Skip to main content

Islamophobia isn’t just a Tory problem – it runs right through British society | Owen Jones

Media coverage, political rhetoric and the failure of non-Muslims to speak out have made anti-Muslim racism mainstream

As the Tories’ most senior Muslim female politician, Sayeeda Warsi, puts it, to be accused of Islamophobia is “career enhancing”, but to be a victim of Islamophobia is “career destroying”. She should know: her often lonely public campaign against Islamophobia has been rewarded with political exile. What could be described as Warsi’s law applies to Nusrat Ghani too: a Tory politician who claims to have been sacked as a minister because her “Muslimness” was “making colleagues uncomfortable”.

Compare and contrast their experience with Zac Goldsmith’s: after a failed London mayoral campaign against Sadiq Khan that was accused of being riddled with Islamophobia, Goldsmith was elevated to the House of Lords and made a minister. Or what of Nadine Dorries, who has retweeted far-right criminal Tommy Robinson, and responded to a video from Khan about tackling Islamophobic hate speech with: “How about, ‘it’s time to act on sex abusing grooming gangs’ instead?”

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3r6RYcq
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Rico Lewis helped harden up Manchester City’s treble challenge | Jamie Jackson

Guardiola believes advent of the teenage talent sowed seeds of change that turned his side into champions again Mid-January, the Etihad Campus. Before Tottenham’s visit a discontented Pep Guardiola is addressing a Manchester City team meeting that includes Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Ederson. The champions are in second place, eight points behind Arsenal, each having played 18 games. Performances have dipped and so has the attitude of his players. The final match before the World Cup was a 2-1 home defeat by Brentford . Since the tournament, City have beaten Leeds and Chelsea, drawn with Everton and lost their previous outing , 2-1 at Manchester United. Seven points from 15 is not championship-defending form and, when being knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton is factored in, Guardiola can see City’s campaign derailing. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/h8WjbMX
Post a Comment
Read more

Wandsworth escape accused says it was ‘foolish’ to jail him with his ‘skill set’

Daniel Khalife, 23, says he absconded because he was ‘terrified’ of being locked up with dangerous offenders A former British soldier has told a jury he did not hand himself in after he escaped from prison because he was “finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was” to imprison someone with his “skill set”. Daniel Khalife, 23, told the court he absconded from Wandsworth prison while on remand because he was “terrified” of being locked up with “serious sex offenders” and “terrorists” who wanted to kill him, and that he did not think his imprisonment would be in the public interest. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/vRZHkaw
Post a Comment
Read more

Bodies of Men: the love story taking on toxic masculinity in a time of war

Nigel Featherstone’s new novel tackles traditional conservatism and patriarchy through an unconventional romance How can you be a man and be anti-war? This is the question that Sydney-born novelist Nigel Featherstone, who is a pacifist, considered while he took up a three-month writing residency in a military library. He set out to discover what happens to very different expressions of masculinity placed under military pressure. “Australia does have a very defined, toxic brand of masculinity,” says the bespectacled Featherstone, seated by the window at his local pub facing the railway station at Goulburn, north of Canberra, while men on stools at the nearby bar sink beers and televisions on the walls screen horse racing results. Continue reading... from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2N8piOc
Post a Comment
Read more