Entering the final 10 days of Ramadan in England.

It’s the last 10 days everywhere, of course (so long as you can see the moon doing the right thing) but I live in England. Where Ramadan is being made a much bigger thing of than even last year. Certainly it’s prominence in public life is being increased, far beyond Diwali or Yom Kippur, as other festivals of the faiths held by our neighbours.

Supermarkets have been running Ramadan Mubarak campaigns for years trying to take advantage of the midnight feasting aspect of the fast. Charity adverts have run for the same length of time in areas with high concentrations of Muslims. The advertising hoarding above is from Leyton in 2010. But this year the campaigns seem to be more numerous, higher profile and ubiquitous. 

For example the Birmingham Mail posted directions for employers  “what companies must do to support Muslim staff through this month of fasting”. I remember the days when your employer expected you to be an asset to the company. 

Non-Muslim women take on Ramadan hijab challenge. This is an article from Al Jazeera and it is an international initiative, but I bet a pound to a penny some university has taken it up somewhere in England; I just haven’t spotted the congratulatory multi-culturalism article yet. 

Grace Lloyd got a round of applause when she walked into her classroom at Doha’s Gulf English School on the first day of Ramadan, wearing a black hijab with her blue uniform. Lloyd, a British Christian, will be covering her head for the entire duration of the holy month this year in solidarity with Muslim women who face discrimination for wearing the hijab.”I usually wear the black one, I feel more comfortable with it because all the people in my class wear it too,” she told Al Jazeera, adding she might try a different colour later in the month.

That’s it – get the young dhimmi used to what she might expect as a vassal under sharia. 

At the beginning of May, as the first anniversary of the bombing of the Manchester arena approached, Mancunians were not pleased to see their city centre buses looking like this below.

So people complained to the bus company, and threatened to boycott those buses. The bus company First Manchester apologised at first,  then changed their tune. And Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) went straight on the offensive. As the Manchester Evening News reported  they responded “The content and tone of many of the comments that have been made are totally unacceptable and we will not be responding to comments about this campaign.”

I am told that adverts are in cities all over England, but in particular London, Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester and Leicester.

This is at Westminster Underground station (the one on Westminster Bridge, site of the terrorist murders of 22nd March 2017)

This one was at Euston Station, a few yards from Tavistock Square where on 7th July 2005 Hasib Hussain, one of a gang of four murdered 13 people with his suicide bomb on a No 30 bus bound for Hackney Wick. 

This was on the back of a bus travelling through Tower Hamlets

This one is on a number of buses running through a mostly English suburban borough, but one that is ripe for expansion into. 

And this one, this little beauty, came through my letterbox, along with a pizza menu and a special deal on double glazing. 

If I’d had time I expect I could have gone further and found more. But the good thing is people are getting wise to the propaganda, the softening up of the population, and not before time.