[AUT] Fwd: Hamza Piccardo of Autonomia Operaia

["Michael Pugliese" <michael.098762001@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- In progchat_action@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Michael Givel" <mgivel@...>
wrote:

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/03/italy_the_strange_islamistcomm.php

Italy: the strange Islamist/Communist alliance

By Lorenzo Vidino

In June 2005 David Kaplan reported on US News about Ten Euros for the
Resistance/Iraq Libero, a campaign led by an odd collection of
European (mostly Italian, German and Austrian) "Marxists and Maoists,
sprinkled with an array of Arab emigres and aging, old-school
fascists," to raise money for the "Iraqi resistance." While never
raising big sums, the informal network was active in organizing
meetings and setting up stands in various European cities. The story
generated quite a bit of attention and in the following weeks 44
members of Congress sent a letter to Italy's ambassador to the United
States, expressing "concern" about the Ten Euros campaign. Moreover
the network's main website was shut down and a few addresses in Italy
were raided.

Almost two years later, the Iraq Libero network is more than active
and last weekend it organized a conference in Chianciano, a charming
Tuscan town. The main organizers are the Committees for the Support
of the Resistance for Communism (CARC), whose website shows various
anti-American initiatives. In the communique announcing the
Chianciano conference, the CARC express "our determination to
support, with the resources at our disposal, the resistance of the
popular masses in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon against
the aggressions of the imperialists of the USA and of any other
country."

Among the speakers in Chianciano, beside self-proclaimed leaders of
the Iraqi resistance, we find Hamza Piccardo, the Secretary General
of the UCOII (Unione delle Comunite Organizzazioni Islamiche in
Italia), the Italian branch of the international Muslim Brotherhood
network. Addressing an audience filled with Communist militants,
Piccardo gave a powerful and telling speech. "The young Muslims of
Europe," said the 55-year-old UCOII leader in a speech broadcasted by
Italian TV, "can be companions of street and of struggle and we saw
it in a remarkable way in France, two years ago. Those that set on
fire 36.000 cars in a few days. This is a strength that immigrant
communities have in them, their demographic strength, their courage.
With this strength, with these youths, we must interact.
Anti-Imperialism is in them."

Piccardo's speech seems that of a Communist leader, rather than that
of the leader of one of Italy's most important Muslim organization.
An explanation can be found in Piccardo's past involvement in the
militant Communist underworld. Before his conversion to Islam in
1975, Piccardo had been a member of Autonomia Operaia, one of Italy's
most radical leftist formations during the 1970s. Piccardo, like
other UCOII members that come from the radical left, dreams of a
fusion of Communist and Islamist ideologies, with anti-capitalism,
anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism as the glues for this odd
marriage. The UCOII case is not an isolated example of the alliance
between far left and radical Islam in Europe. Another notorious
example is Respect, the unlikely political formation borne out of the
alliance between the Brotherhood-linked Muslim Association of Britain
(MAB) and fringe leftist groups headed by George Galloway. The
phenomenon needs to be monitored, as the repercussions for both the
security and the social cohesion of Europe can be serious. March 28,
2007 06:57 AM    Print

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Michael Pugliese
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