Rolled-up Trousers: Mohammad Sarwar

Anne McLaughlin MSP raises the issue of doublestandards when it comes to accusations of extremism between me and my Glasgow Central opponent.

Mohammad Sarwar MP serves alongside members of the Muslim Brotherhood on the board of Finsbury Park Mosque. They were put there deliberately by the authorities after Abu Hamza was booted out. They were seen as Islamists that could be worked with. Sarwar has also defended one of the board for his links to Hamas.

I've been dragged over the coals for much less, and for things in the dim and distant past. This is current. If I was in Sarwar's position, there would long ago have been demands for me to resign as a trustee and there would have been calls for my party to take action on me. Strangely, no thinktank has saw fit to send out a press release or alert about this, and it therefore has not been picked up by the press.

They've probably not even looked into Mr Sarwar, but devote copious energies on me. One recently said on this scrutiny that I "had better get used it" if I want to be an MP, but the reality is most MPs live in relative anonymity. Many people in politics have remarked to me that they find extraordinary the number of sad cases on the internet hanging off my every word for the slightest slipup that can be contorted.

The comparison with Sarwar is not of course a game I like, but the doublestandard is fascinating. I've said before that the smears and links by association can be played on any Muslim. It's what people actually do and believe themselves that matters and on that count, having heard Mr Sarwar speak many times, there is no difference between us when it comes to issues of democracy, pluralism and secularism. We're on the same spectrum as any mainstream politician you'll find in the House of Commons.

There is a lot though that divides Mr Sarwar and myself when it comes to the future of our country. What the Finsbury Park Mosque case firmly establishes is that the silly witchhunts on me till now have been party political. As far as the neocon thinktanks and media are concerned I am double trouble. Someone strongly opposed to their agendas in Iraq and in Palestine, while also a member of the SNP who are set to pull Scotland out of the United Kingdom.

A recent article by a Rob Brown in the Jerusalem Post is instructive on this count. He posits that Israelis should fight the SNP because Scotland leaving the Union would be bad for Israel. He finds space for a gratuitous namecheck for me in it. Leaving aside the accuracy or inaccuracy of his core argument (and the rights and wrongs), if I was to go around the world advocating a particular constitutional arrangement for Scotland purely on the basis of how it tenuously affected another people halfway around the world, I'd be labelled a traitor. But it's amazing the things you'll get away with if you're on side with the powerful.

Comments

Top man OS!

Indygal is one of my fave blogs.

Naturally, I did post a comment to her blog post also defence of your good self but didn't appear. As if you need defending anyway against a load of hypocritical double-standards and empty smears.

I'm sure you can imagine the sort of fruity remarks I was passing with regards to the likes of Harry's Place flying saucer brigade.

Thanks for another brilliant argument as to why a re-established independent Scottish government would be a good thing - because it would be bad for the racist war crime state of Israel.

all the best!

ps
Israel should fight the SNP indeed!
The thing is, people in Scotland aren't a bunch of defenceless Palestinian women and children the brave IDF can use as target practice anytime they feel like it.
Tzivi Lipni didn't stay in the UK very long just recently. In fact, she is so much of a coward, like the rest of her kind, she couldn't run away fast enough from us. Tzivi by name, zippy by nature.

Posted by: joe90 kane | 24 December 2009 at 08:58 PM