Botherations. Have you seen the news recently. Looks like our boys are taking a bloody good pasting in Afganistan. The Taliban are resurgent and as more of 'us' come home in body bags so the nearer 'they' get to continuing their war on western values. But the boundaries seemed to have become a little blurred of late. I mean there are some ground rules that need establishing here: blowing oneself up in a shopping centre to forward a medieval theocracy involving the supression of women and the stoning the gays is a bad thing, isn't it? I think we can probably all agree on that one.
Ah, apparently not. By some crazy twist of logic, reactionary bigots who seek to plunge the world into religious darkness can now become freedom fighters - almost like a 'deformed' liberation movement'; the ANC if you like, but only by alternative means. If you don't like US imperialism (and hey even some of the guys at the Pentagon seem to be wavering on that one nowadays), you must be okay - even if what you like is slaughtering people at bus stops because of their religion. So we end up with anti-war demonstrations where purportedly socilaist paper sellers mingle with thoroughly fundamentalist Hizb ut-Tahir, chatting, their stalls butted up next to each other.
There's George Galloway of course, perhaps the best example. And Red Ken was always good at this type of smarming - warmly welcoming reactionary bigots like Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi to London (al-Qaradawi supports the execution of all males who engage in homosexual acts and 'personally' supports female circumcision). Of suicide bombers he has been quoted as saying "For us, Muslim martyrdom is not the end of things but the beginning of the most beautiful things". That'll be the 40 virgins then will it? What if they're all fella's? Bet he never thought of that.
And who could forget Tariq Ali who set himself up as one of the worlds premier cheerleaders for the bigots dominating the early insurgency in Iraq, casting them as anti - imperialist warriors saying things like "The resitance in Iraq is not, as Israeli and British propagandists like to argue, a case of Islam gone mad. It is...a direct consequence of the occupation'.
Its a funny sort of business when you consider that, historically speaking, the British left has failed to develop a united campaign against racism. You'd have thought that, broadly speaking, the entire left wing of British politics is not going to have such amazing differences of opinion about racism (they'd all be against it which is a good start) that could not be contained in a single campaign. But recent decades have seen a profusion of mutually antagonistic, left inspired anti-racist organisiations - many, ironically, sporting the words 'coalition', 'unity', or 'united'. Yet the differences between these various battling groups are miniscule when compared with the differences to say, the Muslim Association of Britain, who are major partners in the 'stop the war campaign'. The MAB's leadership has sympathies for the Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt - both of which firmly believe in the creation of an Islamic state and the establishment of Sharia law. A left that can ally with religious reactionaries but can't ally with its own self might want to sit down and have a bit of a think about that.
Critics if this abject moral and intellectual collapse are often accused of 'Islamaphobia'. But this issue isn't about Islam per se. What we are talking about is Islamic Fundmentalism - a fanatical politico - religious ideology that would outlaw gay people like Philip Ozouf and trade Unionists like Nick Corbel and instead institute medieval, religious feudalism ... sort of like facscism only much less modern. Hang on a minute............
So all things considered, if ever a world wide Caliphate was established, it seems like more then just a few people are going to be in for a nasty surprise. Best cancel that forthcoming Jersey Finance trip to Saudi then. Don't want to be seen to be fraternising with the enemy. Gerry bags anyone?
