Hans Rustad En gruppering som kalte seg Muslims4Ken ønsket å mobilisere Londons muslimer til å stemme for Ken Livingstone, men kan ha hatt stikk motsatt effekt ved å gi motstanderne gode argumenter.
Muslimer representerer et stort stemmepotensial i London, men har lav valgdeltakelse. Muslims4Ken ville gjøre noe med det. Men de gjorde det på feil grunnlag, mener Asim Siddiqui i en Commentisfree-artikkel i Guardian. Muslims4Ken kjørte på islamofobi, men på en måte som bare minnet om at muslimer er annerledes. De kjørte også frem utenrikssaker som Palestina og Irak, som har lite med London å gjøre.
«How YOU can help save us from a Zionist Mayor,» campaigned the Muslim Public Affairs Committee.
Motstanderne gjorde mye ut av Ken Livingstones positive holdning til Yusuf Qaradawi. Det bidro til å splitte venstresiden. Man oppfattet at Boris Johnson var den progressive, og at røde Ken var den reaksjonære som roste en mann som går inn for selvmordsbombere og fordømmer homoseksuelle. Da er noe alvorlig galt, mener Siddiqui.
This association managed to fracture Ken’s support on the left. Some felt that the «lesser of the two evils» approach in favour of Ken, adopted by some Labour supporters, was «muddle-headed» and that the real question was about whether we should elect a progressive candidate over a reactionary.
The fact that Ken was seen as more of a reactionary than Boris in the eyes of some voters appears astounding, but highlights the radioactive affect of reactionary Islam in a post-7/7 London. Muslim lobbyists can do little else but take note. If the very candidate you are endorsing is being damaged by your endorsement, then surely it’s time for a rethink.
Dette er en problemstilling som i høy grad gjelder muslimers politiske deltakelse også i andre vestlige land. Hvis man kjører frem saker som gjør at man bekrefter skremmebilder, vil det være kontraproduktivt og polariserende.
The kiss of death?
Velgerfremmøtet i City og East London hadde den laveste oppslutningen, bemerker Siddiqui.
Anas Altikiriti forsvarer Muslims4Ken, på en måte som også får frem interessante poenger. Han forstår ikke hvordan enkeltpersoners handlinger kan farge oppfatningen av en hel gruppe, og at de må kjempe som enkeltpersoner for sine rettigheter. Hvis ikke bekrefter de gruppetenkningen. Altikriti mener islamofobi var det definerende punktet og det var viktig å få frem hvor kandidatene sto.
En interessant detalj er at Andrew Gilligan, som i sin tid laget intervjuet med våpeninspektøren som begikk selvmord og nesten felte Blair, arbeider i dag i Evening Standard, og det på en måte som ikke faller i Muslims4Kens smak!
Altikriti sier man gjorde mye ut av Qardawi, men muftien av Egypt, sheik Gomaa, har akkurat de samme meninger om selvmordsbombere og homoseksuelle, og han ble rost av David Cameron!
To suggest that while Muslims can come under collective attack, suspicion and scrutiny as a result of crimes committed by a few, but can only defend themselves and fight for their rights as individuals, is nothing short of absurd – discriminatory, even. Furthermore, critics of Muslims4Ken missed another crucial point about the whole process of democracy. The argument, debate and presentation of ideas in the run-up to the elections are just as important as the vote itself. If they were not, most of the parties on any card, such as the Greens, would be wasting their time and the few resources they have. What the Muslims4Ken campaign managed to do was to highlight the stance of both candidates over issues relevant to their respective constituencies, and especially on the matter of Islamaphobia. Johnson’s remarks and statements about Islam were extremely relevant – especially given that the new mayor declared «Islam is the problem» at as critical a moment as the July 7 bombings. To claim that by highlighting Johnson’s own words and remarks about Islam among the Muslim constituency is playing the religious card is absurd. Siddiqui might have liked us to address only local issues such as bendy buses and the congestion charge, but we thought it best to leave it to the discretion of each voter to decide where they stood on those issues!
The constituency we were addressing was worried about Islamaphobia. And we managed to ensure the issue of Islam, Islamaphobia and discrimination against Muslims was on every candidate’s agenda and a hot topic in every hustings. If it did nothing else than persuade Johnson to clarify his views on Islam, assert his conviction that it is indeed a religion of peace, and get him to visit a few mosques in an attempt to win back votes he was convinced he had lost, then it was a great success.
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While Andrew Gilligan and the ES may have become rabidly obsessed with the meeting between Ken and Qaradawi in 2004, it was interesting to see why they chose to omit any mention of a Cambridge University conference at which the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, spoke. The Tory leader David Cameron praised his words, and the Times describedhim as the «wise Mufti». It may have escaped Cameron’s attention that Gomaa espouses identical views on suicide bombings in Palestine and homosexuality as Sheikh Qaradawi, while his views on wife-beating are even more hardline.