[Debate] British muslims - is there such a creature?

LFC Scally lfcscally at hotmail.com
Mon Apr 2 18:21:20 BST 2012 

Having lived and worked in that constituency I would concur with everything Peter has said and add that this was a city were the BNP had some major breakthroughs a few years back and the white working class (to use that daft term beloved of the Blairites and the media) were written off (again-sigh) as backward. To reiterate what I aid last week this shows the fluidity of politics (with a  small and big 'p') with swings between left and right I think this is part of a slow crumbling of the bourgeois centre across Western Europe (that's not to say it can't be rebuilt) and we will see evidence of it in France very soon. Those who mechanically wrote off the left because there was no immediate surge in action/electoral support at the start of the criss were formulaic and they spoke too soon. There have been some interesting electoral victories (not to mention the growing mass resistance) across Europe over the past few months (Denmark, Eire etc). I do not know of a survey of actions in the UK but we have seen a slow but solid development of the anti-cuts movement, several key strikes, the biggest labour march in British history (last year) the riots last summer, and the big public sector strikes last November. The interesting thing is none of this is benefiting the Labour Party and no surprise seeing the parliamentary leadership are not supporting the strikes/riots/protestsand are going along with the Tory agenda.
It's very interesting and exciting times here.
Peter
> From: force44 at btinternet.com
> To: debate-list at fahamu.org
> Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 17:54:42 +0100
> Subject: Re: [Debate] British muslims - is there such a creature?
> 
> No doubt there were some middle class votes for Galloway and no doubt some
> previously Tory voters were also caught up in the momentum, but that should
> not leads us to conclude that the victory should be characterised as
> cross-class. The point is that this is a working class constituency that has
> always voted Labour, not some mixed, 'middle England' seat. If you look
> beyond Galloway's 56% to Labour's 25%, the Tories' 8% and the Lib Dems' 5%,
> that should give you a pretty good picture of the nature of the
> constituency's class composition.
> Peter Manson
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org]
> On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
> Sent: 02 April 2012 17:11
> To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and analyses
> of interest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
> Subject: Re: [Debate] British muslims - is there such a creature?
> 
> Few to no petit-bourgeois votes, then?
> 
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 12:04 PM, Peter <force44 at btinternet.com> wrote:
> > Let me qualify that: the constituency is most definitely working 
> > class, so I do not agree that the vote can be characterised as 
> > cross-class. It was overwhelmingly a cross-faith, cross-ethnic, 
> > working class vote for an old Labour, anti-war, anti-cuts platform.
> > Peter
> >
> > Exactly!
> >
> > Thanks!  There's enough evidence already then that the Galloway 
> > victory was a cross-class, cross-ethnic, cross-faith vote, rather than 
> > an overwhelmingly identity politics vote, and Mehdi Hasan is off target.
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 11:19 AM, Peter <force44 at btinternet.com> wrote:
> >> We know that Galloway won in each of the constituency's six wards, 
> >> from the British Asian-dominated Manningham to the largely white 
> >> working class/middle class Clayton. The constituency is 38% Muslim, 
> >> but Galloway won 56% of the overall vote on a 51% turnout.
> >> Peter Manson
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org
> >> [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org]
> >> On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
> >> Sent: 02 April 2012 15:51
> >> To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and 
> >> analyses of interest to the independent left in South and Southern 
> >> Africa
> >> Subject: Re: [Debate] British muslims - is there such a creature?
> >>
> >> Are there any exit polls of Bradford West voters re: who voted which 
> >> way and why?
> >>
> >> Also, has there been a survey of British protests & protesters like 
> >> the IDASA Afrobarometer survey of South African protests & protesters 
> >> that Patrick just posted?
> >>
> >> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 10:22 AM, LFC Scally <lfcscally at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Nothing wromg with it if we accept that this seemingly homogenous 
> >>> Muslim community only gets involved in anti-war politics-which I 
> >>> have to say could not be further from the truth for the people I 
> >>> worked with and met when I lived and worked in Bradford between 
> >>> 2008-2009. I think Larry Elliot's piece was much closer to the mark. 
> >>> One of the impacts of Blair's disgusting war on terror at home 
> >>> around civil liberties, together with the drip-drip of anti-Muslim 
> >>> propaganda, dressed up as fighting terrorism in the UK, Islamaphobia 
> >>> etc etc, was to frighten some people who identified as Muslims and 
> >>> to some degree it worked . In Bradford leading members of the Muslim 
> >>> community, especially in the mosques, backed right off from any 
> >>> political activity. For example, many mosques have given to strike 
> >>> funds in the past (shock, horror) yet when two Muslim T&G shop 
> >>> stewards went to one main mosque around, I think it was the postal 
> >>> workers dispute in 2008, they would not even allow them to make a  
> >>> collection for the strikers and effectively told they don't get 
> >>> involved in politics any
> > more.
> >>> This is yet another reason to celebrate Galloway's win as I think it 
> >>> will encourage those that were frightened to have more confidence.
> >>> And another reason to ignore Hasan's article that also reads like 
> >>> some rant
> >> from Jack Straw or a Blairite thunk tonk  during that horrible period 
> >> in the UK.
> >>>
> >>> Peter
> >>> ________________________________
> >>> Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 17:06:53 +0300
> >>> From: riaz.tayob at gmail.com
> >>> To: debate-list at fahamu.org
> >>>
> >>> Subject: Re: [Debate] British muslims - is there such a creature?
> >>>
> >>> May be so, but what is wrong with an exhortation (at most generous) 
> >>> to get more involved in the polity beyond issues circumscribed
> >>> (wrongly) by religious affiliation?
> >>>
> >>> On 2012/04/02 04:35 PM, Neville Adams wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Over generalised and essentialised argument, but if galloway did 
> >>> issue such a leaflet he’s an even bigger plonker than I originally 
> >>> thought he
> >> was.
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Yoshie Furuhashi
> >> <http://mrzine.org/>
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> > <http://mrzine.org/>
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> --
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> <http://mrzine.org/>
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