I guess I'd like to say that I broadly agree with her points in the main post and in the comments section - so do go read it. But I'd like to add additional nuances to the argument, but sadly all I can think about is baby, baby, baby - why are you so late? (With the occasional, I feel really uncomfortable and moody thrown in - see I don't have a one-track mind).
Here's some of what she wrote:
I’ve been shocked to read about how Tony Blair and London Mayor Ken Livingstone have embraced certain Islamic fundamentalists here in the UK, men who have expressed vile and disgusting views. Under normal circumstances, I imagine that Livingstone would condemn a person who, for example, was a raging homophobe. [And if the person were Jewish, he may even call them a Nazi.] But apparently if you’re an Islamic fundamentalist, you can trample all over the liberal values these politicians supposedly hold dear. How is this possible? The mind boggles.
I'm not so certain about Tony Blair - although top people on the left have certainly accepted Saudi-funded, Wahabi-style, politicised fundamentalism with abhorrent views of women and homosexuals as the "mainstream" Islam. Ken Livingstone is certainly guilty of literally and figuratively embracing the leaders of Islamist movements - like Yusef al Qaradawi - a most nasty chap by almost any account.
Maybe Blair and Livingstone don’t have much experience of fundamentalism in their own lives and don’t understand how it operates. They associate it with “foreign” people and tolerate it on their home turf because they don’t want to appear racist, perhaps.
Racism is seen by opinion formers here as "the worst thing in the world"* and in order to get the same protection and promotion as the anti-racist agenda - some Muslims have quite pointedly played up the race element of Islam. (Anyone can be a Muslim, but it so happens that most Muslims in the UK have their ethnic origins in the Indian sub-continent.)
But I think we are getting into seriously dangerous territory when we associate thought, behaviour and belief (religion) with race. If we can't discriminate against people because of the way they behave, then we've lost our standards. After all, Sharia (Islamic law) is essentially a discriminatory framework based on religion and behaviour (fair enough, though I disagree with it) and gender (not so fair). If I can't say to the fundamentalist/literalist Muslim as well as to the fundamentalist/literalist Christian "I think you're wrong about evolution - and this wrongness leads me to doubt your approach to other scientific matters," then there's something not right.
Anglofille then writes of her own experience:
As an American and someone who knows a thing or two about religious fundamentalism, I worry about the threat religious extremists pose to British society. I see it as a very real and dangerous threat
I think she touches on an important point. I don't think it applies to Tony Blair or Ken Livingstone who are men of the world. I think Livingstone embraces Islamism as part of his cynical Trotskyite self-loathing and destructivist tendencies (just as he embraces Chavez and Castro to the cost of London taxpayers).
But I do think it applies to vast swathes of London upper-middle class policy makers and opinion formers and the mass who form "general public opinion". Their experience with church and religion has been cursory at best (at worst?). They have no idea what it's like to live in a community dominated by one prevailing and strongly religious world view. Well, I'll tell you what it's like as someone who grew up in the buckle of the Bible belt. If you're a natural non-conformist - it sucks. It's oppressive**. And that's exactly the kind of world that Qaradawi and political Islamists want us to live in.
Trouble on the left?
I consider myself something close to a classical liberal. And oddly this makes me pretty right-wing in the UK. But there is a movement on the left which recognises the danger of extremism.
I've written a little about that here - when I still had brain.
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* I agree that racism is bad and harmful and ill-informed, but I'm not sure it deserves the "cause of all evil" status that it seems to have in UK society.
** Yet at the same time, religion can support good behavior and vital social structures and provide a comforting and useful moral framework. Go figure.
2 comments:
Once again I see those who offer vitriole without solution! You admit to experiencing predominantly white fundamentalist racism in the USA and to not having dealt with it. In the next breath, you criticize the UK for being too liberal. Its mindbogging! We have, through our empirical past, inherited a mixed population. Most of whom are law abiding. Americans woke up to the scourge of terrorism relatively recently, and lo! they are now telling us how to deal with it, having funded a lot of it (ignorantly, I agree) for the best part of my 50 years. Offer a solution we haven't heard before or shut the f**k up! bloody know it alls!
Oh no - I'm not criticising the UK for being too liberal. I'm criticising people for claiming to be liberal and then turning their back on fundamental liberal principles, like civil rights, freedom of speech, you know... the usual.
And your assumption about "white fundamentalist racism" just shows your ignorance and your buying into the idea that religion and race are the same thing. They're not. Just like white folks, most black people I knew from my small town red state days were just as fundamentalist. When I was growing up, there wasn't really a latino population - there is now - and they're pretty darn socially conservative - mostly because of their brand of Catholicism. These fundamentalists come as racist, not racist and anti-racist. Same goes for Islam. Islam is MOST CERTAINLY NOT about race - and neither is Islamic fundamentalism - and some Islamism (the religio-political movement) may have some quasi racist/nationalist overtones in some circumstances - particularly where it may be the inheritor of Arab nationalism.
The reason I don't have a solution is because there ISN'T a pat solution. But one thing I know doesn't work is rolling over in the face of religious extremism. Deal with it?? I've argued, I've suffered and I've even been thrown out of vacation Bible school - I've been there. I've left behind a belief system which is part of my culture and family after a process of a lot of thought and reflection. So please don't tell me I've not dealt with it. I'm an apostate - and there's a price to pay for that. Fortunately, not as high in Christianity as in Islam.
I've also gained the trust of fundamentalist Muslims I've known because they know that I understand where they're coming from - in one sense fundamentalism is fundamentalism. But I do not approve or condone, I do not accept limiting freedom of speech to protect someone's fragile sensibilities, and I challenge their archaic assumptions about the role of women. And because I grew up in a fundamentalist culture - I've been able to do this in a way which enables us to still get along.
And as for YOU - I'm a part of UK society. I've lived here for over 10 years. I'm a LEGAL immigrant. I pay my taxes. I volunteer. I contribute. I have a British husband and I'm about to have a British baby. I have a RIGHT to speak up and reflect on things I see in the society that I live in. Or are YOU so intolerant that you can't accept that I'd have something to say and that my cultural perspective is just as valid as anyone else's? I think that smacks of racism.
BTW - it's the imperial past that has resulted in a mixed population - and that's great. It's Britain's empirical tradition that I'd really like you to cling on to.
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