The damage done by the cyclone of this scale would be enough to throw many developed nations into crisis. One can only imagine the strain this has put on a country as desperately poor as Burma. The damage done to infrastructure, broken bridges, thousands of scuttled river vessels in the affected Irrawady delta will only add to the mounting problems for the humanitarian agencies, whose efforts are now in full swing.

Even before the cyclone, Burma had been stricken by decades of poverty inflicted by the effects of a praetorian Military junta and it’s control and consumption of the economy. It has been reported that the government has refused some of the planeloads of food parcels, medicine and other humanitarian aid that has been offered. Although John Holmes, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitraian Affairs has said the situation is patchy:

We are getting cooperation. We’ve had good discussions. They did accept very quickly, which some countries never do, that they would welcome international assistance. They have accepted the idea of a flash appeal which some countries do not want to do, for reasons of sovereignty or pride or whatever they may be. And they have accepted to allow goods to come and now, increasingly, to allow people to come in. It’s not quick enough, it’s not as good as we would like but it’s happening and that’s the point.

The give and take of aid is also subject to ethical dilemmas. Aid agencies can also withhold much needed relief if they think the authorities receiving the aid make all the wrong noises. As Conor Foley notes:

When Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban, some humanitarian agencies, such as Oxfam, suspended their programmes rather than comply with the Taliban’s anti-women edicts. Oxfam eventually concluded this had been a mistake that had caused greater suffering to ordinary Afghans, but there clearly is a tension of conflicting principles in such situations.

Can there be a case for refusing to supply humanitarian aid? There is nothing to stop the Burmese junta refusing to accept aid if they feel that they are being pressured into reforms and compromises which they are simply unwilling to accept. The dilemma is that this is a government which permits it’s armed forces to open fire on it’s own citizens. If they refuse to comply with the “advocacy package” that comes with the aid, it will only increase the suffering of the poorest and most vulnerable people.

To a large extent this seems like common sense. However in recent years data collection and polling has become much more sophisticated. In his book “Microtrends”, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Mark Penn claimed to have identified 75 different subgroups of people, ranging from Christian Zionists to Impressionable Elites. George Bush’s success in 2004 is also largely attributed to a very sucessful micro-targeting campaign by Karl Rove.

This passage from Democrat Strategist Ed Kilgore’s review of Mark Penn’s book highlights some key concerns and rebuttals of using Mictrends in political campaigning.

Penn’s critics often fear that his goal is to undermine broad progressive political themes by encouraging an unprincipled slicing and dicing of the electorate to identify various swing targets. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with understanding the electorate in all its complexity, and forswearing microanalysis guarantees willful ignorance but does not guarantee a macropolitics of progressive principle.

Is Fragmentation Really Occurring?

I that fragmentation as a result mainly as a result of the internet is actually occurring. I’m really looking forward to reading Clay Shirkey’s new book which arguest that it is and that this is a good thing (Edited transcript of a speech he gave previewing some of his ideas).

Where do you Draw the Line?
In that sense I don’t necessarily think its a bad idea to understand demographics. I support stressing different policies to separate groups and using different media based on who you are targeting.

I don’t think it is in the interests of progressives to tailor their policies in order to meet perceived voter demands. The Iraq war is a classic example of this. By trying to triangulate, first John Kerry and now Hillary Clinton came across as being naive and indecisive. This proved bad both politically and in terms of real world outcomes.

This also has a negative impact when governing. By reducing the 10 pence tax rate and reducing the middle income band, Gordon Brown thought he was onto a winner by increasing his appeal with people in the middle. The subsequent climbdown has only added to his woes.

A more pervasive example of this is the way in which centre-left governments manipulate tax credits and deductions in order to appease different groups. General frustration with how complicated the tax code is, is often used as an argument by the right to argue for reducing taxes or even implementing a flat tax.

With Gordon Brown seemingly intent on hiring Mark Penn himself, it seems like we’ll get the chance to see how microtrends work in the UK.

There are only six contests remaining in the Democratic primary calendar and only 217 pledged delegates left to be awarded. Only 7 percent of the pledged delegates remain on the table. There are 260 remaining undeclared superdelegates, for a total of 477 delegates left to be awarded.
With North Carolina and Indiana complete, Barack Obama only needs 172 total delegates to capture the Democratic nomination. This is only 36 percent of the total remaining delegates
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Since February 5, the Obama campaign has netted 107 superdelegates, and the Clinton campaign only 21. Since the Pennsylvania primary, much of it during the challenging Rev. Wright period, we have netted 24 and the Clinton campaign 17.

If all this is gobbledegook to you, don’t worry about it. The point is, Obama is home free. He is the man. And I’m gonna book a ticket to the US for October to work for his campaign. I need more political experience. Who’s coming with me?

In a recent article for the Guardian’s Comment is Free pages I questioned the way in which nationalism is being used to give rhetorical power to environmental politics and I was surprised by the vehemence of some of the blog responses. I think those responses means the subject is worth a little continued exploration and Pickled Politics seems like an ideal venue.

In the article I outlined why I was bothered – I am bothered – by the way in which certain writers have recently begun celebrating localism as ‘really’ English. By doing this these writers and activists inevitably set up an all too familiar dichotomy according to which some cultural phenomena are truly English and others are not.

This is a problem for the same old reasons it has been a problem in the past, because once you hit on your definition of ‘real’ Englishness you place those aspects of national life that are not to your taste outside the sphere of acceptable behaviour.

I think that so far this trend has been tolerable to the left because the phenomena which have been excluded are unpalatable to liberal sensibilities; they include supermarkets, industrial farming and chain stores. But isn’t the desire to define Englishness a problem in and of itself? Isn’t it even more of a problem when it is yoked so explicitly to rural tradition? After all, most of us are not rural, nor are our lifestyles recognisably traditional and I for one see no particular reason why they should be.

England is a country with a wide variety of inhabitants of different backgrounds, different faiths, ethnicities, religions and so on but also of sensibilities, views, likes and dislikes and of course shopping and cooking habits. To what extent do we need to think about these habits in nationalist terms? And what are the consequences of doing so?

I would argue that we take a risk in equating environmental choices with nationalist commitment, and that the risk far outweighs the benefits. Talking about Englishness is one thing, an ongoing national conversation can be a positive means of creating, and re-creating, civic bonds and of broadening, changing and deepening our sense of what being English is about, but settling on a fixed conclusion is quite another.

When it comes to Englishness, it’s the journey that really matters, not arriving at a fixed and firmly sign-posted destination.

Genevieve Maitland Hudson is an academic and writer employed at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and Birkbeck College in London.

I know Sunny doesn’t want anymore posts which give fuel to the Tories about Brown but this shouldn’t be ignored. A new poll has found that even Labour voters (see it’s not just normal people) want him gone. Sensing perhaps a better future without him 55% want him to resign:

More than a half of Labour supporters believe that Gordon Brown should stand down to make way for a more electable alternative.

Today’s Populus poll for The Times — the first survey since last Thursday’s local elections — shows a dramatic collapse of confidence in Mr Brown’s leadership.

The Prime Minister’s personal rating has dropped sharply, along with that for Labour. He now trails David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the leadership stakes.

So, the public voting last week shows great distaste for Dear Leader, his backbenchers are feeling troubled, even some of his ministers are talking behind his back and now his own loyal voters have given their two cents.

Can Brown really last a year of this?

Officials want to deter foreigners from visiting the area which Russia and Britain sparred over during the 19th century “Great Game” of imperial expansion. “We will have all the same activities but in a more secure place,” said Syed Aqil Shah, the province’s minister for tourism.

But locals, who come from Pakistan’s poor, semi-nomadic Wakhi people, have complained that the move would entail herding dozens of yaks over a glacier and the 15,000ft Darkhot Pass in the Hindu Kush to Gilgit, a land alien to the Wakhi. A local dignitary, who asked not to be named, said the move had “caused local anger and threatened the Wakhi’s only source of income”.

We will never be successful in pacifying Afghanistan (and the NWFP) unless the vast majority of the population choose not to take arms up against us. Now, having to cancel your polo game and suffering financially is not as bad as having your house blown up or being jailed without trial for years. However, in its own way, it demonstrates how the pig-headiness of a few can create problems for the many. How many Wakhi will now take up arms against NATO and Pakistani troops? Why couldn’t the CIA listening post have been placed elsewhere, or moved, or simply endured a game or two of yak polo? Britain and the rest are not just fighting a war in Afghanistan, they are fighting for a peace as well. That peace will only come if we stop doing things like this.

More than two decades after President Ronald Reagan escalated the war on drugs, arrests for drug sales or, more often, drug possession are still rising. And despite public debate and limited efforts to reduce them, large disparities persist in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, even though the two races use illegal drugs at roughly equal rates.
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“The way the war on drugs has been pursued is one of the biggest reasons for the growing racial disparities in criminal justice over all,” said Ryan S. King, a policy analyst with the Sentencing Project, who wrote its report, which focuses on the differential arrest rates, not only between races but also among cities around the country. Some cities pursue urban, minority drug use far more intensively than do others.

Does anyone know of a similar London based report? If Boris is serious about tackling murders in London, then he may also want to look at this intriguing NYT feature on how some people set about to stop murders in Chicago.

Politics down the YouTube

The Evening Standard may have helped Boris Johnson enormously in his election campaign, but its impact in influencing the Mayoral race four years from now may be dwarfed by a bigger competitor: YouTube.

The mayoral election was in many ways a turning point for the convergence of new media and politics. For the first time bloggers like myself were inundated with videos uploaded to the internet, attacking the Tory candidate.

These weren’t just clips of London’s new mayor being asked by Jeremy Paxman 13 times on the cost of his new buses, or Arnold Schwarzenegger whispering to his aide that he was “fumbling all over the place” during a speech, or embarrassing segments from Have I Got News For You.

In fact many were newly made attack ads that brought together a whole litany of incidents Boris would rather forget, while others poked fun of the floppy haired one in the form of songs. My favourite one was a remix of Kate Nash’s Why You Being a Dickhead For, but for sheer hilarity nothing beat the posh bloke singing I think I Fancy Boris in front of Westminster.

But there is a serious side to all this fun. While broadcasting rules prohibit political parties from the number of broadcasts they can air to make their case to the public – on the internet anything goes.

In the last week of campaigning the Libdem candidate Brian Paddick released two videos through YouTube, satirising both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. They weren’t funny enough to catch fire among the Bebo/Facebook crowd, but these are the birth pangs of a political shift using new media.

In the United States online video has already played a huge role in the Presidential election. From Obama Girl, a spoof female superhero who has regular updates on her battle to win him the nomination to the now infamous slicing and dicing of speeches by Obama’s pastor Rev Jeremiah Wright, they have frequently ended up making news.

In some cases candidates have even released campaign videos directly online instead of paying for television ads, and watched them make the headlines or be distributed across thousands of blogs. CNN and YouTube even hosted a debate for the candidates with questions being sent in by video.

But while there is little restriction on political advertising in the States - the candidates have already spent over $232 million on their presidential bid – British political parties are limited by the number of candidates they put forward.

Slowly but surely they are experimenting with new media to reach potential voters, as Barack Obama has done there with extensive social networking tools on his website. Starting Facebook groups, taking part in web-chats, messaging on Twitter and using the websites to sign up volunteers are only a small part of what is about to come.

Political videos - whether made by passionate supporters, passionate haters or directly by the campaigns themselves – is where the real difference can be made.

The most dramatic example was of Boris Johnson being ambushed by a Labour supporter on the cost of his buses, and having the exchange caught on mobile video. Labour’s press office immediately uploaded it to YouTube and sent links to all the journalist. They were rewarded by coverage on BBC London News.

The Mayoral race, because of its closeness and larger-than-life personalities, subtly shifted the rules of the game. That trickle could soon turn into a flood as bloggers, and musicians, use the web to hold politicians to scrutiny and make their life as difficult as possible. The revolution may yet end up being televised.

The title of this post should be self-explanatory… otherwise see: icanhascheezburger.com

But. There is a danger, when talking about race and religion and even feminism, that people take offence too easily. This is destructive. I’m not sure what Rupa’s argument is - I’m sure she’ll explain herself below soon enough - because initially it’s about how Ruth Fowler has a bit a colonial hangover and then its about not recognising the diversity amongst British Asians. On the latter, I think white people are getting the hang of it - its the brown people who are more guilty of perpetuating it. During the mayoral race we saw Muslim groups pretending that all Muslims behaved the same and would march to the ballot box and ensure Boris wouldn’t be let in. We know how that turned out.

Was Ruth Fowler being patronising when she said she liked Asian boys? Let’s throw away the assumption this is only one way. People of all races find those others ‘exotic’ and sometimes want them on that basis. Not all the time, but it does happen. Asian ‘boys’ are no different. Asian women aren’t any different. So if a white girl says that about a brown guy, its colonial… and if a brown boy says that about a white or black girl… does it became reverse-colonialism? C’mon now! This is a new generation and I think its time to lay the orientalism crap to rest… or leave it to the Daily Express.

Now - about the title of this post. The question posed was a long-running joke among us barficulture regulars (when I used to spend more time running it) because so many Asian guys came on and asked it. After a while we just made fun of them. (The other long-running joke question was: Do girls find guys with turbans attractive? Heh).
I’ve known Asian girls with a preference for black guys because they saw them as more virile and women with a preference for white guys because they came without the cultural baggage.

You know what - it’s a free world. People get too uptight about these things. Don’t get mad, get laid! That’s my pearl of wisdom this bank holiday weekend.

I live in Greater London, but not the central bit, and the idea that I am a Londoner doesn’t really appeal to me. I voted in the London elections, but I think that I, and many others in the outlying areas, would be happiest if we were simply cut off from mayoral control. Under Ken Livingstone, it seemed as if the only London that mattered was the inner bit, yet the rest of us were still paying for it. Gretaer London is too large an entity for most people to develop an affinity with it, so Boris Johnson’s first order of business should be to set us free, even if that dooms him in four years’ time.

Whilst Muslim lobby groups are to be commended for encouraging Muslim Londoners to register, vote and take part in the democratic process, we need to ask whether their strategy of campaigning for the “Muslim vote” backfired? Did it play directly into the hands of Ken’s adversaries in attempting to smear Ken by association and mobilising otherwise apathetic surburban Londoners to come out for Boris?
…
The last time I recall the “Muslim vote” being mobilised so counter-productively was in the US during the 2000 presidential elections when American Muslims were urged to vote for George W Bush (against Al Gore and Joe Lieberman). It was felt that an Al Gore victory, coupled with an assassin’s bullet, would leave a Jewish, and presumed pro-Israel candidate, as president. Instead, they got Bush and Cheney! How’s that for a counterproductive strategy?

Spot on! Asim adds to this:

Muslim lobbyists, by trying to put all their eggs in Ken’s basket, had no Plan B. Other minorities showed greater political nuance. I saw no JewsforBoris or GaysforBrian campaigns, for example. We were never voting for the mayor of Jerusalem

Well, we did have ‘Progressives for against Ken’, another immature campaign. Harry’s Place, who were a leading proponent of this strategy, don’t know what to say now that Boris is in power. C’mon guys, no champagne bottles being popped? I thought you’d be ecstatic that Boris the Tory was in power? It was obvious by the last week the choice was only between Ken and Boris. If you want Ken out then you must not have a problem with Boris coming in, right? Apparently not.

That stupid letter was among the worst things to befall Ken Livingstone. If you can’t frikking mobilise your vote because you don’t have real grassroots pull, as neither Anas Altkriti nor Azzam Tamimi did, then there’s no point helping the opposition. Boris should thank these two and the MCB for the letter.

Tensions over immigration are running higher than before, whether it is to do with jobs, crime or public services. There are some parts of London, like Barking and Dagenham, which have become a haven for the BNP. Despite all this though, the BNP’s voteshare hardly increased, rising from 4.71% in 2004 to 5.33%. The number of votes did rise from 90,365 to 130,714, but part of that can be accounted for by higher turnout. Nor could the BNP even win one seat in the assembly under the first-past-the-post system, having to rely on the London-wide top-up system instead. In the mayoral elections, Boris Johnson received more than sixteen times the number of votes than the BNP mayoral candidate did. People might be discontented, but they aren’t flocking to the BNP just yet.

Anyway, this reminds me of Sathnam Sanghera’s book again. He’s writing this postcard to his ex-girlfriend:

Dearest Alison, I know you said you didn’t want me to contact you, in person, by phone, email, or letter. But you didn’t mention postcard! So I’m writing to you on the back of this picture of the man on the horse - remember? Anyway you’ll be glad to know I’m not writing to you to ask you to change your mind. I agree it probably wasn’t going to work out between us, we wind each other up too much, but… I just wanted to take you up on a few things you said on Friday.

First, my family are not ‘racist’ in not wanting me to go out with someone who is not Sikh. My dilemma is more subtle than that. And it’s depressing that after so much time you still don’t understand that. Second, I am not, as you say, ‘trapped in a dysfunctional pattern’ with my relationships - you’ve been reading too many women’s magazines.

I don’t think my relationship history is untypical of a man of my age. Furthermore, I am not, as you say, ‘running scared of confronting my mother’. I’m just waiting for the right person and the right time, and then I will do it, on my own terms. There’s no point sparking a family drama when I haven’t someone to commit to anyway. And I realise that someone isn’t you. I’m sorry we both wasted each other’s time. Good Luck. S.

Of course, like all Asian men, he has issues. I’m trying to write an article about this too but so many other subjects keep coming up… Hmmm. Since so many of you here are in mixed relationships, what do you folks think?

Labour are getting a battering at the polls, the biggest losses in 40 years. Full coverage with a useful table of results on the BBC here.

BBC research suggests Labour won 24% of votes cast in England and Wales, behind the Tories on 44% and Lib Dems on 25%.

So far Labour has lost 177 councillors and key councils like Reading. Tory gains include Bury and North Tyneside.

Mr Brown insists his party will learn lessons. David Cameron called it a “big moment” for the Conservative Party.[Via BBC News online]

London results aren’t announced until early evening but until then consider this the Election results open thread for comments, predications, speculation on Brown/Labour’s future, wild accusations and gloating!

Betsy Reed says that while the Clinton have used the race card throughout the elections, Obama has avoided using the gender card to cast a shadow over Hillary Clinton. Her point is that by giving legitimacy to the American system, whereby coded euphemisms are used to cast a shadow over any non-White Anglo-Saxon Protestant candidate, she makes life in politics more difficult for people of colour and women.

“More than any single thing, that moment with Bill Clinton in South Carolina represents the rupture that was coming,” says Harris-Lacewell. The moment occurred in late January, when the former President compared Obama’s landslide win, in which he received a major boost from African-American voters, to Jesse Jackson’s victories there in 1984 and 1988. Because the former President offered the comparison unprompted, in response to a question that had nothing to do with Jackson or race, the statement was widely read as chalking up Obama’s win to his blackness alone and thus attempting to marginalize him as a doomed minority candidate with limited appeal. Obama was now “the black candidate,” in the words of one Clinton strategist quoted by the AP.
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In the Democratic debates, enabled by the moderators, Hillary Clinton has increasingly deployed issues of race and patriotism as a wedge strategy against her opponent. First, in the debate in Cleveland on February 26, she pressed Obama not only to denounce but to reject Louis Farrakhan–to whom he was spuriously linked through Reverend Wright, who had taken a trip with the black nationalist leader in the 1980s.
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Time after time, Clinton picked up the line and ran with it. “You know, these are problems, and they raise questions in people’s minds. And so this is a legitimate area…for people to be exploring and trying to find answers,” she said, seeming to abandon her argument that these issues are fair game now only because they will be raised by Republicans later and thus are relevant to an evaluation of Obama’s electability.
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It’s disappointing, to say the least, to see the first viable female contender for the presidency participate in attacks on her black opponent’s patriotism, which exploit an anxious climate around national security that gives white men an edge both over women and people of color–who tend to be viewed, respectively, as weak and potentially traitorous. Says Paula Giddings, “This idea of nationalism and patriotism pulling at everyone has demanded hypermasculine men, more like McCain than the feline Obama, and demanded women whose role is to be maternal more than anything else.”
…
But of the present, she says, “It is such a distressing, ugly period. Clinton has manipulated ideas about race, but Obama has not manipulated similar ideas about gender.” This has exacerbated longstanding racial tensions within the women’s movement, Collins notes, and is likely to alienate young black women who might otherwise have been receptive to feminism. “We had made progress in getting younger black women to see that gender does matter in their lives. Now they are going to ask, What kind of white woman is Hillary Clinton?”

MIA is of course fantabulous, but they missed out Bishi. I would have gone to see her.

King Midas once entertained and sheltered a friend of Dionysus’ (who was the god of wine). As a thank you, Dionysus offered to grant Midas one wish; Midas wished that anything he touched would turn to gold. Dionysus reluctantly agreed, and Midas went merrily round turning everything into gold. But when he sat down to eat, Midas found that the food he picked up turned to gold, while the water and wine he tried to pour down his throat become liquid gold as soon as it touched his lips. Soon he was hungry and thirsty, and was willing to trade all his gold for some bread and water. Eventually Dionysus took pity on him, and told him how to get rid of the ‘Midas touch’. Midas later became a hippy.

This myth seems to me to have some interesting parallels with Gordon Brown’s premiership. By becoming prime minister, Gordon Brown achieved his heart’s desire, and everything went really well at first. He stepped out of Tony Blair’s shadow and became number one. Yet now everything is going wrong, and Gordon Brown does not look like he enjoys being a head of government. He does not like going abroad, or PMQs, or defending his subordinates when things go wrong. He seems as if he would be much happier in another role, and I suspect he would trade it all in for an opportunity to become chancellor again; power without the limelight. He has realised that his ‘heart’s desire’ is not that at all: he has the Midas touch.

It was a bit of a boring discussion in front of a very expectant audience because basically everyone agreed that Islam was compatible with democracy and the best system for Muslims etc. Yada yada. But c’mon, hardly getting to the nub of the problem was it? Here are three immediate thoughts:

1) If Inayat Bunglawala considers secular democratic principles to be compatible with Islam and quite a good system - then why the need for a Khilafah (caliphate)? I’m not saying this to take a pot-shot at him, but merely asking why there is so much rhetoric around the need for Muslims to form a country governed by a religious authority? I asked him the question but he ducked it by saying people can decide themselves by voting if they want a religious state. But do they have the choice to go back if they don’t like living in a religious state? And when Asim Siddiqui writes about secular democracy on CIF, Inayat always challenges him by saying Muslims should always strive for a Khilafah. I think he’s still confused.

2) Democracy isn’t just about voting once every 5 years. It’s about freedom of choice and even local decision making. One of the many reasons why British Muslims (Sikhs, Hindus too, to a lesser extent though) don’t embrace democracy so readily is that they’re not empowered by democracy and choice within their own communities. Because of the biraderi (elders) system - people are told what to do. There is little sense of taking reponsibility for decisions (even for something like marriage!) hence the lack of a build up of that democractic knowledge. This is also why many young Muslims are attracted towards religion - to escape the oppression that comes with the culture. They see it as a form of self-empowerment when they have little other ways to express it.

3) The MCB (like its Sikh and Hindu counterparts) is profoundly undemocractic itself, so I don’t know how it can claim to like democracy. For a long time they claimed to represent the voice of Muslims without any democractic accountability. All these religious organisations are affiliated with orgs that are mostly run by middle-aged men, are out of touch with the youth and there are no ‘elections’ are such that are open. For them to talk about how great democracy is, is rather amusing.

Right, I’m now off to vote. If any of you haven’t voted for Sian Berry 1 and Ken Livingstone 2, then you’re gonna get a spanking by Sid. With a big whip. The Bengalis are notorious for that sort of thing.

Anyway, following the controversy over Rev Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama, I thought i’d make a broader point about the dynamics with minority communities on “speaking out” and raising your head above the parapet etc.

What I like about Obama is that the man has to walk a very difficult tightrope. The Clintons and Republicans are doing everything to make it about his race, in coded terms (how patriotic are you really??), while Obama has to sit there and take it. He can’t acknowledge that shit because as soon as he does, they’ll just brand him a whiny black man complaining about racism. Its just not the done thing when you want to transcend race.

Anyway, here’s the article…

I suspect black households across America are currently embroiled in vicious debates about Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Since over 90% of Democrat-voting African Americans have supported Obama, I doubt many would be pleased to see his own former pastor determined to speak “truth to power” even if it sinks the Illinois senator.

But there were many, notably at the NAACP dinner where Wright said criticism levelled at him was an attack on black churches, who were supportive of his “bombastic” attitude.

In many ways this goes to the heart of how minority groups communicate with whites in western democracies, a debate that has had more airing in America than in the UK. But given the background of terrorism and a feeling here that we are unsure of our own national identity, it is more important than ever.

Context is important here. Where minority groups congregate, whether that be online, in a mosque or a community hall, a different language is spoken on contentious issues such as racism and xenophobia. America’s black churches clearly offer a safe house for African Americans to come together as a community and air their grievances. It’s not about resolving issues, sometimes it’s just about venting their anger.

Racism emasculates people - it makes them feel belittled. Black churches and other such “safe spaces” fulfil a vital role by trying to convert that feel of emasculation and anger into empowerment, which may involve criticising the establishment heavily. The establishment is, after all, the main reason why inequality persists.

I’m generalising here for the sake of brevity - not all such places are the same. A forum populated by young British Asians is likely to be less about racism (and more about flirting) than a gathering place where members of the first generation meet.

According to the Washington Post, Wright said the black church tradition was neither bombastic nor controversial but misunderstood by the “dominant culture” in the US. Maybe, but that is neither here nor there. The problem, as it became apparent over the weekend, is that Wright was only interested in preaching to his flock. Obama meanwhile is trying to straddle two different worlds and speak to a wider audience. And therein lies the conflict and what makes this dialogue so difficult.

Britain has its own Wright in the form of Dr Mohammad Naseem, chairman of Birmingham mosque, who infamously refused to believe 7/7 could have been the work of British Muslims and claimed the videotape by Mohammad Sidique Khan was doctored.

Where there’s a crossover, a clash occurs. People such as Wright and Naseem want to communicate the hurt and anger, which makes them popular within their own flocks, but does nothing to address the concerns of the majority. There is no dialogue, only confrontation.

Its an unfortunate fact that most “community leaders” of minorities in Britain and the US are more interested in pandering to their own base than taking part in a discussion that bridges the gap. Hence the continuous stream of gaffes by Muslim leaders here, including that letter on terrorism and foreign policy.

This is what made Martin Luther King so compelling. He spoke of black people lifting themselves, not by denigrating white people but by speaking to both communities in a language whites and blacks could identify with. We have a modern Martin Luther King in the form of Barack Obama, but he’s being dragged down by the us versus them politics that has become so ingrained.

That is not to say only minorities should make the effort. Trying to get white people to talk about racism is like … well, trying to get white people to talk about racism, concluded one very astute blogger.

It’s too easy to slice and dice quotes from Wright and Naseem and paint them as nutters without bothering to pay any attention to what they were saying. A modern media environment that thrives on sensationalism only makes this worse.

The real problem is that trying to get anyone to talk about their own hypocrisy is difficult. Brown people certainly are not averse to bigotry and xenophobia themselves, and boy do they hate it when confronted with this fact. Similarly some whites pretend they’ve never benefited from past privilege.

But rather than acknowledge that no one is perfect and have an honest dialogue on that basis, people prefer to see themselves as victims. In Britain the victim mentality is everywhere.

We’re the victims of Muslim terrorists and black kids with guns, while they’re the victims of our foreign policy and policing. The aggressors, depending on who you speak to, are: Europe, the establishment, the police, political correctness, New Labour, the BNP, Jews, Muslims, bloggers, yobs, pregnant young girls, large corporations, the Chinese, Iranians, radical preachers, bendy buses, hippies, libertarians and so on. We’ve become a nation of victims. To each it’s inconceivable of course how the other could be the victim when they themselves are.

There is a serious point to be made here. Freedom of speech is a bit useless if you’re not willing to hear what the other has to say, and why. We have to understand each other’s language and motivations otherwise all we get is a series of confrontations.

Journalists want soundbites and three-minute packages; bloggers want to shoot first and ask later; newspapers take harmless remarks and skew them. No one wants to deconstruct what’s going on, not even the BBC.

I’m trying to avoid sounding like I’m complaining here because its an obvious point to make. When a “leader” of a minority background wants to communicate with whites, they have to speak to both, not just their own flock. And vice versa.

During our mayoral elections Boris Johnson belatedly realised that London isn’t Henley and that there were reasons why ethnic minorities support Ken Livingstone overwhelmingly - the latter doesn’t talk about them just in the context of terrorism or immigration. Suddenly Boris was crowing about his Muslim heritage and trying to “out-ethnic” Asian DJs.

Similarly, when British Muslims want to challenge their own community leaders or question the narrative on terrorism (that it’s all about the Iraq war), they get shouted down by those who accuse them of being sellouts. I’ve faced the same claim many of times.

To Wright, Obama has now become a sellout and part of the establishment, which is why he doesn’t care if Obama gets buried. But he forgets that African Americans voted for Obama precisely because they long to get past that us versus them divide, and so the backlash has started.

Wright should have kept his mouth shut but instead, as Michael Tomasky pointed out, he needs to re-affirm his righteous view that America is too racist to elect a black president. And there’s nothing more annoying than being a called a sellout/dhimmi/wet-liberal when you’re trying to build bridges.