Not “mainstream” at all
Let’s take a little hop back in time, back to February 2006, when the BBC reported on a rally against cartoons about Mohammed.
About 5,000 UK mainstream Muslims joined a protest in London’s Trafalgar Square against controversial cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.
Oh dear god, they were so clueless. Or deceptive. That “protest” was not “mainstream” – the BBC was ridiculous to call it that, and also insulting to Muslims as a group.
Protesters waved banners calling for unity against Islamophobia.
The event aimed to explain the views of moderate Muslims towards cartoons published in a Danish newspaper which led to worldwide protests.
Organisers also said it wanted to dissociate the mainstream Muslim community from a “minority of extremists”.
And the BBC nodded solemnly and believed every word.
No. People who take to the streets because a newspaper in another country published some anodyne cartoons are not “the mainstream community” and they’re not “moderate.”
Coach-loads of demonstrators arrived at the rally called United Against Incitement and Islamophobia, which got off to a peaceful start at about 1340 GMT on Saturday.
Police said the total turnout was about 5,000, a figure endorsed by a spokesman from the Muslim Council of Britain.
Among them was Hanifa Brka, a 29-year-old student from Birmingham, who said: “This is the heart of our faith – we believe it is wrong to talk badly about the prophet.”
That’s not a moderate view. It’s not moderate to say that all people have to obey the strictures of one’s own religion.
But the reason I saw this news item and the reason I’m sharing it is this part:
A series of speakers gathered to support the Muslim community, including MP Jeremy Corbyn.
In his speech, which was met with cheers from the crowd, he said: “The only way our community can survive is by showing mutual respect to each other.
“We demand that people show respect for each other’s community, each other’s faith and each other’s religion.”
It’s not mutual respect to demand that people shut up about religion.
The event was organised by the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain, with the backing of a number of Christian groups, peace organisations and the Mayor of London.
Two Islamist groups, the second a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
That’s Corbyn.
Bad news.
“We demand that people show respect for each other’s community, each other’s faith and each other’s religion.”
Drivel, religions are ideologies, they can’t ‘demand respect’, Corbyn is supposed to be on the Left of UK politics, ‘
I’m also rather skeptical as to the location of the dividing line between ‘radical’ and ‘mainstream’ Muslims, the Pew surveys have indicated that many Muslims have some alarming opinions on religious tolerance. ‘Moderate’ Muslims is a relative term.
Would you rather that, if they were sufficiently dismissive of the idea that we should respect each others fairy-tails, one of the Blairite new-Labour contenders had won instead? Would you have preferred another round of having only centre-right or far-right mainstream parties to choose from, with the only left-wing parties being the minority also-rans?
So Corbyn may not be your perfect candidate. He may have some beliefs you (and I) don’t agree with, and that we will need to protest over. But if you’re waiting for a perfect candidate to come along, you’ll be waiting a long time. I’ll happily take Corbyn’s vision of equality over what most other politicians appears to be preaching, and fight the other issues as they arise.
He may not be “the best news *ever*!!11! ZOMG!”, but I don’t think he’s bad news.
He’s bound to turn out to have some arguments many of us would disagree with, but he’s better news than I’ve heard in a while from any party leader.
Summary of one of his campaign positions: http://www.jeremyforlabour.com/working_with_women
and full text: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jeremyforlabour/pages/87/attachments/original/1438076296/WorkingWithWomen.pdf?1438076296
A couple of quotes from the summary:
A point from the full document:
(bolding mine)
So he wants 50% women in Parliament, while he stands next to the Brotherhood? He is either lying or insane.
@Karellen:
Wasn’t Ophelia saying it’s bad news that Corbyn did and said these things, not that Corbyn himself is bad news? The flip-side of your (perfectly correct) point is that since no candidate is perfect, we get to complain about the bits we don’t like.
@John:
Well, there are lots of other things he could be, such as ignorant or misguided. This was early 2006 and there has been a lot of public discussion since then. Perhaps he’s learned something or just changed his mind. It was helpful of Ophelia to point this stuff out, because it’s definitely something I’d like to ask him about. I think the fact that he has (so far) appointed only men to his shadow cabinet is more worrying. But it’s early days.
Looks like Corbyn has appointed some women now. The top four are men. The lineup looks pretty white, too.
@latsot: Ah yes, that is one way of reading it that I’d not considered. Looking at it now, I concede it is entirely plausible that that’s how Ophelia meant it. I still think my original interpretation, that Corbyn himself is bad news, is the most obvious one, but I’m probably somewhat biased on that.
Hanifa Brka said “This is the heart of our faith – we believe it is wrong to talk badly about the prophet. I would like to send a message to all honest Christians – we are all brothers and sisters.”
I would describe that as one banal empirical statement and one conciliatory gesture. Saying that respect for Muhd is at the heart of Islam is true. I don’t see anything in her statement about “all people have to obey the strictures of one’s own religion”. Presumably she does not think that non-Muslims have to keep halal or pray facing Mecca. She believes that respect for Mohd. is central to her religion, and presumably is opposed to disrespect. But then we all are opposed to disrespect to figures important to us, we all get offended when figures we hold dear get dissed.
The important question is what we think should be done about disrespect. Having peaceful, permited marches seems well within the boundaries of acceptable articulation. I have no idea who Tamimi is but “We have the right to be angry, but we have to do it within the remits of the law, and we have to respect the rights of others,” seems to me to be sum up the “moderate” position quite nicely.
But if you hold a protest about “talking badly about the prophet” then you are treating the rule as a universal. It’s ambiguous as stated, true, but clearly the point of the protest is to say that no one should talk badly about the prophet. And that’s not moderate at all. Trying to impose the morality of one religion on everyone is not moderate.
Having a right to be angry is also ambiguous. Sure, everybody has that right, but that doesn’t mean all causes of anger are equally reasonable. They have a right to be angry, but are they right to be angry? No.
Ophelia,
“Trying to impose the morality of one religion on everyone is not moderate.”
Yes, the elevation of a superstition to a universal truth is one of the most repugnant characteristics of Christianity and Islam.
Suya,@ *
“The important question is what we think should be done about disrespect”
Nothing needs to be done about ‘disrespect’, the concept as applied here, is religious, and has absolutely no relevance in a secular society. Mohammed, if he ever existed, is dead he can’t be ‘disrespected’, if some people are demented enough to think that Mohammed still exists, that’s their problem.Too often ‘disrespect’ for Mohammed is a code for criticism of Islamic ideology.
Good point. That reminds me of Stephanie Zvan’s ridiculous charge sheet against me organized around the fatuous question “what is a blogger to do?” – that is, what is a blogger to do about another blogger on a network saying things Stephanie Zvan doesn’t like. The answer should be nothing. What Stephanie Zvan likes or doesn’t like is not a good filter for what should be done.
There was another thing suya said @ 8 –
No, that’s wrong. That’s a claim frequently made by people who want everyone in the world to respect their particular prophet, but it’s wrong. It’s not true that we are all opposed to disrespect to figures important to us, especially not public figures, which is the relevant comparison, especially especially not long-dead public figures, which is also the relevant comparison. No. It’s illiberal to oppose disrespect to long-dead public figures, and not everyone does.
Yeah, that was….something… wasn’t it?
Here’s what a blogger should do: blog. But that post… I wanted to comment and couldn’t find where to begin.
It was. Something prompted me to count the listed indictments yesterday, and it came to 29. 29 charges against me that she saw herself as supposed to “do” something about.
It strikes me that the reason so many of those FtB “denouncements” were so long is that there was really nothing concrete to object to. So they (Zvan and Thibeault in particular) had to substitute length for substance if they were going to sound sufficiently denouncey. “OK, I’m at 2,000 words. Does this sound bad enough yet? Hm, not really. Better keep going.”
Good point. Padding, in short. Padding is always a bad sign.
“We demand that people show respect for each other’s community, each other’s faith and each other’s religion.”
Respect is earned, not demanded.
Not examining a belief is not respect, it is submission (which is what they want).
If something is worth respect, it is worth examining. If you are not willing to examine and question and poke at something, it means you don’t really value (or respect) it. (Not that poking at trivial things isn’t sometimes fun.)
@Cressida:
“denouncey” is an excellent word.