Bob and Kenan Say It
Bob from Brockley tells us of a good item on Radio 4’s The World This Weekend. I haven’t listened yet but I’m going to, as well as to Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Start the Week, which Nick S mentioned. (Time! I have no time!)
a very interesting segment on Radio 4’s World This Weekend about who represents British Muslisms…A number of British Muslims forcefully argued that the Muslim Council of Britain completely fails to represent the perdominantly Sufi Sunni British Muslims, who do not have a Muslim Brotherhood worldview, but rather have a much more theologically open perspective…A new organisation is needed to better represent them…Particularly daming was the testimony with Haras Rafiq from the Sufi Muslim Council on the way post-9/11 (and especially post-7/7) the MCB has used the war on terror to channel funds to their corrupt, reactionary affiliates.
I hope the subject of the over-reliance of the BBC itself on the MCB was part of the discussion.
For me, the deeper issue is the ideology – central to the New Labour version of multiculturalism – that ethnic groups constitute homogeneous “communities” who can be “represented” by “community leaders”. French republicans call this ideology “communautarisme”…I am sick of hearing politicians say “The Muslim community wants X”, “The gay community is Y”, “The Asian community feels Z”. These definite articles imprison us, over-emphasising differences between “communities”, under-emphasising differences within “communities”, hiding the oppressive nature of “community leaders” who define what each “community” thinks, feels, is. We need to escape from this foolish and dangerous notion!
Just so. Well said Bob from Brockley.
Kenan Malik in the Times the other day, too.
The starting point in any discussion about terrorism and extremism seems to be that Muslims constitute a community with a distinct set of views and beliefs, and that, for them, real political authority must come from within their community.
Exactly. And what a bizarrely patronizing and stultifying starting point that is.
But the trouble is the bargain itself. Not only is it rooted in a picture of the Muslim community and its relationship with the wider British society that is false, but also the cosy relationship between the Government and Muslim leaders exacerbates the problem it was meant to solve…The Government has long since abandoned its responsibility for engaging directly with Muslim communities. Instead it has effectively subcontracted its responsibilities to so-called community leaders. When the Prime Minister wants to find out what Muslims think about a particular issue he invites the Muslim Council of Britain to No 10…Rather than appealing to Muslims as British citizens and attempting to draw them into the mainstream political process, politicians of all hues prefer to see them as people whose primarily loyalty is to their faith and who can be politically engaged only by other Muslims.
Patronizingly and stultifyingly.
The policy of subcontracting political responsibility allows…self-appointed community leaders with no democratic mandate to gain power both within Muslim communities and the wider society. But it does the rest of us — Muslim and non-Muslim — no favours. It is time that politicians dropped the pretence that there is a single Muslim community and started taking seriously the issue of political engagement with their constituents, whatever their religious faith.
Hear hear.
What does your neighbour sound like when he’s searing? Some typos are more confusing than others… I thought searing was more of an Inquisition tactic.
“spar,” “swear”?
I’m guessing “swear.” But on this side of the pond, it’s “swear at,” not “swear over,” so I’m just confused.
“Swear” was my best guess as well. Fits the context. But I’m keenly aware that there could be a one-letter transposition, or a missing letter or a letter too many. And four letters present, which can already take things in a few directions. “tear”?
And what if it’s a two-typo word?
Mr. Tingey, please re-read before pressing “submit.” We want to understand you.
Well, at least, we get some indication of the weather in Walthamstow – mittens on or off.
_
Don “Now most energy seems expended on building barriers while talking as though we are tearing them down.”
Yes – it’s the gross economic disadvantages in our western countries that the liberal elite feel guilty about, a situation the feel they can – or should – do nothing about. Turning a blind eye or a cloth ear to reactionary, thickheaded Islamists and other zealots is a lot easier than effecting social change through education and other long-term economic investment in a burgeoning, illiterate and immigrant underclass. By affording Sharia etc a ‘sacred’ position at odds with an otherwise secular society, the wealthy liberal elite (yes, Milburn’s lot ) feel – unjustifiably – let off the hook; it means they don’t actually have to do anything like accepting higher taxes on second homes to help fund social and educational programmes, and they keep their feeling of moral superiority over the out-and-out free marketeers. It means Gordon Brown’s annual settlements with County Councils can continue to become meaner while faith or diversity ‘initiatives’ are bandied about by executives in all forms of public life as afirmation that the bad days of Toryism are over. In essence, starting an ‘interfaith initiative’ in a 25% unemployed area of Bolton is a lot cheaper and easier than providing the requisite infrastructure and services, but it sounds dead cool.
“than effecting social change through education and other long-term economic investment in a burgeoning, illiterate and immigrant underclass.”
The trouble with that is that the liberal elite wants a burgeoning illiterate underclass. It (most of it) doesn’t quite know that, or at least doesn’t quite want to say it, but that is the logic of all those comments one hears about “jobs that non-immigrants won’t do”. Why won’t they do them? Because they’re crap jobs, obviously. So the only people who will do them are people who have no alternative. Who would those people be then? Uh…an illiterate underclass. Because a literate non-underclass has alternatives so doesn’t have to do crap jobs so won’t do crap jobs.
It’s not just that it’s too much trouble and too expensive, it’s also that it’s what is not wanted. If there were no illiterate underclass – recruiters would just go recruiting a new one. Somebody has to gut the chickens and clean the toilets and wash the dishes.
I used to know a guy who was a commercial scuba diver, who told me positively frightening stories about doing stuff like entering sewer lines to clear strainers of debris. It was dangerous, dirty, dark and cold, but he was happy to do it because his income averaged over $100K per year.
It’s not that non-immigrants won’t do crap jobs, it’s that they won’t do them for crap pay.
Yes. I meant to include that in the crap jobs – that is, I meant ‘crap jobs’ to include crap pay. I’m always pointing that out, usually in a snarl, when people smugly talk about “jobs Americans just won’t do” when they mean “just won’t do for five dollars an hour.”
Yes, the appearance of caring is exactly what I’m talking about, along with the failure to connect the dots. That is, some people are aware that they don’t want poverty to disappear, and just make the right noises; others don’t even realize they don’t want poverty to disappear, they think they do, but still rejoice at the abundance of cheap labour all around. They somehow manage not to notice that cheap labour and poverty are one and the same. Duh…
The difficulty I have with this argument is that for many of the migrants, especially Mexicans in the United States, the “crap jobs” may be better than starving in a mountain village. And, there is increasing progression-part of the reason Agribusiness is now bleating about shortages of field workers is that many of them have migrated to the relatively better paid semi-skilled construction trades.
Throw in the argument that one of the reasons for poor conditions in the rural villages of Mexico and Central America is American foreign and economic policy (we basically encouraged the cauterization of many Central American countries-horrible stories are still coming out. Meanwhile, susbistence and small famers in Mexico can’t compete with American corn exports, and the overall Mexican economy is increasingly “owned” by foreign corporations. So…you get migration.
But none of that alters the basic point: there is no real intention to do away with poverty, because as soon as there are fewer poor people, everyone rushes around in search of more poor people. Yet there is still this vague lurking assumption that in fact there is a real intention to do away with poverty. It’s sort of like bailing with one hand and pouring water with the other.
Oh, I agree with your basic point. One thing I worry about is if it is possible to “do away with poverty (if that means everyone living like, say, even a “second world” resident-can the earth tolerate the pollution and resource demands of 400 million Chinese alone entering a “middle class” status? Let alone the aspirations to live “like Americans”)
And no, I’m not saying I mean we as Americans should continue to be such gluttons, but…
A long, long time ago a politician named Blair, who had considerable credibility and popular support, made a speech in which he clearly stated that for poverty to be alievated, for anything like social justice to prevail, and for the very survival of the species we – us, ourselves – would have to accept that our living standards were just too high and and we must set about reducing them now, not in a generation. He seemed to mean it and there was a little ripple of approval from some quarters.
Whatever happened to him?
Probably the same thing that happened to Al Gore, who talks the talk on environmental issues when he’s not in high office and does the other thing when he is in high office.
I haven’t tracked down the speech yet, but he was PM at the time. I voted for him twice.
Oh well,
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more foot-path untrod,
Heck. I certainly don’t walk the walk, either. So…it’s hard to be too harsh about Mr. Gore. Mr. Blair is beyond contempt. Sorry, UK residents. (Not that he reaches the level of our rulers. I read today that 78% of republicans STILL THINK W IS DOING A MIGHTY FINE JOB!!!!!!)