This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2015/nov/20/sadiq-khans-words-on-islamists-and-britain-were-authentic-and-shrewd
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Sadiq Khan's words on Islamists and Britain were authentic and shrewd | Sadiq Khan's words on Islamists and Britain were authentic and shrewd |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The stakes were pretty high for Labour’s London mayor candidate Sadiq Khan when he addressed parliament’s press gang on the subject of Islamist fanatics on Thursday. A Muslim who, as a civil rights lawyer, had represented fellow Muslims beguiled by fundamentalist visions, Khan would have known that political foes, not least among journalists, had already been sniffing for ways to hang the “extremist” tag on him prior to next May’s election. In the wake of Paris, one perceived equivocation, one word out of place, and he’d have been paying for it until polling day. | The stakes were pretty high for Labour’s London mayor candidate Sadiq Khan when he addressed parliament’s press gang on the subject of Islamist fanatics on Thursday. A Muslim who, as a civil rights lawyer, had represented fellow Muslims beguiled by fundamentalist visions, Khan would have known that political foes, not least among journalists, had already been sniffing for ways to hang the “extremist” tag on him prior to next May’s election. In the wake of Paris, one perceived equivocation, one word out of place, and he’d have been paying for it until polling day. |
| Judging by the coverage of his words so far, Khan has emerged from the occasion not only undamaged but fortified. The London Evening Standard majored on his appeal to fellow British Muslims to recognise the threat extremism poses here and to embrace the “special role” they can play in combatting it “not because we are more responsible than others, as some have wrongly claimed, but because we can be more effective at tackling extremism than anyone else.” | Judging by the coverage of his words so far, Khan has emerged from the occasion not only undamaged but fortified. The London Evening Standard majored on his appeal to fellow British Muslims to recognise the threat extremism poses here and to embrace the “special role” they can play in combatting it “not because we are more responsible than others, as some have wrongly claimed, but because we can be more effective at tackling extremism than anyone else.” |
| The Daily Mail approvingly picked up on his observation that “too many British Muslims grow up without really knowing anyone from a different background” or “understanding or empathising with the lives and beliefs of others,” and his claim that the political establishment has, for too long, “tolerated segregation” at the expense of “creating a common life”. The paper also quoted his companion observation that “too many British people have never befriended a Muslim.” Now, there’s a novelty. And his expression of concern that his two teenage daughters “could be groomed by extremists on the internet” went down very well with the nation’s most stridently “pro-family” newspaper. The Telegraph, house journal of conspiracy theorists of the right, reported his remarks soberly. | The Daily Mail approvingly picked up on his observation that “too many British Muslims grow up without really knowing anyone from a different background” or “understanding or empathising with the lives and beliefs of others,” and his claim that the political establishment has, for too long, “tolerated segregation” at the expense of “creating a common life”. The paper also quoted his companion observation that “too many British people have never befriended a Muslim.” Now, there’s a novelty. And his expression of concern that his two teenage daughters “could be groomed by extremists on the internet” went down very well with the nation’s most stridently “pro-family” newspaper. The Telegraph, house journal of conspiracy theorists of the right, reported his remarks soberly. |
| Some will question Khan’s judgment in delivering a speech that secured the approval of the more simplistic critics of multiculturalism and could be misrepresented as tacitly confirming false characterisations of British Muslims as a whole as a menacing fifth column. Is he pandering to prejudice? Others might query his sincerity. Khan’s mayoral campaign has focused on closing off potential lines of attack from day one. Was his speech merely a cynical exercise in pre-empting enemy assaults? | Some will question Khan’s judgment in delivering a speech that secured the approval of the more simplistic critics of multiculturalism and could be misrepresented as tacitly confirming false characterisations of British Muslims as a whole as a menacing fifth column. Is he pandering to prejudice? Others might query his sincerity. Khan’s mayoral campaign has focused on closing off potential lines of attack from day one. Was his speech merely a cynical exercise in pre-empting enemy assaults? |
| Let’s not be naïve about the politics. As a prominent British Muslim aspiring to the political leadership of the British capital – a job which, by the way, includes setting the priorities of the Metropolitan Police - Khan could not have got away with saying nothing about Islamist influence in a nation and in a city that endured the bombings of 7 July, 2005. And to do anything other than condemn the Paris attacks in the plainest terms, as he did, would have raised doubts for his opponents to exploit. | Let’s not be naïve about the politics. As a prominent British Muslim aspiring to the political leadership of the British capital – a job which, by the way, includes setting the priorities of the Metropolitan Police - Khan could not have got away with saying nothing about Islamist influence in a nation and in a city that endured the bombings of 7 July, 2005. And to do anything other than condemn the Paris attacks in the plainest terms, as he did, would have raised doubts for his opponents to exploit. |
| But these realities are not grounds for questioning Khan’s convictions. It’s not the first time he’s expressed the view that Muslims should participate more widely in British political and cultural life: for example, he addressed the theme way back in 2008 in his Fabian Society pamphlet Fairness Not Favours. And when he told the gallery hacks that “every time I’ve stood for parliament I’ve been subjected to a campaign of hate” and that he’s been obliged to “discuss police protection advice” for his children, he could have also mentioned the death threats he received for supporting same-sex marriage. | But these realities are not grounds for questioning Khan’s convictions. It’s not the first time he’s expressed the view that Muslims should participate more widely in British political and cultural life: for example, he addressed the theme way back in 2008 in his Fabian Society pamphlet Fairness Not Favours. And when he told the gallery hacks that “every time I’ve stood for parliament I’ve been subjected to a campaign of hate” and that he’s been obliged to “discuss police protection advice” for his children, he could have also mentioned the death threats he received for supporting same-sex marriage. |
| Yet this is not a man who has rejected the faith culture he grew up in in his birthplace of Tooting, which he now represents as its MP: I was present back in July when he broke his Ramadan fasting at sunset following a Labour candidate hustings in Southall. Neither does he deny that prejudice against Muslims is all too real. Rather, his response to the sometimes hostile Britain to which he belongs has been to embrace the freedoms and potentials it has also offered him as a child of council estate origins. He personifies the ideal of multiple, co-existing, over-lapping social identities that London itself exemplifies. | Yet this is not a man who has rejected the faith culture he grew up in in his birthplace of Tooting, which he now represents as its MP: I was present back in July when he broke his Ramadan fasting at sunset following a Labour candidate hustings in Southall. Neither does he deny that prejudice against Muslims is all too real. Rather, his response to the sometimes hostile Britain to which he belongs has been to embrace the freedoms and potentials it has also offered him as a child of council estate origins. He personifies the ideal of multiple, co-existing, over-lapping social identities that London itself exemplifies. |
| That is the full backdrop against which Khan’s intervention on terror and radicalization should be understood. Yes, it was canny positioning, including barely-coded criticisms of Jeremy Corbyn’s recent handling of nationhood and security matters. The two men’s recent pasts and immediate futures are entwined in complex ways. Although Khan didn’t vote for Corbyn to become Labour leader, he was one of the MPs whose charitable nominations enabled him to get on the ballot paper in the first place. The votes of Corbyn supporters helped Khan become the party’s mayoral runner. Corbyn’s survival as leader is seen as heavily depending on Khan’s becoming mayor, and yet - like his chief mayoral opponent, the wealthy Conservative Zac Goldsmith - Khan has spotted that Corbyn is a potential liability. Surreal as it may seem, the more Khan distances himself from his party leader, the better the prospects of both men may become. | That is the full backdrop against which Khan’s intervention on terror and radicalization should be understood. Yes, it was canny positioning, including barely-coded criticisms of Jeremy Corbyn’s recent handling of nationhood and security matters. The two men’s recent pasts and immediate futures are entwined in complex ways. Although Khan didn’t vote for Corbyn to become Labour leader, he was one of the MPs whose charitable nominations enabled him to get on the ballot paper in the first place. The votes of Corbyn supporters helped Khan become the party’s mayoral runner. Corbyn’s survival as leader is seen as heavily depending on Khan’s becoming mayor, and yet - like his chief mayoral opponent, the wealthy Conservative Zac Goldsmith - Khan has spotted that Corbyn is a potential liability. Surreal as it may seem, the more Khan distances himself from his party leader, the better the prospects of both men may become. |
| But don’t knock Khan’s pragmatism. It shows he knows that winning will require speaking to mainstream sentiment strongly and shrewdly – sentiment which, by the way, he believes plenty of his fellow British Muslims share. And don’t read his words as evidence of betrayal or inauthenticity: he meant what he said, and what he said is consistent with things he’s said before. Rather, see it as a sign of a progressive politician seeking to build up what may be his greatest and truest strength in the campaign to come – a lived experience of the British capital that many Londoners will relate to and that Goldsmith has never known. |