Ken explains Qaradawi in front of gays
At the Stonewall hustings last week, Ken Livingstone was asked specifically about al-Qaradawi in front of a gay audience. This was his response:
thanks to Dave Hill for the video. Note the applause at the end – I might not like his inference that Qaradawi is the most progressive Muslim voice around, but I think the point about the need for engagement with someone popular with othodox Muslims still stands.
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On that basis then, Nick Griffin is less extreme then some. He has a following in this country. Lets praise him as a moderate and smear anyone who attacks him.
Also, what precisely is engagement? What can Ken Livingstone do anyway, even if you accept that he should meet with Qaradawi? He is right to say that only Islamic moderates can win the day, but is anyone who doesn’t want to wipe out the West a ‘moderate’? Aren’t we setting the bar insultingly low for the average Muslim, effectively saying that if you don’t want to kill us all then you are a moderate?
I agree with Rumbold on this one (not the Nick Griffin bit!), but seriously, there are other muslim scholars that Ken needs to be engaging with. I slight self personal interest here, but a new islamic think-tank is being launched tomorrow- http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/- look forward to reading their work.
“but I think the point about the need for engagement with someone popular with othodox Muslims still stands.”
hmm but isn’t that back to the whole thing about community leaders? Qaradawi isn’t even a Londoner for goodness sakes. IF people want to engage, they need to engage real people, and not some mythic leader who sits somewhere else. there are ways of engaging people who happen to be muslims anyway without going via a religious leader – surely we all know this
and yeah actually rumbold has a point.
and given this kind of dynamic, all it does is encourages individuals to get into nasty gangs, appoint a spokesperson and lobby the politicos that way, ooh come to us, and we’ll make sure we deliver our ‘community’ vote to you. seems all highly corrupt to me, just the usual dodgy politics.
And note the jeers when he claimed not to have known much about Qaradawi’s views beforehand.
A pathetic lie.
And why did he turn the might of his (ludicrously large) press office on to smearing Peter Tatchell?
(PS I think you mean his “implication” rather than his “inference”)
I do dislike the way “engaging” with someone is increasingly seen to be some magical process for reconciling different opinions or reaching a mutually acceptable consensus.
1. Engage with x
2. ???
3. World peace.
Sometimes community leaders can be a useful interface for authorities with certain communities,. But this shouldn’t be at the expense of elected local, regional and national figures in terms of representation. Al-Qaradawi is an Arab but most Muslims in the UK are South asian. I question how relevant he is.
I knew nothing about David Irving, before I embraced him, and spent tax payers money defending him. Sorry about that!
“Al-Qaradawi is an Arab but most Muslims in the UK are South asian”- i think thats irrelevant when countering islamic extremism (profiles of most extremists are varied). Extremists don’t tend to listen to someone based on their ethnic origin, its what they say. I maybe wrong, but al qarawadi never fessed or has been proclaimed to be a community leader.
the mayor can be seen as a ‘community’ leader elected by individuals. seems to me this way we individuals who aren’t part of a ‘gang’ with a leader are losing out to the lot who are lobbying hard! so whos up for having a rival gang and a rival leader to qaradawi then, seems like you’ve got to have some other ‘leader’ or no one will listen.
Ken advisor linked to banned seikh terror group, page 4 todays evening standard…
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23479477-details/Ken%27s+adviser+is+linked+to+terror+group/article.do
Sunny:
‘but I think the point about the need for engagement with someone popular with othodox Muslims still stands.’
Spot on Sunny. Such an engagement from Ken will force others to move in more constructive ways.
and after decades of misdiagnosis and misidentification of islamic organisations, we are expected to beleive the standards take on a civil servants organisational *history* through the govts take on the sikh quarter…
well i suppose it ticks the ‘non muslims’ case study box.