Astonishing omission by Tory PM accused of ‘head in sand’ over Islamophobia by Muslim peer
Just ten days ago, Tory peer Baroness Warsi accused May of putting her head in the sand about rampant Islamophobia in the Conservative party:
This morning, Theresa May’s tweet of condolence over the attack on Christchurch mosques that took the lives of forty-nine innocent worshippers and injured others did not mention Muslims, or Islamophobia – nor the fact the attack was on mosques:
New Zealand’s PM, Jacinda Ardern, by contrast, spoke movingly in solidarity with her country’s Muslim citizens and their freedom to practise their religion and culture – and proudly about New Zealand as a place of refuge for people from hundreds of ethnic backgrounds:
A significant number of ‘mainstream’ journalists also failed to mention Islamophobia in their social media output. Last week, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was attacked at a London mosque by a man later charged with ‘assault by beating’, yet the UK media minimised the assault as an ‘egging’ and barely covered it.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
This blog stands in solidarity with the Muslim victims of this attack and with all the people of New Zealand, whatever their religion – and with those facing hate and discrimination in this country.
Hate in the UK is increasing, driven by cynical media and politicians – and Islamophobia is one of its chief forms. Theresa May failed not only the Muslim citizens of New Zealand and the UK this morning, but all of us.
I think my position on right-wing duplicity is clear.
But I think that this is manufactured outrage a la ‘Sun’ etc.to an immediate response – particularly linking it to a ten-day old tweet from Warsi.
Leave the outrage about theTory position until there is something substantive. ‘Oppostion’ isn’t just about mimicking an opposite version of right-wing tropes.
It WASN’T a tweet! She was interviewed in depth by Kirsty Wark on Newsnight, and I KNOW, because I happened to see it! And much of the MSM followed up on it. But it’s ALL quickly faded from view, as far as I’m aware, as I was sure that it would. And needless to say, we don’t hear Tom Watson and Co criticising and condemning the Tories for very, very quietly letting Boris Johnson go unpunished for his vile and abhorrent AND deliberate and calculated comments a few months ago about letter boxes and bank robbers.
Can you imagine if that had been a left wing politician! Watson and his buddies in and out of the MSM would have been screaming blue murder that JC and Jennie Formby were enabling hatred, and that the person concerned should be instantly booted out of the LP, to use a term that Ian Austin used in a HoC debate about anti-semitism last year in relation to Ken Livingstone, and did so based on the falsehood that Ken had said Hitler was a Zionist, a falsehood that much of the media dissembled in the days after his now infamous radio interview with Vanessa Feltz.
And THAT of course tells us how much Watson and his chums and the MSM REALLY care about racism and anti-semitism!
I think this is one thing May has got right. She has treated an attack on the Muslim population of NZ as an attack on NZ as a whole – which it is. She has also refused to endorse whatever issues between Muslims and other New Zealanders might be in the minds of whoever planned this. I think this is careful and constructive language, leaving the framing of this horrible mass murder to the people whose backyard it actually happened in.
I wholeheartedly agree with the above two correspondents. Once again Skwawkbox has tripped over its own political feet.
Our hearts and sympathies go out to the Muslim victims and their families and the diverse citizens of NZ.
As human beings I believe we need to analyse and try to understand the motives of the perpetrator/s of such acts who dehumanise themselves and know the victims too so that we can try to understand and do our very best to be vigilant against potential future attacks.
I am worried here in the UK; whilst we have to deal with claims of AS against Labour people may perhaps be blind to the threat of the rise of Far Right Barbarians.
And where are our critics when we stand against the racists on the front line?
Recent evidence here shows AS in Labour
is small (0.003%) compared tragically with AS amongst the general public of 2.5% but it still needs addressing but this tragedy and other posts on here show in my view we need to wake up to the real enemy.
Far Right US billionaires according to Hope Not Hate are pouring millions into Far Right Groups around the World.
If will be Labour and trade unions – us who stand alongside diverse working people on the front line against Right Barbarians.
Labour with JC can democratically and peacefully transform our society as an example to the World, so too can our diverse brothers and sisters in every country too.
To the tune of John Brown’s body:
“International Solidarity For Ever!”
Oh and dickhead RH before you come in with those billionaire brothers, this is a new phenomena- as a writer recently said the powerful with Trump have now dismissed their Right Wing politician puppets and have tried to rule rhemselves but fortunately show how politically crap they ard and what political imbeciles they are too.
Left wing democratic socialists will win!
Bazza – what are you wittering about? Incomprehension and incoherence aren’t a good look.
Like the previous posters, I’m not sharing the Skwawbox’s outrage here.
Perhaps not mentioning the religion and ethnic origin of the victims and frame it as an attack on all
of New Zealand is indeed not a bad thing. It reduces the spread of the attackers’ rhetoric and it emphasizes that the victims were indeed New Zealanders first and foremost.
BUT
Theresa May, with the windrush scandal, the go home vans and the hostile environment did quite a lot to stoke the Islamophobic and xenophobic feelings around.
Let’s say that she is a horrible person, but her tweet wasn’t.
I’m not even sure she’s a ‘horrible person’, even if she espouses horrible and stupid ideas. Let’s be specific in condemnation rather than playing the smear game so beloved of the MSM.
(And no, that’s not going soft – it’s being focused on the issues)
Sorry, but in all objectivity, the person who oversaw the Windrush scandal cannot be anything other than horrible.
Put it like this:
Tory Islamophobia row:
15 suspended councillors quietly reinstated
Guardian investigation finds suspensions lifted despite apparent Islamophobia or racism
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/24/tory-islamophobia-row-15-suspended-councillors-quietly-reinstated