You Do All Think Alike, Don’t You?
So The Independent tells us Blair went to Leeds ‘to appease the Muslim community.’ Meaning what? He went to Leeds and found all the Muslims in the world gathered in one place so that he could appease them? He went to Leeds and found all the Muslims in the UK gathered in one place so that he could appease them? No, apparently not. He went to Leeds to take part in ‘a consultation exercise with young Muslims in the city’ so that he could – appease all the Muslims in the world or the UK by so doing. How does that work? Why does a consultation exercise with young Muslims in one city appease ‘the Muslim community’? What is this chronic synechdoche thing? This assumption that any random assortment of ‘members’ of some ‘community’ or other can stand in for all the other ‘members’ of that ‘community’? How does anyone know that that happens, and who keeps track? Let’s see – what ‘community’ am I part of – atheists? Atheists will do, as a parallel to Muslims. Okay – if Bush went to Wichita for a consultation exercise with young atheists there, would that appease me? Would I feel somehow magically soothed or comforted or mollified? Well, no. If the vibrant young Wichita atheists managed to persuade him to reverse some of his policies, that would be good – but if they just talked to him and gave him some advice on atheist holidays, that wouldn’t do much to my opinion of Bush. So whence is this idea that by talking to some (unspecified number of) young Muslims in Leeds, Blair is appeasing ‘the Muslim community’?
And why do people buy it? And why do they accept the idea that they belong to one community and not bother with all the myriad other communities they could decide they belong to? Why don’t students belong to the student community? Why are Muslims – all Muslims – assumed to put their Muslimness before everything else? Why is everyone (nearly everyone) so intent on telling them over and over and over again that they are theMuslimcommunity? Why doesn’t anyone stop to think that it’s all rather patronizing and cloying and confining? Why do they keep hammering on it? I seriously wonder.
Blair himself, for instance.
“If I am asked to see the Muslim community, what I will get is the same great and the good of the community,” Mr Blair conceded. “That means we are [not] getting down to people in the community.”
The community, the community, the community – gee, do you think he used the magic word often enough?
Rushdie said it in that ‘Today’ interview a month or two ago: even to talk about ‘the Muslim community’ is to go down the road of a kind of communalism. Just so. Too bad no one listened.
Another interesting thing. At the beginning of the piece:
“We’re losing confidence and trust in you,” Mr Khan told him, unflinchingly. “With this foreign policy Muslims feel you are attacking them. We all used to vote Labour but not any more. You need to row back and take us with you.”
Toward the end:
Someone helping to divorce the concepts of terrorism and Islam would be a step forward, Ms Mather told the Prime Minister. “Every time there is a picture of the suicide bombers on the television, it is followed by people praying at a mosque.” Divorcing nationality from religion would also help, added another. “I’m Muslim but that has nothing to do with my Britishness, which is about being free to go out for a drink and to dance.”
With this foreign policy Muslims feel you are attacking them, and divorcing nationality from religion would also help, because I’m Muslim but that has nothing to do with my Britishness. Well there’s a coherent message for you. Which is not surprising – why should it be coherent? Why should any of these (unspecified number of) people agree with each other? No reason; they shouldn’t; but all this calling them ‘the Muslim community’ is a way of pretending or unconsciously assuming they should. (This kind of thing reminds me of an uncle of mine, who was a big noise in the public opinion polling business, who was always asking me what ‘my generation’ thought about various things. How the fuck should I know! What am I, an oracle? I know about three people, in a geographic radius of about two hundred yards; is that supposed to be a useful sample of our entire age group?)
Maybe none of that is the point anyway, maybe the point is just being seen to be listening, or something. But then – the newspapers really ought to report that Blair talked to some young people in Leeds, and let it go at that.
Typical Independent shite. This is the paper, after all, who bought us the Paris riots as a ‘direct result’ of the Hijab ban. A paper for weak Brits too dishonest to admit they like lower taxes, enjoy earning in the mid-upper income bracket and they would rather the rest of the world acted out their guilt for them. Two-faced Wankers.
Nick S: I am sure the Indy reported the story the way Blair wanted it told. In fact, the others I have seen pretty well accepted the same spin.
It is all about gestures. Modern governments accept that there is very little good they can do, and that is very difficult. They can do harm and they can make “symbolic” but meaningless gestures. I would rather them do the latter than spend their time doing real damage. Trouble is, they still seem to find a bit of time for that.
Of course one can always take a cynical attitude to any behaviour by a politician (or someone whose views you oppose) – it makes ‘understanding’ every eventuality so easy, just look for the cynical explanation – but Blair, like everyone else in the UK, has every reason to be concerned about the kind of widespread views among Muslims that form the background within which young Muslims become Islamised in the direction of terrorist behaviour. Leaving aside that all of us generally have a mixture of motives, Blair has every justification for his concern about the spread of Islamist ideas among young Muslims, and the influence of groups that are considerably more militant than the leaders of organisations purporting to represent Muslims in the UK.
No, I won’t admit to cynicism on this. Do you doubt that Blair’s purpose in visting Leeds was to make a gesture, to apear to be doing something? Do you think he belived it would have any effect in the real world? Do you think there was any chance of him changing his views as a result of listening to the young man?
It is clear that Blair has realized, as nearly all leaders do, that it is almost impossible for him to achieve much that is good and lasting. This must be immensely frustrating to an idealistic (and I believe he was once idealistic) politician. The surprising thing is that most leaders need to be in power for some time before their almost-impotence becomes apparent to them.
They are left with two things: the ability to make war (easy, sign a piece of paper) and, at least in countries like UK and Australia to pass legislation banning things or creating offences or giving agencies of the government more power. They also have the ability to make “symbolic” gestures.
If you accept this, and the sense of frustration that results, it goes a long way to explain surprising things like Blair and Howard (Australia) going to war. and similarly Maggie T with the Falklands.
None of this is new. Richard Neustadt’s book Presidential Power, based on a paper written for JFK before his inauguration discusses the dilemma.
What has changed is the even greater expectations we have of governments – created at least partly by their promises. When those expectations are not met we reject and often destroy the politicians.
It is all a great pity. If only a politician would have the honesty and courage to say what they cannot be expected to do.
Ken, you are taking a somewhat ‘enlightened’ view of the realities of political power, I admit, and it’s hard to disagree with. However, look at it this way – Blair & Brown have made enormous impact on education and the NHS by pouring billions of pounds into them, and hiving out the newbuild costs of hospitals and schools to PFI, thereby helping make the ecomomy’s balance sheet look very healthy. They could have made an beneficial impact elsewhere in poorer parts of ‘society’, but chose not to, strategically, because, bluntly, they feared losing the middle England vote and hence, losing the chance to govern.
They have also wasted billions of pounds that could be used to reduce direst poverty that still exsists in Northern England – a major cause in any disenfranchisement process,as ani fule no – by instead prosecuting an unresolvable conflict in the Mid-east. (I regrettably admit I once thought the invasion was the right thing to do – on the idiotic assumption that a workable plan for democracy and an exit strategy was in place somewhere in between the War Office, Number 10 and Washington).
These observations are not made cynically, just on the basis of what my generation’s greatest hope for social improvement has actually turned into. I don’t necessarilly blame Blair for everything, but he’s not impotent – or innocent – either. He knows how to work a room, and how to impress on the personal level; by going to Leeds he was simply practicing what he’s good at, no more, no less.