TellMamaGilligate, or How to win/lose credibility in one telling article

A few days ago an article appeared on the Telegraph website, written by Andrew Gilligan.  Peter Oborne's recent resignation from the publication gives us some flavour of what is going on there. Contrary to the piece's claims that there was anything radical at the heart of Whitehall, its just bum-licking as usual.

Gilligan is known for going after decent or half decent Muslim organisational forms and figures like bitch on heat on a mission from the deep state to cause maximum and unjust disruption to the scapegoats of its failed imperialistic policies abroad. After falling on bad times after failing to protect the life and dignity of Dr David Kelly, he was picked up by the now Mayor of London Boris Johnson during his time at the Spectator, and God knows who else. I argue that as far as the decolonial ummah in progress goes, he is the same category of individual as Anjem Choudhury, only fatter, balder, whiter and with a right to audience, not 'entertain'.

Both are highly dedicated and involved, wittingly or unwittingly in the assemblage of resources and interests that works to undermine any growth in our community's integrity, function and appeal.  They and the many other stage devises like them are an invitation to observe and improve.

Gilligan's last target, Mayor Lutfur Rahman and his re-election prospects, did not fall over when pushed. It was a bungled attempted coup featuring the British Labour and Tory Parties, the BBC, the Bangladesh Awami League, the City of London, a creepy blogger and a washed up documentary maker. People from all over the world understood what was afoot and smiled at Luther's re-election. At the time of writing, Tower Hamlets Council  is going through legal proceedings relating to the anti-Lutfur campaign run over last year's election campaign. In any case, it is the social cleansing of Tower Hamlets that is the long game to keep our eyes on, and that means citizen mobilisation, not simple nose counting exercises.

Which is why the recent article was annoying, as it shows the character gap in a man who runs an organisation that is meant to be monitoring Islamophobia, not fueling it.

It is a really sad feature of the late Whitethropocene, that colourful politicians on the make have become quite practiced at furthering their ambitions over the reputations, dignity and bones of others.

I saw this cringeworthy dishonour in Fiyaz Mughal's contribution to the Gilligan article, in particular his use of the term 'entryism', around which the journalist built the article, linking in with Gilligan's second most favourite Islamophobising trope, The Stratford Megamosque. Many others have noticed this skulduggery too, and I suspect Mr Mughal will now inhabit the spaces exploited by the likes of the Quilliam Foundation, which was probably part of his business plan. His clarification later, which has been taken off the website, made his supplication to his paymasters even clearer to the naked eye.

I guess Mr Mughal will be getting a good bollocking from his old friends and associates, and no doubt some strategic consolations and congratulations from his new ones, and the men who stroke cats.

Judicial Murder of Kamaruzzaman on the cards again and the Robertson Report

It is with great sorrow that I comment on the impending execution judicial murder of Jamaat e Islami leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, by the Bangladesh state for war crimes alleged to have taken place in 1971 when he was 18-19 years old. It is very hard for an Islamist to get justice from any court in the world at this moment, least of all from a tribunal whose rigging has been internationally recognised.

It is an unfortunate feature of Bangladeshi historiography that bullshit is easily rendered into fact, and that events like the hideous Sohagpur massacre have been retrospectively pinned onto Kamaruzzaman.  As well as objecting to unfairness of trial and false historical evidence making, we need to ask ourselves how this has been possible. Many people, Bangladeshi and non-Bangladeshi have been instrumental in creating the myths that mislead us on Bangladesh. It can be observed that their sons and daughters still dominate the English medium nonsense-making engine that represents Bangladesh in the international media. Thankfully, more and more are seeing through the facade.

Before this tribunal, Kamaruzzaman was not implicated war crimes, he wasn't event a primary or secondary object of hatred to campaigners on the issue. In the image below we see a younger Kamaruzzaman speaking on a panel about Rethinking Confrontational Politics with some prominent members of Bangladesh's 'vibrant' civil society in 2000. From left to right we have Kamaruzzaman the Younger, NGO-lady Khushi Kabir (whose husband tried to run a local Amnesty franchise but was allegedly too corrupt), the Daily Star editor Mahfuz Anam (whose daughter Tahmima Anam represents Bangladesh in the New York Times and Guardian) and economist Rahman Sobhan (whose son Zafar edits the Dhaka Tribune).  I would love to have a read of the proceedings if they were recorded.

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Amateur caste system aside, Bangladesh's quite donor-dependent civil society has little connection to the country's grass roots and is blind to its own prejudices, which includes Islamophobia, a rarely explored prejudice in predominantly Muslim societies. This makes killing Kamaruzzaman and Hating Jamaat e Islami Bangladesh, linked objectives for them and those who (think) they represent.

We can expect further repression of Kamrazzaman's lawyers, family and well wishers, from the government and establishment media machine in the coming days.  Twitter tells me that there has been a joint forces raid on his home in Mirpur, Dhaka and two family members arrested.

Last November I wrote about Kamaruzzaman's unjust predicament, and the year before about his Strategy for Change for his party. It is a party that requires much transformation, and he is a reformer struggling and leading people to realist some of those reforms. It is my speculation that he is targeted because it is people like him who represent a positive future of Jamaat, responsive to social justice needs, not mindless conservatism.

Through killing him the Awami League does two things, it satiates the primordial blood lusts that it has nurtured in its followers for decades, and enflames and destabilizes the progressive tendency in Jamaat, and tries to make beasts of its adherents.

Earlier this month an independent and constructive report detailing the systematic injustices of the current war crimes tribunal was published by Geoffrey Robertson QC . Its independence has been  questioned by David Bergman, who has made a whole career, family and legacy covering the issue, apparently using evidence extracted under torture.

Robertson's report sets a new reference point for the internationalisation of justice in the issue. Most interesting for me is the inclusion of an argument for the posthumous trial of  General Tikka Khan, author of Operation Searchlight, the brutal army crackdown which kicked of the Bangladesh War. For reference, after the war General Tikka Khan was awarded the Governership of Punjab by late Benazir Bhutto.

I think transformative justice is very important for ongoing dignity and for civilisation to flourish. Till today, both Pakistan (Model Town, Lahore June 2014)) and Bangladesh (Motijheel, Dhaka May 2013) are ruled by brutal establishments that massacre their own citizens to hold onto power.  Understanding how they operate, self legitimate and spawn themselves is in the public interest.

I have always thought that the Bangladesh war crimes trials were an unjust idea, because there is no shared appetite, or capacity, to know what really happened, just self-aggrandizing delusional, hurt histories muddled with ideological axes. To remedy this, I wholeheartedly support William Gomes'  letter to Imran Khan for Truth and Reconciliation between all of the societies involved in the Bangladesh War.

To close, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman deserves a fair retrial at the very least and the Robertson Report outlines how this may be achieved. Murdering him via the judiciary further weakens the governments grip on history. That our so-called civil society stands for such persecution questions their claims to morality and civility

The College of the Oppressed

A young lady bleeds in Jatrabari,

Body punctured by the Chhatro League

Who came for her father

Then followed orders from their masters

To annihilate the progeny of political adversaries.

Lord console her parent's trembling hearts.

Shaheeda Iffatudoha Sadia,

May you be raised amongst the highest,

In His gracious sight,

In the hearts of green birds

An afterlife of delight. 

Be strong dear survivors,

These years of torment,

In the College of the Oppressed,

Could turn lesser humans to beasts.

I pray that you may contribute

To transformation - head and root,

Of this bedevilled nation

Of multiple and extreme exploitation. 

Truly Asia?

"Malaysia Truly Asia"
The entertainers sang with glee
Orang asli black face
Recruited into the fantasy.

Well I'm Asian too
And saw these moves
Poured over the ICT.
Those judges lied.
We saw Futuricide
And thousands cried
Into a soup of fear and tea.

Fantasia Truly Asia
Lord spare you the brutal scene
That degenerates my delta
Step away from the whitening cream.

Forget isis,
Oil prices,
This is the crisis,
Political Epistemic Encephalitis.