The troops and the ‘good muslim, bad muslim’ narrative: A reply to Richard Seymour

Richard Seymour has published an article explaining a dislike to the BBCs reporting of Muslims mourning the war dead in Afghanistan.

An underlying factor of the article, not lost on Seymour, is to show Muslims mourning and demonstrating their opposition to extremism. One woman interviewed, Kalsoom Bashir is quoted in the BBC article as saying:

We are here for two reasons, to say that as mothers we share the grief of those that have lost their loved ones and we salute the loyalty of those men and women that have laid down their lives for our country.

Secondly we are here to say loud and clear to those extremists that would exploit that grief, you’re not one of us, you don’t represent us.

Seymour finds something revolting here, something that, though seemingly harmless by the BBC on first glance, actually contains a less palatable message between the lines. Seymour elaborates:

Such news items actually reinforce the racist hysteria by playing the game of ‘good Muslim, bad Muslim’. It lays out the kind of behaviour that is required of Muslims in order that they might not be subject to ritual denunciation and interrogation. It is in essence no different from the kind of antisemitic ideology that counterposed the good ‘National Jew’ from the malevolent ‘International Jew’. The response it nakedly invites us “they’re not all bad, then”, which is a racist response.

I can see the point, but I think it is slightly over-egged.

Before reading this I had put down yesterday’s observer, having just read Sarfraz Manzoor’s article on Hadiya Masieh, former Hizb ut-Tahrir member turned inter-faith campaigner, having had her views changed by the 7/7 bombings.

My charge is that this article is more ‘good Muslim, bad Muslim’ than the one Seymour exemplifies, which I fail to see linking with his main point; the BBC item, for example was time specific, happened rather recently and is relevant. One could argue that Manzoor’s article is simply an inspirational story, without time relevance at all, and is mere tub-thumping (though I personally wouldn’t take that view).

Manzoor’s reason for doing this piece sits well with me;  it is pressing that the national media counter the charge that all Muslims are bad Muslims, and are naturally consumed by the arguments of jihadis.

For this reason I think Seymour’s argument is strongest when he is not charging counter to the ‘good Muslim bad Muslim’ narrative, but saying the BBC is being uneven about its coverage of the war in Afghanistan. Of course I worry that the BBC are trying to promote what is, in their opinion, the correct attitude for Muslims to take on this subject, but I can’t think of any other way in which the BBC would portray the words of Kalsoom Bashir.

We all have our opinions on Afghanistan, and mine are a little different to Seymour’s, but though I cringe at the bias in the said BBC article, I also think that Seymour is a little over the top on his accusations of it.

With Islam, there is an image that ought to be quashed, one that is perpetuated in the right wing gossip papers. I think Seymour should rest assured he isn’t in Columbia, where one can expect to watch programmes made by Christian evangelicals interviewing reformed socialists, and their plight from evil red fire and brimstone, to heavenly preaching. Those programmes promote the view that, to coin a phrase, a good socialist is a reformed socialist. There is no such plans for a BBC documentary on the plight from evil socialism to laissez-faire capitalist (I should hope).

The Failed Attempts to Destabilise the BNP

Constant observation of the legal framework is, as much as anything, the acid test with which to judge political concern. 2 days ago Andrew Dismore, MP for Hendon, raised a point of order (that was subsequently dismissed as a point of debate) on motion 52 which excludes Members of the European Parliament from gaining access to the House of Commons through passes, thereby making sure Nick Griffin can not be seen in or around the house.

All the while many established political figures and pressure groups alike pour scorn on the BBC’s decision to allow the BNP free air time on this coming week’s Question Time, it should be reminded of how much the BBC have attempted to forge the perfect oppositional panel to counter every last aspect of Griffin’s bile.

Nick Cohen in his Observer column today has noted the ways in which nervy producers have panicked about how to stage Thursday’s ‘car-crash television’ event. At first the BBC had booked Douglas Murray to oppose him, as he was only so happy to do so, but moments later the BBC cancelled his inclusion as Murray takes firm support for restricted immigration, something Griffin will not put up too much of a fight about, making him appear ‘like he was the voice of the consensus’.

For a voice on the right the BBC settled for Lady Warsi, who may not see eye to eye with Griffin on the subject of defining Britishness, but would certainly be able to share a quip o two on homosexuals, owing to Warsi’s claim that Labour allowed children to be propositioned for homosexual relationships, printed on her campaign material in the run up to the 2005 Dewsbury elections. The BBC, instead of coolly slotting strong voices from both the left and the right to pull the turf from beneath Griffin, they have ended up pulling their hair out and ‘hitting the phones as they began to realise the 1,001 ways the show could go wrong.’

Another recent aim at destabilising the BNP, gone awry, was the pressure put on them to change their all whites constitution by the Equality and Human Rights Commission

But this new core of legality and legitimacy only serves to benefit the BNP. Not only does it serve to obscure the hub of the BNP’s existence – to secure a white only Britain – but it also fragments the moral high ground of the other parities in the UK, who do not oppose non-white membership.

The same, I will suggest, goes for quotas in political parties. For example in Spain the Constitutional Court confirmed a 2007 law obliging political parties to have at least 40% female candidates on their electoral lists. This of course suited the leading Socialist party (PSOE), whose moral compass directed them in this direction anyway, recognising societal gender inequality, and taking the measures themselves to lead the way for a more egalitarian political structure. The point of failure for this measure was when the law obliged the opposition Conservative party (PP) to do the same. They of course appealed against the measure, preferring to maintain a majority of white male candidates to a mixed setting.

Until this law was established, PSOE, on the issue of gender equality, held the moral high ground over PP, and Spanish women who had previously felt vilified against, seeing the socialists as their natural friend and the conservatives as foe, now, because of the forced level of egalitarianism fostered upon PP, are no longer necessarily the nasty party, and have benefited in turn, not through any conviction, but have basked in the success of the socialists.

The same logic can be seen with the BNP now. Through no conviction of their own to redress their racism the authorities have offered them an olive branch of legitimacy, and as Sunny H recently tweeted, ‘Griffin…has always wanted to change the rules’ – for this very reason, not because at heart the BNP are a multi-ethnic, inclusive organisation, but because it takes the burden away from him to get party backing and change their constitution, all under the guise of modernisation (after all, the leaked membership list by a disaffected ex-member is enough to see why Griffin would see such a move as burdensome).

All this created fuss has done nothing at all to destabilise the BNP, in fact it has only further secured their main aim, to seem like a consensus party, when in fact they are an extreme party, employing seemingly successful methods to avert this fact, and being helped along the way by the very people who think they are taking measures to destroy them. Nick Griffin has said it himself on stage with the KKK’s David Duke in 2000:

Once we’re in a position where we control the British broadcasting media, then perhaps one day the British people might change their mind and say, ‘yes, every last one must go’. But if you hold that out as your sole aim to start with, you’re not going to get anywhere. So instead of talking about racial purity, we talk about identity.

Royal Mail pension deficit: where and why?

Ken Livingstone, on a separate matter, but with usual aplomb, today wrote;

“Time and again, we have seen the nationalisation of losses and the privatisation of profits. It’s also the latest demonstration that it is a fairy tale that privatisation means the private sector takes the risk as well as taking its profit. In truth, every time a privatisation of a vital public service fails, the public sector picks up the tab. This culture of parts of the private sector fleecing the taxpayer has to stop.”

And, of course, though the original piece referred to the National Express Group, this is rather an apt sentiment across the whole spectrum of privatisation, including the 30% stake of Royal Mail, which until yesterday, was being waved around waiting for private money.

Well these are not the market conditions to do such a thing, so says Lord Mandelson.

Since the Tories foam at the mouth over privatising Royal Mail, they never did condemn Mandelson’s original proposals, but – within the frame of parliamentary contrarianism – they have not vindicated him for his U-turn either. Instead voices have emerged – not least of all from BBC’s Nick Robinson – saying that the move has demonstrated a ‘loss of authority’ – which Jack Straw rightly rejected.

This, indeed, was not why the plans were ‘shelved’. I do buy into the notion that certain market conditions forced a re-think, but also a concerted effort by unions, think-tanks, Labour MP’s and the worry of further disruptions spelt out the necessaries for calling off the issue.

What is continually embarrassing for the Labour Party – rather than the so-called ‘loss of authority’ – is the continual destruction – facilitated by New Labour – of the heart and soul of the party and its values. To suggest this turn is anything other than victorious for the true nature of the party, is to suggest that Peter Mandelson represents what is solid about the party and its history. And I for one will not accept such a statement.

Whether or not, as Mr. Straw has stated, the changes over the past few days mean that the party is ‘listening’, it certainly means that Labour has to listen, and this itself is no U-turn whatsoever (in the historical sense of the Labour party).

The problem is still focused upon the pension scheme, though. As Ian Pollock puts it – in a dazzlingly simple manner – “The deficit in the scheme – the difference between the value of the assets it needs to pay pensions, and the value of the assets it actually has – is shooting up.”

But, as it becomes clear, certain previous measures – not to mention nonchalance in the economic equilibrium years –  made deficit inevitable. As Pollock continues (to quote at large);

“For 13 years, from 1990 onwards, the Royal Mail – in common with other large organisations – made no contributions at all to the old pre-1987 section of its scheme, in a grand contribution “holiday”.

It should have been paying in money at a rate of 9% of salaries per year.

Ostensibly this was to avoid running up a very large surplus, which was a very common phenomenon in final salary pension schemes in the early 1990s.

But the saving of £1.5bn over that time – when staff were still paying in 6% a year – rather neatly covered the £1.3bn that the Royal Mail paid back to the Treasury during that time in an annual dividend.

If that money had been steadily invested over the past 19 years, there is little doubt that the scheme’s deficit would be far smaller now.

If the £1.5bn of annual payments had been invested in shares and bonds over those years, and had grown at an average annual rate of 6%, including dividends and interest, then the fund would now have an additional £3.1bn.”

Well what a surprise; Thatcher government, holding back on the suspicious pre-text that it was running on a surplus.

Whatever the outcome, and even if Mandy returns to this when the time is right, as he promised he will, it would do us well not to forget which system of governence tried to make private finances an inevitability in the public sector, and which style of governance should do all it can in order not to emulate the former in any way possible.

Has racism been here before?

The worries of Boris, and indeed the rest of us nice folk, are temporarily relaxed; he’s not allowed to go, its inappropriate. But the whole affair crossed my mind again – at a time when many are tired of the BNP even getting mentioned, saying why give them promotion, or why dedicate so much time on criticising them, it looks desparate etc etc… (I don’t agree, but I might be sympathetic to the idea that a protest at the BBC is worthless, and perhaps even detrimental).

But I was reading the Guardian review of Richard Overy’s new book The Morbid Age: Britian Between the Wars, and as I focused upon the examples given by reviewer Alison Light, of Julian Huxley etc, I realised that it wasn’t so much that racism in suits hasn’t shown its ugly head before, but, rather, it had and we did so much to curb it. Well, now its fighting back, and so it is well worth doing all possible to sideline the crackpots, but, and I’ll re-state again and again, more effort needs to be done in order not to show the crackpot-hater as the crackpot himself.

A protest at the BBC, I think not…