Who is the hardest working person you know? I know a few, but possibly my good friend Mr Chowdrey, who runs the Mill Hill Tandoori restaurant. He's not a young man, he opened his first Indian restaurant after arriving from Bangladesh in 1973. Any night when you go in, whether it's -3 or 30 degrees, he's in the kitchen, preparing food, keeping the place running. He's usually there until midnight and you'll see him from noon, getting things shipshape. I've known him since he took over the Mill Hill Tandoori in 1977. They do the best onion bhaji's I know, as well as a a brilliant Tandoori salmon. On a Saturday, we'll often get a takeaway and the leftover dhal, brinjal bhaji and rice will be my lunch on Monday. A few years ago, he was telling me he was thinking of retiring. He was in his mid 60's at the time. I asked him what he planned to do. He looked at me in horror and said "I've not thought about that". He then said "I don't think I could sit around the house all day". He's worked hard all his life. Running a small business is a mission, a passion and an all consuming obsession.
Why do I mention this? Well today, a very toxic, hard right account, which claims to be the voice of Mill Hill posted this obnoxious comment "Seems Muslims live on welfare benefits and never work in London. How ?" As Mr Chowdrey is a friend (when I was undergoing cancer treatment, he was sending me curries over free of charge to cheer me up and I will often nip in for a chat when he's not in the kitchen) I simply cannot allow this foolish man, who, unlike Mr Chowdrey, has ample time on his hands to spend all day posting right wing bile on the Internet, to go unchallenged. Another good friend locally, who also happens to be a Muslim is Romel Miah, who runs the Day of the Raj takeaway in Mill Hill East. Romels family have run restaurants in Mill Hill since 1987 and won the LBC Indian Restaurant of the year. Romel is another hard worker. He's always supported Mill Hill events and charities, giving free curries as prizes etc in raffles and putting ads in programmes. In what is a supreme irony, I happen to know that the person who posted the revolting comment is a bit of a scammer. He took a lot of money from Romel, allegedly to pay for an advert in a "Mill Hill Guide" that was supposed to be delivered all over Mill Hill. Romel, being a public minded soul had paid the scammer as he believed he was supporting a local good cause. Sadly the guide never appeared. When challenged, the scammer posted up a very sub standard 'online' guide. None were delivered as agreed in the contract.
This resulted in a very public online spat between the two. The scammer changed his Twitter handle several times to try and hide the audit trail. From that day, the scammer started posting islamaphobic content. Sadly, the police have refused to do anything, despite some highly inflammatory and provocotive content, of which, this is just the latest example. Most of the scammers Mill Hill followers have become totally alienated and his posts get 20-30 views usually, mostly from hard right accounts.
Sadly, some people seem to be taken in by such individuals. The modus operandi of this particular character involves a lot of retweeting, with comments, of extreme right wing posts. This is a clear attempt to get more followers. I would not care, if they weren't pretending to be a Mill Hill Community account. Given all of the activities of this account and the individual who runs the account, I cannot understand the lack of police interest. Why would they ignore such things, given that they know of his past? It bemuses me.
But it is a useful illustration of the what goes on with Twitter etc. If I wasn't sadly aware of the full history of this account and the individual who runs it, I may be taken in. Normally I ignore it, but it is a useful illustration of the sheer idiotic nature of such people and how they are poisonous, dangerous and there is usually a back story. The irony of one of the dodgiest, laziest people I am aware of posting such things about other people is instructive. I'm not a fool, I know that there are good and bad in all communities. However a walk down the Mill Hill Broadway will show you people of all faiths and none running businesses, working in shops etc. We do not need divisive fools posting blatent lies, that our own eyes can confirm are total tosh on the internet.
And I have deliberately not posted the name of the account. The less oxygen such morons get, the better.
That's all.
2 comments:
As far as I know, muslims fought under Montgomery in the 8th Army, which contained units of the Indian Army.
Fraser, that is a very good point. Indeed my father flew for the RAF in WW2 in 40 Squadron, which operated Wellington bombers. It was a Commonwealth Squadron and I recall him telling me of an Indian Muslim crew, who thankfully survived the war (no mean feat) and who he met up with again at a squadron reunion in the 1980's. He spoke very highly of them. He explained that the Medical Officer ordered them to have three large scotches in the Officers mess withe the other crews after every mission, to help them cope with the stress of the job. He explained that Koran permitted the use of alcohol for medicinal purposes, as he could see they were suffering from mission stress. Dad explained that he asked them if they'd ever drank again after the war and all of them said No. They explained that the realised that they needed it to cope and the Imam told them that they were right to follow the Medical Officer. It was one of my favourite of his war stories.
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