Channel 4 Coverage
Channel 4 News had a feature on this car crash on 28/1. The politics of these cartoons apparently comes from some fresher's fair kerfuffle at the LSE, where tomorrows (b)leaders are groomed, a stupid daytime TV chat show and an atheist propagandist comic strip called Jesus and Mo with roughly 11 000 current subscribers.
The news feature did not foreground why Maajid is perceived as, and is, such a wanker nor did they even mention that Maajid is up against the niece of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, recipient of £275 million in British 'development' assistance this year, responsible for massacre of unarmed protesters on the 5th and 6th May 2013, and rigging an election on the 5th January 2014.
Petitions
Back to the business of cartoon capitalism and a Muslim led petition to have Maajid deselected has gained 21 000 signatures, and a counter response from the LSE secular society's Chris Moos 7 000. The discourses framed against each other are of Behaviour Unfitting of a Parliamentary Candidate (he swore at his objectors) versus Freedom of Speech.
It's not exactly the politics of dreams, but people have the right to object, and that political party should know what the consequences of elevating certain folks are. Bear in mind that Nick Clegg sought an audience with UK Muslims when he was first elected LibDem leader, but only a handful of people turned up to his CityCircle talk. We must ask ourselves who is being reactionary and who is being responsible here?
Taking a longer term view to the Muslim response(s), there are some new developments to it, as well as some dumbosity. But first of all I would like to post a decent cartoon about freedom from the incarceration of the human media circus.
Looking at the text of the call to the Lib Dems to deselect Maajid, I suppose it it a bit more sophisticated than what would have gone out in the 90s. But to be honest, I am tiring of this kinda stuff. Community disgust with Maajid is a deeper matter, to do with his narcissistic and corrupting work in the counter-extremism industry that endangers the innocent, and practically contributes to suffocating Muslim being, whilst making a tidy income.
In this environment really nasty moods and speech acts are created. Allegations of death threats provide another few gigawatts to the wrecking ball politics of Maajid Nawaz and play right into the court of liberal Islamophobia which too many mIslamists seem happy to do as they get weak as the prospect of exposure. Some idiots allegedly gave those cards to Usama Hasan a few years ago, who ended up cashing them in unfortunately. There's nothing like a foolish friend to undermine a position.
Does the Almighty need defending?
One of Maajid's defences is that 'his God doesn't need protection', which is an interesting rhetorical device. It will be difficult for a secular person, particularly a eurocentric and humancentric one, to understand the Rights of God, and why we understand that the Almighty requires that we work to protect the right for the Prophets to be known better. I remember sitting in a comparative scriptural reading group with a pious Jewish professor, and wondering how different their meaning making of the same Prophets was to ours.
Respect
In a certainly more hope-making intervention, George Galloway announced that his Respect party was to field a candidate to take the fight right to the rancid Maajid Nawaz and the New Labour apologist for the Awami League.
An interesting opportunity.
