You’ve got my support for your post Sid. And I sort of like the Muslimist link to Jewcy.

Those who have resorted to name-calling have offered no useful criticism other than, well, name-calling, which is cool but a dead-end I won’t be going down, thanks.

Just keep the alternative in mind.

Oh what a lonely furrow I plough.

‘can only be seen as’

Has any article that contained that phrase ever had anything-of-value-to-say?

It seems to directly translate as ‘I don’t know anything about the subject I am talking about, so therefor …’.

But them going against Blair and signing that letter which accelerated is departure might be more of a reason than them being Muslims.

And, if I am right the FabiAn Society could not wait for Blair to go — so Sunder getting irked about Sid’s post does not surprise me.

One point though, the Labour Government has made multi culturalism its mantra for building a cohesive society. But I guess they dont have too many qualified Blacks or Asians in the Labour Party in the House of Commons, because since Paul Boateng left Government, we havent had a cabinet minister (from the Commons) who is BME.

Please do not interpret this as making a race accusation — its an observation.

According to Guardian, Parmjit was fired because he depended on Civil Service advice and not the labour activists in Hammersmith when he made decisions in Government. or maybe he was totally incompetent – I dont know. But maybe, there is a quota of only 2 Asian junior ministers in Government. Unless of course, you are a Brown cronie like Vadera – then you get to go to the House of Lords.

yes, eat my radical anger.

personally the only interesting seat is the battle for bethnal green and bow. it’ll be a brown out, but with more characters this time and it expresses more. who gives a monkey that shahid malik had a DfID role? Any organisation that works with DfID is full of charity case monkeys. how appropriate.

Muslamism is a stupid idea, a close inbred cousin of the concept of ‘Sid-having-anything-of-value-to-say’.

Well, they are are either good enough to be promoted or they are not. And it sure as hell would be discrimination not to promote them (at the same time as everybody else – ie in the recent reshuffle) because they are Muslims or because some idiot on a blog would say it was all a gameplan.

If you don’t think they are good enough to be promoted at least have the guts to say so. if you think they are good enough, then wtf was this all about?

We should draw the distinction between anger and radicalism. We should also welcome the fact that people are able to express their distate through the ballot box.

Labour are the first to claim that foreign policy does not cause radicalism but here they are writing papers that call to muslims to forget Iraq. I wonder why?

I haven’t read Katwala’s and Khan’s paper but if they are exhorting muslims to forget Iraq it is because they recognise that Iraq is the *ONE* foreign policy issue which has driven away muslims from New Labour in droves. There is a reason why they have directed that call to Muslims rather than to the whole country and it is the very reason why Khan and Sadiq have been promoted to senior positions in the government.

Muslims should not forget Iraq just because Labour tells them to but nor should they remember it simply because they feel they must “as Muslims”.

I would if I could find one that was consistent.

Why all these machinations when all you have to do is accept my observation on your post is also valid.

I presume you don’t so much support the Muslim Brotherhood or the Hamas or come up with some very sorry pretexts for supporting them (“self determination” and/or “globalism”) as want to come across as some kind of PP contrarian. Because although you are expert in critiquing views you always shy away from, or should I say fall short of, actually articulating what your views actually are, when pushed.

Your continuity and consistency is also shot because, and I will shock you here, it has always been you whom we can rely on for pushing the sentimental line of the Muslim on the street by suggesting that foreign policy has been a factor for radicalism at worst or the falling away of support for New Labour.

The original story is from a website called Mathaba news dot com, which takes the position that Muslim Labour supporters have been the largest group who have abandoned Labour support because of the Iraq war. Surely there is no argument with that statement nor is it “identity politics” to suggest that it is.

You can’t take the position that foreign policy affects Muslim radicalisation (as you have done in the past) *AND* at the same time deny that the anti-terrorism tactics of Labour and the Iraq war has not caused widespread Muslim disaffection. Here you on this thread suggesting that identity politics does not exist whereas you have been one of the biggest pushers of identity politics here on PP.

Beware of contrarianism; its like walking around with your shoelaces untied. Sometimes you might just trip over.

I point out very simple and often gross distortions by you and you presume them to be a view one way or another. Just accept the corrections (if warranted of course) and continue to develop your argument.

I am now going to shock you, and type the phrase ‘muslim brotherhood’ for the first time in my existence. Lets see what you can do with that.

You mustn’t apologise. Sid almost always overreaches. I appreciate his sentiment on this particular occasion, but consider how he has dealt with it.

He seems, mistakenly, to identify the Iraq war to be specifically of interest to muslims, when we all know its widespread however much New Labour wants us to think otherwise. It is presented in the form of identity politics, when there is much more that binds the interests of the muslim community to the broader public. Even today. Despite the politics of fear.

His link to that Eteraz ‘Goodness Gracious Me-style’ script is a case in point.

Sid,

keep it simple. You’ll get more mileage.

Sunder,

glad to see that you and Sadiq Khan were responsible for the pamphlet. I appreciated its sentiment.

Apart from one very specific point, which was calling on muslims to forget Iraq. I found that disconcerting, no one should forget Iraq, and if that call was to be made it should have been to the whole country – and I am sure the response would have been a resounding raspberry and a one-finger salute. I would go as far as to say, there isn’t a sentient being on the planet who would want to forget Iraq.

I don’t think its wise to make it a muslim-only issue when it clearly isn’t. I would not want Sadiq and other MPs to fall into the trap of playing identity politics, at the cost of an undeserving community.

I would take that suggestion more seriouly had it not come from the likes of Refresh. He is continuously complaining about PP’s progressive creds but his own progressiveness involves contextualising the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and/or Ahmadinejad because of some woolly and fluffy support based on “anti-globalism” and “self-determination” or some such other dubious and malformed sentimentalism.

Hi halima

Please don’t shut up on PP.
I admit my post was ambiguous but certainly not “useless”