Friday 13 May 2016

Jacobinism: Labour's Impoverished Expectations [on London's new Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan]

In the left of centre Jacobinism
The new mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, does indeed have strong and indefensible links to extremist, murderous, anti-Semitic coreligionists, the likes of Jew-hater Yusuf al Qaradawi and the Hitler-loving fascist pastor Louis Farrakhan. 
Maajid Nawaz also wrote about Khan recently. Khan's not an extremist, but shows bad judgement in who he's hung out with; shorter Nawaz. 
It didn't go well for Zac Goldsmith, Khan's opponent, when he raised these connections during the campaign. He was called a racist and islamophobe (of course). 
But the facts, and history, don't go away. 
What are Khan's true allegiances?  He went to the holocaust memorial, this week, as his first mayoral duty. Good stuff. But is he just biding time till his inner Louis or his inner Yusuf emerges?
/Snip
Sadiq Khan's extravagant recent claim that "I have spent my whole life fighting extremism" is entirely false. On the contrary, he has supported extremists, he has aligned with extremists, he has shared their platforms, he has circulated petitions advancing their arguments and interests, he has euphemised their blood-curdling incitement as mere "flowery words", and he has repeatedly used his position as a human rights advocate and an MP to lend extremists' arguments a spurious legitimacy. And while he has energetically defended the rights of Al Qaeda sympathisers and operatives like Babar Ahmad and Shaker Aamer, Khan has had precious little to say about a campaign of incitement - exposed in the Wimbledon Guardian as far back as 2010 - by the sectarian organisation Khatme Nabuwwat to boycott and ostracise peaceful Ahmadi Muslims, conducted for years on his own south London doorstep, and supported by the imam of the mosque he attends.