By James Cox
The dawning of a general election campaign and we all have difficult decisions to make if we wish to exercise our legal right to vote for the party who will govern us for up to five years, until we have to do it all again.
For some, it will be a selection based on parental guidance (which is as illogical as the social perpetuation of localised religion, and a damn sight more important than which football team to follow), for a few it will be based on the physical interpretation of political promises and key issues, and for others it will be based on the candidates haircut and tie.
I’d like to appeal to those who, like me, are disenchanted by the political system; By the “us and them” mentality coursing through the veins of BOTH majority parties.
We live in an age where Labour fail to represent the working Left, undermining the entire principle of their existence. New Labour and the Tories seem remarkably interchangeable, in this age of media savvy Government and after 13 years of bloody war, privatisation and assaults on workers’ living standards, some say they will never vote Labour again. Already the Labour vote has slumped by four million between 1997 and 2005.
But there is an important difference between Labour and the Tories.
Basically it comes down to class and the reactionary nature of the “right” we have come to openly abhor in publications such as the Daily Mail : a nasty, fear mongering daily that wears it’s preservative, colonial, prejudices on its cuff linked sleeve.
Labour still retains a link with the organised working class through its union affiliations. And workers vote far more heavily for Labour than any other party.
Around 50 to 60 percent of workers vote Labour at general elections, three or four times more than any other party.
The Labour Party came into being to represent trade union leaders in parliament. The unions are still important to the party, although the union leaders are remarkably reluctant to use their power inside it in any meaningful way.
The Labour Party is based on the idea that workers can collectively change society while operating within the existing capitalist system.
It is a break from the idea that everything is best left to our “betters”. But it is still imprisoned by the severe limitations of a modern capitalist democracy that dictates votes are won and lost in televised debates and by vocal celebrity endorsement.
There are MANY reasons I will never vote for a Conservative Government and I think HOMOPHOBIA may be as good a reason as any.
In 1988 the Conservative Government instigated the controversial SECTION 28.
The amendment stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.
Conservative MP Jill Knight, who introduced Section 28, 1999 speech:
I was contacted by parents who strongly objected to their children at school being encouraged into homosexuality and being taught that a normal family with mummy and daddy was outdated. To add insult to their injury, they were infuriated that it was their money, paid over as council tax, which was being used for this.
They gave me some of the books with which little children as young as five and six were being taught. There was The Playbook for Kids about Sex in which brightly coloured pictures of little stick men showed all about homosexuality and how it was done. That book was for children as young as five. I should be surprised if anybody supports that.
(Note: She obviously never read Roger Red Hat).
In 1983 the Daily Mail, reported that a copy of a book entitled Jenny lives with Eric and Martin – portraying a little girl who lives with her father and his gay partner – was provided in a school library run by the Labour-controlled Inner London Education Authority.
This is the same newspaper that not only supports and compliments Conservative policies but also published a very recent editorial condemning late popstar Stephen Gately for his lifestyle choice: “the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see” – Jan Moir 16/11/09, Daily Mail.
In 1999 Conservative leader William Hague controversially sacked frontbencher Shaun Woodward for refusing to support the party line that Section 28 should not be repealed.
2000 saw prominent gay Conservative Ivan Massow defect to the Labour Party in response to the Conservative Party's continued support of Section 28.[15]
In May, 2000 the Christian Institute unsuccessfully took Glasgow City Council to court for funding an AIDS support charity which the Institute alleged promoted homosexuality. It had done so under the Conservative endorsed legislation of Section 28.
CONSERVATIVE LEADER, POLITICAL CANDIDATE AND POTENTIAL LEADER OF OUR COUNTRY DAVID CAMERON repeatedly attacked the Labour government's plans to abolish Section 28, publicly criticising then-Prime Minister Tony Blair as being "anti-family" and accused him of wanting the "promotion of homosexuality in schools"; At that time an unelected Conservative party member.
In 2003, once Cameron had been elected as Conservative MP for Witney, he continued to support Section 28. As the Labour government were determined to remove Section 28 from law, Cameron voted in favour of a Conservative amendment that retained certain aspects of the clause, which gay rights campaigners described as "Section 28 by the back door".
This was unsuccessful, and Section 28 was repealed by the Labour government without concession (Cameron was absent for the vote on its eventual repeal). However, in June 2009, Cameron - now the leader of the Conservative party - and campaigning to be the next Prime Minister (hmmmm)- formally apologised for his party introducing the law, stating that it was a mistake and had been offensive to gay people. (Don’t worry about it).
He restated this belief in January 2010 and proposed to alter the policy of the Conservative Party to reflect his belief that equality should be taught in British schools. (He’s a modern guy!)
It is of course up to you to decide if “former” homophobia is a good enough reason not to vote for the elitist, anti-union, Christian-right Conservatives.
It certainly is ONE of the decisive factors for me.
Labour may not offer the solutions we are after, and I feel that impotent dichotomy more than others, but voting for them can stop five years of Conservative rule.
Next week: Conservative rascism.
Showing posts with label features. Show all posts
Showing posts with label features. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Thursday, 26 November 2009
British Muslims battle for identity, with little help from the Media. A feature...
Young British Muslims face an identity crisis. Somewhere between the Amir Kahn’s and the Abu Hamza’s lies the slim definition of moderate Islam. We investigate what it means to be a 20-something Muslim in modern Britain, and why many of them are stuck between Iraq and a hard place! By James Cox.
It’s difficult not to feel overwhelmed by the temperate hot-potato that is modern Islam, a faith attracting the kind of publicity that can define a generation.
Even our language has adapted to the climate: Terror, Guantanamo, Shari-ah, Jihad.
A tabloid goldmine of slogans keeping the middle-Brits awake at night, and with one eye on their neighbour.
From the controversial war in Iraq to the terrorist attacks and hate peddling preachers on our own doorstep, we all take a different look at Islam, and we have a new pin-up for ‘evil’.
But, from the ashes of the media hoopla, emerges a generation of people for whom the rules aren’t so clear. For British Muslims in their teens and early twenties, it’s difficult to know how to please everyone.
Here in the West: home of the disassociated youth, birthplace of the teenager, the dynamic of youth is very different from the moralistic ideals involved in a religious upbringing. For a teenager in Britain, the liberal expression of sexuality and the lure of alcohol seem to be as ingrained in our culture as the importance of abstinence in Islam.
Strangely, British boxing champ Amir Kahn, a twenty-something Muslim in the throes of a glittering career has had no problems winning over the public. Khan said he won his world title for Britain, the Pakistani community, and all Muslims. His public persona and his allegiance to his culture are inseparable, tethered together by his public allusions to it. Khan then was Britain's sole representative in boxing at the 2004 Athens Olympics, winning a silver medal at the age of 17 in the lightweight boxing category. He lost in the final to Mario Kindelan, the Cuban who, in 2005, he avenged the two losses by beating the 34 year old Kindelan in his last amateur fight.
Away from boxing he was involved in a TV programme for Channel 4, Amir Khan's Angry Young Men. The programme centred around troubled angry men and aimed to use the disciplines of boxing, coupled with faith and family values, to help re-focus their lives and steer them away from trouble in the future. He is a rare beacon of positivity in the muddied view of modern Islamic Britons, and even a spell of high profile driving offences, and defeat in the ring, have failed to dampen his popularity.
But even with his clean cut regime and success as a role model, Khan has received criticism from extreme Islamic quarters.
In 2008 Radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammad was quoted in the Daily Mail saying: 'Amir Khan is not a good example for Muslims. He wears shorts with the Union Jack. That is a sin...He should not be wearing the flag because sovereignty is for God. His only allegiance should be to the Prophet Mohammed.'
But even this theological criticism was denounced by Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary general to the Muslim Council of Britain, who pronounced Khan a proud role model.
Whilst Amir Kahn’s own self restraint may be aided (or even initiated) by the necessity for him to be in peak physical condition, does the average person in his demographic make choices on the back of their beliefs or upbringing?
Dee, a 24 year-old student born in Kuwait but raised in London is living proof of the identity crisis.
She is, all at once, a Muslim, a Briton, an Arab and a twenty-something – a colourful heritage made all the more troubling by the current climate.
“I feel incredibly pressured by these two opposing ideals,” says Dee, visibly troubled by her core dilemma. She is dressed in high street fashions, far from the robed extremists and scripture spouting images our media is saturated with.
“I have been raised in a Muslim family, but it is rooted in modern Britain. My parents have never threatened my education, or shielded me from other cultures. I was even educated at a Catholic school. Choices in life come from an individual. You learn things as you grow and interpret teachings in different ways. The choices should come from the individual not a misinterpreted scripture, or societies version of you. It’s a shame the way the media misrepresents modern Muslims. It makes my position even more difficult.”
Indeed, the cultural void imposed upon young Muslims seems married to the way in which we perceive them, and this seems to be the crux of the matter.
The majority of British Muslims come from Indian families, lending a specific weight to how we define what a “Muslim” is. This definition seems flawed when you consider the spectrum of cultures and degrees of belief within the faith.
There is considerable diversity, for example, between Sudanese and Kuwaiti practices.
The faith itself has become co-joined with a culture that exists only as a stereotype.
A faceless foreigner, an alien invader whose ways and customs do not appear to as unilaterally European as we would like.
Dee seems exasperated by this idea that we can define her as a Muslim.
As in any religion around the world some beliefs and practices are shared by all Muslims. Beyond these core elements however, the variations become immense.
“Some Muslims drink, some see pray, some don’t, some enter relationships with non-Muslims, some accept parts of the Qur’an and discard others. Just as some Christians accept homosexuality and the more extreme don’t. How can it not be viewed the same for Islam?
“It is essentially the same as saying you can’t be a Christian if you have had sex before marriage to suggest you can’t be a Muslim and drink.”
In fact it was Arab chemists who discovered alcohol in the middle ages (‘alcohol’ itself is an Arabic word). Islam DOES prohibit consumption, but the Qur’an does this gradually, even attributing, in some verses its beneficial effects. The majority of Muslim countries DO NOT outlaw the sale of alcohol and never have. Only in the more extreme countries such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Sudan do these restrictions apply.
“It’s a personal choice, that can only be made by someone who is well educated, and confident in their faith” Says Dee.
“It is not for us to judge anyone who decides to drink, or to abstain from drinking.
It’s more complicated than that. And the social pressures to enjoy yourself when you’re out seem linked to alcohol consumption. It’s confusing for anyone who’s been educated to not drink. You’re left feeling, Am I British? Am I Islamic, Am I Arabic...what am I? Perhaps I’m all of these things.”
Islam originated in 7th Century Arabia and after the prophet Muhammad’s death in 632AD, it split into two factions: Shi’ite – who believe the leadership should have passed to Ali Ibn Talib (Muhammad’s closest male relative) and the Sunni – who make up 90% of today’s Muslims and revere the caliphs chosen to succeed the him.
It is a common misconception that either group is more extreme than the other. After all, the fundamentalist leaders in Iran and Shi’ite but the Taliban in Afghanistan are Sunni.
By the 17th Century Islam had been and gone from Spain and Portugal, and was practised as far as India and Indonesia and as wide as Central Europe.
Today the rainbow of traditions and interpretations reflect the colourful past of the religion, a far cry from the image we have branded in our cultural consciousness.
It’s difficult not to feel overwhelmed by the temperate hot-potato that is modern Islam, a faith attracting the kind of publicity that can define a generation.
Even our language has adapted to the climate: Terror, Guantanamo, Shari-ah, Jihad.
A tabloid goldmine of slogans keeping the middle-Brits awake at night, and with one eye on their neighbour.
From the controversial war in Iraq to the terrorist attacks and hate peddling preachers on our own doorstep, we all take a different look at Islam, and we have a new pin-up for ‘evil’.
But, from the ashes of the media hoopla, emerges a generation of people for whom the rules aren’t so clear. For British Muslims in their teens and early twenties, it’s difficult to know how to please everyone.
Here in the West: home of the disassociated youth, birthplace of the teenager, the dynamic of youth is very different from the moralistic ideals involved in a religious upbringing. For a teenager in Britain, the liberal expression of sexuality and the lure of alcohol seem to be as ingrained in our culture as the importance of abstinence in Islam.
Strangely, British boxing champ Amir Kahn, a twenty-something Muslim in the throes of a glittering career has had no problems winning over the public. Khan said he won his world title for Britain, the Pakistani community, and all Muslims. His public persona and his allegiance to his culture are inseparable, tethered together by his public allusions to it. Khan then was Britain's sole representative in boxing at the 2004 Athens Olympics, winning a silver medal at the age of 17 in the lightweight boxing category. He lost in the final to Mario Kindelan, the Cuban who, in 2005, he avenged the two losses by beating the 34 year old Kindelan in his last amateur fight.
Away from boxing he was involved in a TV programme for Channel 4, Amir Khan's Angry Young Men. The programme centred around troubled angry men and aimed to use the disciplines of boxing, coupled with faith and family values, to help re-focus their lives and steer them away from trouble in the future. He is a rare beacon of positivity in the muddied view of modern Islamic Britons, and even a spell of high profile driving offences, and defeat in the ring, have failed to dampen his popularity.
But even with his clean cut regime and success as a role model, Khan has received criticism from extreme Islamic quarters.
In 2008 Radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammad was quoted in the Daily Mail saying: 'Amir Khan is not a good example for Muslims. He wears shorts with the Union Jack. That is a sin...He should not be wearing the flag because sovereignty is for God. His only allegiance should be to the Prophet Mohammed.'
But even this theological criticism was denounced by Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary general to the Muslim Council of Britain, who pronounced Khan a proud role model.
Whilst Amir Kahn’s own self restraint may be aided (or even initiated) by the necessity for him to be in peak physical condition, does the average person in his demographic make choices on the back of their beliefs or upbringing?
Dee, a 24 year-old student born in Kuwait but raised in London is living proof of the identity crisis.
She is, all at once, a Muslim, a Briton, an Arab and a twenty-something – a colourful heritage made all the more troubling by the current climate.
“I feel incredibly pressured by these two opposing ideals,” says Dee, visibly troubled by her core dilemma. She is dressed in high street fashions, far from the robed extremists and scripture spouting images our media is saturated with.
“I have been raised in a Muslim family, but it is rooted in modern Britain. My parents have never threatened my education, or shielded me from other cultures. I was even educated at a Catholic school. Choices in life come from an individual. You learn things as you grow and interpret teachings in different ways. The choices should come from the individual not a misinterpreted scripture, or societies version of you. It’s a shame the way the media misrepresents modern Muslims. It makes my position even more difficult.”
Indeed, the cultural void imposed upon young Muslims seems married to the way in which we perceive them, and this seems to be the crux of the matter.
The majority of British Muslims come from Indian families, lending a specific weight to how we define what a “Muslim” is. This definition seems flawed when you consider the spectrum of cultures and degrees of belief within the faith.
There is considerable diversity, for example, between Sudanese and Kuwaiti practices.
The faith itself has become co-joined with a culture that exists only as a stereotype.
A faceless foreigner, an alien invader whose ways and customs do not appear to as unilaterally European as we would like.
Dee seems exasperated by this idea that we can define her as a Muslim.
As in any religion around the world some beliefs and practices are shared by all Muslims. Beyond these core elements however, the variations become immense.
“Some Muslims drink, some see pray, some don’t, some enter relationships with non-Muslims, some accept parts of the Qur’an and discard others. Just as some Christians accept homosexuality and the more extreme don’t. How can it not be viewed the same for Islam?
“It is essentially the same as saying you can’t be a Christian if you have had sex before marriage to suggest you can’t be a Muslim and drink.”
In fact it was Arab chemists who discovered alcohol in the middle ages (‘alcohol’ itself is an Arabic word). Islam DOES prohibit consumption, but the Qur’an does this gradually, even attributing, in some verses its beneficial effects. The majority of Muslim countries DO NOT outlaw the sale of alcohol and never have. Only in the more extreme countries such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Sudan do these restrictions apply.
“It’s a personal choice, that can only be made by someone who is well educated, and confident in their faith” Says Dee.
“It is not for us to judge anyone who decides to drink, or to abstain from drinking.
It’s more complicated than that. And the social pressures to enjoy yourself when you’re out seem linked to alcohol consumption. It’s confusing for anyone who’s been educated to not drink. You’re left feeling, Am I British? Am I Islamic, Am I Arabic...what am I? Perhaps I’m all of these things.”
Islam originated in 7th Century Arabia and after the prophet Muhammad’s death in 632AD, it split into two factions: Shi’ite – who believe the leadership should have passed to Ali Ibn Talib (Muhammad’s closest male relative) and the Sunni – who make up 90% of today’s Muslims and revere the caliphs chosen to succeed the him.
It is a common misconception that either group is more extreme than the other. After all, the fundamentalist leaders in Iran and Shi’ite but the Taliban in Afghanistan are Sunni.
By the 17th Century Islam had been and gone from Spain and Portugal, and was practised as far as India and Indonesia and as wide as Central Europe.
Today the rainbow of traditions and interpretations reflect the colourful past of the religion, a far cry from the image we have branded in our cultural consciousness.
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