There are several problems with Galloway's entry into the debate surrounding Maajid Nawaz.
The recent debate over Maajid Nawaz’s tweet depicting Jesus and Mohammed is a hot one. The right to be offended versus respect for the sensitivities of certain communities is as old as time itself, and wading into it requires careful consideration of the facts and pause for reflection.
These are things you don’t get with George Galloway.
The leader of the Respect Party has slurred Nawaz, calling him “rancid” and promising to invite applications for Respect candidates in the area of Hampstead and Kilburn – where Nawaz is standing for the Liberal Democrats.
The problem here is not that Galloway has (hamfistedly) entered the debate; nor that Respect will stand a candidate. The problem is the reason he has given for doing so.
“No Muslim”, Galloway added, “will ever vote for the Liberal Democrats anywhere ever unless they ditch the provocateur Maajid Nawaz”
Now, we’ve been in this extraordinary position before. This is not the first time Galloway has appointed himself as the authentic voice for all Muslims everywhere.
Many will remember the personal letter he sent around households, addressing voters of the Muslim faith and Pakistani heritage in Bradford West in 2012, in which he said: “I, George Galloway, do not drink alcohol and never have. Ask yourself if you believe the other candidate in this election can say that truthfully.”
In a concluding phrase, that led to the later revelation that Galloway had actually converted from Catholicism to Islam, he said: “God KNOWS who is a Muslim. And he KNOWS who is not. Instinctively, so do you”.
There are two glaring problems with Galloway’s recent entry into the debate around Nawaz. Firstly that while appointing himself Muslim spokesperson No.1 he is sidelining pro-free speech Islamic voices and implying that Islam shares a single voice on all issues; and second that he has extraordinary access to future voting trends of Muslims countrywide.
With the first, Galloway’s motives are clearly just deluded. Depictions of the Prophet Mohammed may well be the subject of some contention; but the wider implication of Galloway’s intervention are that: a) Muslims can never support free speech, and b) they must be treated with kid gloves.
The former is untrue, the latter has Galloway patronising the very people who he supposedly represents.
The burden of proof is really upon Galloway to prove that no Muslim will ever vote a Liberal Democrat again (there are far better reasons than tweets) – and I would suggest he has no proof to say this. But another thought should have entered Galloway’s head.
Supposing he is correct, and no Muslim supports, in principle, the right to be offended in a society that is free: is this not something worthy of challenge? After all, what Nawaz tweeted was not simply a depiction of Jesus and Mo, but an affront to establishment attempts to treat Muslim people with kid gloves, reduce them to non-thinking children, and regulate like a parent what they can and can’t hear.
Is any of that the sort of society you wish to live in?
Free speech is something worth defending, and is afforded defense in the British legal system. For any doubt on Islamic law and the laws of any given land, Professor Shaheen Ali of Warwick University once pointed out that: “Britain affords a legal system to all its habitants and is therefore congruent with Islam and social justice”.
There is an immediate problem with Galloway pretending to be the voice of Islam – itself patronising and insensitive. Here is a man who supports Syrian President Assad, who makes a point of killing Muslims in his own country, and who denies that gays and lesbians in Iran, some of whom will be Muslim, are persecuted.
But the real problem is that Galloway fails to challenge erroneous views on freedom and human rights that he believes are universal among his supporters. That’s cowardice.
48 Responses to “Is George Galloway really the authentic voice of all Muslims everywhere?”
Tax Wall street transaction 1%
Majority of muslim leaders are western puppets and muslims are very distrustful of them. In the west, G Galloway is probably the only independent voice muslim will have for the time being.
Club Of Rome
The Club of Rome, Committee of
300
These people operate on a global
perspective.
They ARE the “one world government”.
THEY
are destroying the middle class.
The de-industrialization of
western countries is happening because THEY are executing their
plans. We are watching them rip countries to shreds, kill millions of
people, take absolute control of resources, and give us media
propaganda to engage our anger and direct it to the “enemies”
they manufacture.
THEY are the people behind the manufactured
“enemies” – they instigate infighting; so we focus our
anger on each other: we hate the muslims, we hate the jews, we hate
the christians, we hate the democrats, we hate the republicans…. we
hate each other.
They remain safe and protected from scrutiny
because they have created a system to shield them from view. We see
the David Rockefellers, the Ben Bernankes, the Barack Obamas; we see
only their minions. Puppets, all.
But to see behind those
puppets; to view the real controllers is to violate their carefully
constructed shield of invisibility. For this you will be called
‘paranoid’. This is a psyop: you are being marginalized with
stigmatizing labels because you are a threat. We are so conditioned
to herd mentality; we are fearful of being labeled and ostracized. To
accept that, and remain silent in the face of this threat is to
surrender to their control.
These are the real enemies:
the people controlling the puppets in government, industries
including pharma, agri-business, defense contractors, non-profit
‘humanitarian’ organizations, and the media propaganda machines that
serve up our daily doses of conditioning to keep us in the dark. To
keep us fighting amongst ourselves.
The Club of Rome, The
Committee of 300, The Bilderberg Group, Council for foreign relations
The Trilateral Commission. These are some of the groups controlling
or trying to control the world.
The next time you think to
perpetuate the false enemy agenda; to post something that
fear-mongers about any group of people, think about these ‘clubs’.
They’ve planted the seeds to grow hatred, and you are providing
fertilizer every time you spread the hate.
Source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN-0XZNps18
Anti Corporatist
Why does that matter? Aren’t you prejudice?
Tax Cut Is Corporate Wellfare
So you’re an islamophobe. I would like to say you’re a ‘brain washed’, but for that, you must have a brain first!
Bank Cartels
Well right now, jews (israelis) are slaughtering muslims in ME in case you’ve been in your beauty coma for past couple of decades. BTW, Zioinists hate homosexual more than muslims. See how wrong you’re.