Pro-Islamist Left Exposed

[Delroy Booth]

Andy Newman is obviously a complete idiot.

This thread is just full of new and startling information.

 

[IC3D]

I only skimmed the article so far, but this is a shallow conclusion

Fundamentally, this Left’s support of Islamism comes down to its affinity with
Islamism, which it sees as a force of resistance against imperialism. If racism was
its real concern, it wouldn’t support the blatantly racist notion of different and
lesser standards and rights for those deemed ‘different’.

There are far more similarities, the Umma has a similar status to the proletariat, the critique of usury in principle at least, the rejection of bread and circuses as a distraction from full communism/sharia. The founding father of Islam was disgusted at the inequality and corruption of society by the markets.. any more? inacurate probably but I can see a leftist interpretation which I know many Muslims have as much as a right.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Bloody hell Spiney it's explicity religiou-ifying an issue (British foreign policy) that requires no such thing.
Inadvertantly, it allows the Islamist right to paint Britain as conducting a war on Muslims. It's the first step in constructing an Islamist case.

Remember, this is a criticism of the left - a left that isn't supposed to put things ion religious terms.

I take your points, but I'm pretty sure that would have quite a lot of appeal for someone like my (secular catholic) mum - it's not an Islamist appeal so much as a religious one. It's the 'do you want this on your conscience' kind of liberal appeal put in religious terms, but not specifically Islamist ones.

It's not the kind of appeal I'd want to make, nor would I be especially comfortable working with people who make that kind of appeal. But I think if anything including that quote weakens rather than strengthening their case - and it's a case whose conclusions I broadly agree with.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Well what follows after, what is the next thing we appeal to people to do on a religious basis? There simply was no need for religion to be brought into an argument that has been won politically already. And, he and them (RESPECT et al) have helped normalise this abhorrent way of carrying on. We've almost forget that we didn't do it like this before.

I agree with all that - but they're using it to make a case for him being sympathetic to Islamists and although I think they're right to be making that case I don't think that quote really supports it.

Not that it's particularly important mind, they are right to call him pro-Islamist.

 

[sihhi]

I take your points, but I'm pretty sure that would have quite a lot of appeal for someone like my (secular catholic) mum - it's not an Islamist appeal so much as a religious one. It's the 'do you want this on your conscience' kind of liberal appeal put in religious terms, but not specifically Islamist ones.

How can you say this? It is in Islamist terms for the Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin community he is addressing. He is saying abandon voting by family and tradition, instead vote according to 'protection of the umma' on principles of Islam.

The other things Galloway says makes it very obviously an appeal to communal religion.

My only criticism of the report is that it doesn't go far enough. This what Galloway said of Salman Rushdie in 2011:

I challenge the renegade Rushdie to a public debate on Islamic extremism. Come & have a go sneaky Salman- if you've got the moral fibre! #fb

It's always soft, it's never explicit, but it's always there in whatever Galloway discusses about foreign policy, immigration or race relations.

 

[butchersapron]

I take your points, but I'm pretty sure that would have quite a lot of appeal for someone like my (secular catholic) mum - it's not an Islamist appeal so much as a religious one. It's the 'do you want this on your conscience' kind of liberal appeal put in religious terms, but not specifically Islamist ones.

It's not the kind of appeal I'd want to make, nor would I be especially comfortable working with people who make that kind of appeal. But I think if anything including that quote weakens rather than strengthening their case - and it's a case whose conclusions I broadly agree with.

They are criticising a leading left public figure for doing stuff that makes religious based politics normal - it's a criticism of that left, it's important to bear that in mind. It's not saying that wider civil society can't organise around religion. And, we all know damn well who GG was talking to and what religions he meant. He means islam and he means the people in this room as muslism.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I only skimmed the article so far, but this is a shallow conclusion



There are far more similarities, the Umma has a similar status to the proletariat, the critique of usury in principle at least, the rejection of bread and circuses as a distraction from full communism/sharia. The founding father of Islam was disgusted at the inequality and corruption of society by the markets.. any more? inacurate probably but I can see a leftist interpretation which I know many Muslims have as much as a right.

Yeah - and the SWP did theorise something very similar to what you've outlined there in Chris Harman's (RIP) The Prophet and the Proletariat.

There might be some nuggets of truth in it - too long since I read it to remember - but it's dangerously flawed and a lot of the pro-Islamist stuff they've done has been justified along these lines.

 

[Tom A]

But the association between the SWP/Respect part of the left with Islamists (either through being soft on them or actively working with them at times) has been common knowledge, especially on these boards, for at least a decade.

Ayy, been there, done that, been accused of being a racist Islamophobic neocon by the usual suspects on the internet (including, at the time, these very boards).

 

[SpineyNorman]

How can you say this? It is in Islamist terms for the Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin community he is addressing. He is saying abandon voting by family and tradition, instead vote according to 'protection of the umma' on principles of Islam.

The other things Galloway says makes it very obviously an appeal to communal religion.

My only criticism of the report is that it doesn't go far enough. This what Galloway said of Salman Rushdie in 2011:

I challenge the renegade Rushdie to a public debate on Islamic extremism. Come & have a go sneaky Salman- if you've got the moral fibre! #fb

It's always soft, it's never explicit, but it's always there in whatever Galloway discusses about foreign policy, immigration or race relations.

They are criticising a leading left public figure for doing stuff that makes religious based politics normal - it's a criticism of that left, it's important to bear that in mind. It's not saying that wider civil society can't organise around religion. And, we all know damn well who GG was talking to and what religions he meant. He means islam and he means the people in this room as muslism.

Yeah I see what you mean now actually - wasn't really thinking about that context.

I wasn't trying to defend Galloway by the way, we all know what he's like. But without considering the context I just saw it as the kind of soft-left religious you might also hear coming from someone like Tony Benn (dare to be a Daniel etc).

 

[butchersapron]

Yeah - and the SWP did theorise something very similar to what you've outlined there in Chris Harman's (RIP) The Prophet and the Proletariat.

There might be some nuggets of truth in it - too long since I read it to remember - but it's dangerously flawed and a lot of the pro-Islamist stuff they've done has been justified along these lines.

It is utter madness and based on what happened across the middle east in the 70s (nothing updated since then) and an explicit rejection of neither washington nor moscow. With the Islamists sometimes, with the state never.

 

[dominion]

 

[IC3D]

Yeah - and the SWP did theorise something very similar to what you've outlined there in Chris Harman's (RIP) The Prophet and the Proletariat.

There might be some nuggets of truth in it - too long since I read it to remember - but it's dangerously flawed and a lot of the pro-Islamist stuff they've done has been justified along these lines.

I agree, and there are notable differences between what Harman writes probably (though I have not read it yet) and how organisers interpret and act on it after he passed on.

 

[SpineyNorman]

What's that all about

 

[Casually Red]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Is the line a certain section of the left continually fall for.
america and israel maybe behaving like bastards.
But that doesnt excuse the iranian goverment and others behaving like barstards.
When your supporting people who shoot girls for wanting to go to school your a wrong en.

who on the left is supporting the pakistani taleban, out of interest . I wouldnt be surprised if some dick was somewhere...i just havent heard of them .

 

[Tom A]

who on the left is supporting the pakistani taleban, out of interest . I wouldnt be surprised if some dick was somewhere...i just havent heard of them .

Even Respect, at its most bending-over-backwards cultural relativist, never dared to openly support the Taliban.

 

[Casually Red]

I don't like PressTV very much myself, and those appearing on it have a lot of explaining to do, but in itself it's not evidence of being an Islamist. Certainly if people on the right can vehemently argue in favour of sending money and weapons to Al-Queada in Syria, yet somehow escape the charge of being Pro-Islamist, whereas merely appearing on PressTV is seen as wholehearted approval of Islamism, its an interesting bit of hypocrisy. Iranian Islamism bad, Saudi-backed Islamism and al-Queada good.


.

should someone who goes on BBC or Sky news be labelled as a supporter..or soft on..western imperialism . Strikes me as a double standard. And a bit of a racist one.
Just because someone chooses to go on Iranian tv doesnt mean any particular set of values should be attached to it at all, otherwise we have to assume western capitalist media is largely value free and infitely more politically appropriate simply by virtue of being white and western.

 

[Casually Red]

The article consistently essentialises Islam and the views of Muslim and Muslim-seeming immigrants, "Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. .

I must have missed all those greek and turkish cypriot get togthers, restaurants etc. And plainly that dick has never been to a Celtic Rangers clash either

 

[dylanredefined]

Even Respect, at its most bending-over-backwards cultural relativist, never dared to openly support the Taliban.

They whine about drone strikes which is swallowing the taliban stories.

 

[Tom A]

They whine about drone strikes which is swallowing the taliban stories.

How is objecting against drone strikes "swallowing the taliban stories"?

 

[Casually Red]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Is the line a certain section of the left continually fall for.
america and israel maybe behaving like bastards.
But that doesnt excuse the iranian goverment and others behaving like barstards.
.

imperialism and colonialism should be the enemy of all socialists. Like it or not Iran is a sovereign state which isnt attacking anyone. Western imperialist states have no right to attack it or threaten to go to war against it . Thats an important principle that cant be put to one side .

When your supporting people who shoot girls for wanting to go to school your a wrong en

a deliberate...and slightly racist...red herring suggesting all muslims are the same . Its like saying all white englishmen run about paki bashing and burning down mosques . And western imperialist states routinely support such people. Theyve armed them in the past and are arming that precise type now.

 

[Tom A]

Like it or not Iran is a sovereign state which isnt attacking anyone.

I think many women, Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Baha'is would like to have a word with you regarding that one...

a deliberate...and slightly racist...red herring suggesting all muslims are the same .

Except it's aimed at certain people whom identify as Muslim - the Taliban and their ilk, whose victims are in the main... Muslims.

 

[dylanredefined]

How is objecting against drone strikes "swallowing the taliban stories"?

Where do you think the reports of all the innocents victims come from?
The drones are effective and the Taliban fear them and have no counter other than propaganda.

 

[Tom A]

Where do you think the reports of all the innocents victims come from?
The drones are effective and the Taliban fear them and have no counter other than propaganda.

So any civilians and non-Taliban whom happen to get in the way are just fair game then, huh?

 

[sihhi]

Agreed with you on Press TV, comparing it to Al-Jazeera isn't perhaps a good one, but again support for Iran theocracy and support for sunni Al-Queada salafists are very different. Two different types of Islamism there, currently in a state of conflict which the West is deeply involved in, and a distinction between them and recognition of the geopolitical context should've been included in this report.

It's not trying to be a complete nuanced report of all the various sorts of Islamism that these figures dally with. It's about the failure of British left parties (RESPECT mostly) and wider figures to maintain their own principles when dealing with Islam and the Middle East.

On Press TV we're talking about a TV station that goes into the Evin complex specifically to break the will of political prisoners (already softened up by years of torture) and then broadcast the confessions extracted by immense threats pre-screening.

On the Mariam Appeal there is no proof of corruption, but several years of lax records of where money came from and where it went. It's a bit like Jeffrey Archer's campaign for Kurdish refugees no outright possibility of proving x, so the suspicions remain.

 

[butchersapron]

Where do you think the reports of all the innocents victims come from?
The drones are effective and the Taliban fear them and have no counter other than propaganda.

On what basis do you reject independent claims of drone strikes on innocent parties. The US accepts that they happen. What is your evidence that they don't?

 

[J Ed]

Except it's aimed at certain people whom identify as Muslim - the Taliban and their ilk, whose victims are in the main... Muslims.

I don't think it is, it's aimed at the people who look Muslim. It's no different to someone in the EDL strolling around the streets of London disgusted at the 'Muslim looking' people around him, just a bit more articulate. The whole thing drips with nastiness.

 

[Casually Red]

I think many women, Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Baha'is would like to have a word with you regarding that one...


.

i dont give a fuck, Iran has not attacked any other sovereign states . It has not done anything to deserve to be militarily attacked by western imperialists.

Except it's aimed at certain people whom identify as Muslim - the Taliban and their ilk, whose victims are in the main... Muslims

i dont know what this means

 

[sihhi]

The report doesn't say everyone who's ever been a guest on Press TV is an Islamist. It's saying those with shows on it like Yvonne Ridley and Galloway are complicit in asserting a soft Islamist pro-Ayatollah version of world events.

 

[dylanredefined]

So any civilians and non-Taliban whom happen to get in the way are just fair game then, huh?

No that's just as stupid as claiming no Taliban ever get killed by drones or kill civilians either deliberately or accidentally.

 

[J Ed]

On what basis do you reject independent claims of drone strikes on innocent parties. The US accepts that they happen. What is your evidence that they don't?

Not directly related but I'm pasting this just cos I don't think enough people know exactly the sort of terrorism these strikes inflict.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-8174771.html

Late in the evening on 6 June this year an unmanned drone was flying high above the Pakistani village of Datta Khel in north Waziristan.

The buzz emitted by America's fleet of Predators and Reapers are a familiar sound for the inhabitants of the dusty hamlet, which lies next to a riverbed close to Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and is a stronghold for the Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

As the drone circled it let off the first of its Hellfire missiles, slamming into a small house and reducing it to rubble. When residents rushed to the scene of the attack to see if they could help they were struck again.

According to reports at the time, three local rescuers were killed by a second missile whilst a further strike killed another three people five minutes later. In all, somewhere between 17 and 24 people are thought to have been killed in the attack.

The Datta Khel assault was just one of the more than 345 strikes that have hit Pakistan's tribal areas in the past eight years but it reveals an increasingly common tactic now being used in America's covert drone wars – the "double-tap" strike.

More and more, while the overall frequency of strikes has fallen since a Nato attack in 2011 killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and strained US-Pakistan relations, initial strikes are now followed up by further missiles in a tactic which lawyers and campaigners say is killing an even greater number of civilians. The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that rescuers often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack.

"These strikes are becoming much more common," Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who represents victims of drone strikes, told The Independent. "In the past it used to be a one-off, every now and then. Now almost every other attack is a double tap. There is no justification for it."

The expansive use of "double-tap" drone strikes is just one of a number of more recent phenomena in the covert war run by the US against violent Islamists that has been documented in a new report by legal experts at Stanford and New York University.

The product of nine months' research and more than 130 interviews, it is one of the most exhaustive attempts by academics to understand – and evaluate – Washington's drone wars. And their verdict is damning.