they weren’t exactly angels, these Muslims.”
Adding to this list of his known history of Islamophobia, there are several other findings from Johnson’s personal blog, which reveal that the Prime Minister:
- Blamed “Islamic revivalism” for the massacre of hundreds of unarmed protestors, which was carried out by the Government of Uzbekistan in Andijan, and which was condemned around the world. He wrote: “Whatever happened this year in Andijan, when Karimov’s troops slaughtered between 80 and 300 people, Islamic revivalism was there in the mix.”
- Took a holiday in Uzbekistan three months after the May 2005 Andijan massacre and expressed his disdain for the reopening of mosques after decades of brutal repression of Islam during the Soviet era.
- Suggested that mosques have a “cheesy smell from the carpets” and described the Muslim call to prayer as “mosquito drone”.
- Wrote of Russia: “Whatever you say about the Russians, they have no qualms when it comes to abusing human rights, if that means cracking down on Islam.”
- Claimed that 12 serious attacks on Muslims in Britain in the space of four months “does not speak of a climate of vicious Islamophobia”.
- Authored a Spectator editorial that singled out Islam. He wrote: “The Koran is particularly vicious in its condemnation of other religions and their practitioners.”
The Rediscovered Boris Johnson Website
At first glance, the current webpage boris-johnson.com seems to be a repository of publicly available articles written by the former newspaper columnist and Mayor of London, updated by his supporters.
But, as the internet archival resource, the WayBack Machine shows, it was at one point the personal blog of the MP for Henley, long before he became Prime Minister.
This website featured a forum and a comments section and archived messages show a fan-base attracted to the Johnson brand of right-wing libertarianism and his unapologetic love of the British Empire. Often, the website was a platform for Islamophobic comments that were not removed by Johnson or his staff.
More worryingly, some of these responses were prompted by Islamophobic updates written by Johnson himself. Perhaps the worst of these was a post about his family holiday to Uzbekistan in 2005.
Visit to Uzbekistan
In August 2005, Johnson went on a family holiday to Uzbekistan. The fact that it systematically uses torture to coerce confessions and persecutes Muslims for practicing their beliefs outside of state controls made it a bad enough choice – but the timing made it so much worse.
Just three months before the trip, the Government of Uzbekistan carried out a massacre of hundreds of unarmed civilians in the city of Andijan. The killings followed unrest between the authorities and supporters of local businessmen who were put on trial accused of being “Islamic extremists”.
Thousands of peaceful protestors including women and children assembled in a central square to protest Government corruption and injustice. There were rumours that President Islam Karimov was on his way to Andijan to speak to them. He never appeared. Instead, he sent in troops which killed hundreds of the unarmed protestors, including those who tried to escape. According to witness accounts, the soldiers made their way through the bodies and shot those lying wounded on the ground.
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This makes it all the more remarkable that Johnson wrote that he was impressed by seeing Muslim architecture and places of worship without the actual Muslims: “The main items you are shown are the mosques and madrasas and whatnot… Domes of turquoise and eggshell, arches and colonnades, all arranged with effortless rhythm and elegance. There is nothing like it on earth. But, as you stare at them, you are struck by a kind of inertness. There is no cheesy smell from the carpets; no mosquito drone from the muezzin; in fact, there are no religious observances going on at all in these monuments.”
He continued:
“Stalin’s archaeologists lovingly repaired the sites; Islam itself was stamped on in a way that was brutal, repressive and quite amazingly effective. The Koran was banned. The last veil was burned in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan in 1959. Polygamy was outlawed. Modern Uzbekistan is robustly secular, flowing in pissy Uzbek beer and blind-making Uzbek vodka, with bottle-blonde Uzbek girls tottering by in high heels. We looked at their tiny skirts, and it was amazing to think that Afghanistan was just a few miles down the road. It won’t last, of course. There are many wonderful things about Uzbekistan, but two drawbacks.”
In this statement, Johnson begins his point with a dispassionate description of something evil that happened – “Islam itself was stamped on in a way that was brutal, repressive and quite amazingly effective” – but then proceeds to list alcohol and “tiny skirts” as a positive by-product of this repression, and ends on the rueful note that “it won’t last, of course”.
As for the two “drawbacks”, for Johnson these were Uzbekistan’s food and its human rights. But he argued the latter is particularly a problem – not because it clamps down on Muslims, but because it accelerates the regeneration of Islam in the country:
“The food is quite disgusting… The second problem is that it is a police state, with checkpoints everywhere and a grim human rights record. There is no secular opposition (the last time President Islom Karimov [sic] stood for election, he received the votes of 95 per cent of the electorate, including that of his chief opponent), and the result is that religion provides a focus for dissent. Slowly the mosques are opening, and the anti-religious thaw is accelerating since it began in 1993. Whatever happened this year in Andijan, when Karimov’s troops slaughtered between 80 and 300 people, Islamic revivalism was there in the mix.”
The slaughter at Andijan most likely killed significantly more than 300 civilians and to say that “Islamic revivalism was