A few weeks ago a PhD candidate at a British university sent us the following email.
I am a PhD student at [a major British institution of higher learning]. I am researching groups set up to oppose radical Islam in Europe and North America, including anti-Jihad, anti-Sharia and anti-halal organisations.
I would like to interview activists within these organisations, to help me understand how they became involved, what their concerns are about radical Islam, and how they are going about countering them.
I would welcome the opportunity to interview someone from Gates of Vienna as part of my research, given that it is one of the most prominent counter-jihad websites.
Depending on the questions, I’m not averse to answering such surveys, even though I know the all but universal multicultural agenda of the institutions that sponsor them. I wrote him back and told him that if he wanted to use my answers to compile statistical results, that was fine. But if he quoted me, I required that he include the entire questionnaire — all his questions and my answers in full — somewhere in his published material, even if only as an appendix. In the past, various Counterjihad people (including several of my friends) have had the unfortunate experience of being quoted out of context. This method at least makes the entire context available for anyone who is interested. Plus, of course, I am posting it here — I told him that I reserved the right to publish the entire interview myself.
When the questionnaire arrived, it was prefixed with an option to choose between two waivers:
Delete as appropriate: EITHER: I agree that these answers may be attributed to me in published materials; OR: I would prefer to remain anonymous in published materials.
Please note: There is no compulsion to answer any question. If you prefer not to answer a question, just leave the box blank.
I chose the second option, but appended a proviso:
I agree that these answers may be attributed to me in published materials provided that they are made available to readers in their entirety, including the complete wording of each question.
The questions and my responses are reproduced below in their entirety:
Part A: Personal details
Name: Ned May
Organisation: Gates of Vienna
Position within organisation: Editor
Age: 60+
Gender: M
Ethnicity: Human Race
Part B: Questionnaire
1. When and how was Gates of Vienna set up?
We put up our first post on October 9, 2004. For the first eight and a half years we were hosted for free at blogspot.com, under the aegis of Blogger (i.e. Google). Then, after a series of incidents in which our blog was closed or locked by Blogger, in January 2013 we moved to our own domain gatesofvienna.net hosted by a commercial service.
For the first couple of years most of the blogging was done by my wife Dymphna. After I was laid off in 2006, I started blogging more regularly. As Dymphna’s chronic illness worsened, I took on more tasks, and now perform most of them.
2. What is your role in Gates of Vienna?
I am the principal editor. We have a number of translators and contributors, and it is my job to edit their prose where appropriate, find and prepare images to use as illustrations, and do the general formatting for each post. This is in addition to writing an occasional post myself.
I also maintain the database used to create each day’s news feed, and write the programming code that makes it possible.
3. Were you involved in political activism before Gates of Vienna? If so, please indicate which organisations.
No, I was never politically active. My wife and I made modest campaign contributions to our congressman from time to time, but that was all.
4. How would you describe the purpose or aims of Gates of Vienna?
Our principal aim is to resist the Islamization of Western societies. More specifically, we want to prevent the imposition of Islamic law (sharia), which is encroaching on our legal system piecemeal at an increasing rate, by a process that is commonly known as the “stealth jihad”.
Examples of the new sharia-based rules include the “religiously-aggravated Section 5 public order offences” in the U.K., the “hate crime” prosecutions by the various Human Rights Commissions in Canada, and the prosecutions for the “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion” in Austria. Numerous other examples may be found in almost all Western countries.
Sharia-based norms violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the constitutions of the countries in which they are implemented. In that sense they are illegal or extra-legal, and not in conformance with the law of the land.
Islamization is only making headway in the West because the existing cultural matrix has been damaged. For that reason, Gates of Vienna frequently examines other issues that pertain to our ongoing social and political breakdown.
5. What are the main challenges or obstacles you face in achieving these aims?
A young bearded man drove through a police checkpoint outside the courthouse in Boston where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was being sentenced. When stopped by police, a meat cleaver was found in the car. The man said he was protesting the death penalty. His name was not released, so we don’t know the 
The Egyptian activist Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. He, too, sought to reestablish the Caliphate. It was considered a major blow by many Muslims when the Turkish reformer Mustafa Kemal, or Atatürk, formally abolished the Caliphate in 1924. Al-Banna was preceded by other Muslim activists such as Rashid Rida. Banna is the grandfather of Tariq Ramadan, who is currently Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at the prestigious University of Oxford, England. Ramadan has served as a high-level advisor to the authorities in Britain, France and the EU.
