THE MAYOR AND THE MUSLIMS

Having spent the last post discussing the US presidential elections, let me turn my attention closer to home for a brief moment. Although Gordon Brown’s political cowardice has meant that the British public won’t get to vote in a general election for another year or two, Londoners will have the opportunity this May to elect a new mayor for the capital city. The current (Labour) incumbent is the former maverick-turned-moderate Ken Livingstone – or 'Red Ken' as his right-wing opponents dubbed him in the 1980s – who faces perhaps his toughest challenge yet from the present Tory mayoral candidate, Boris Johnson, who curiously happens to be one of the most popular MPs and journalists in Britain, despite his various gaffes, misstatements and general buffoonery.

Livingstone, however, seems to continue to enjoy the unwavering support of the majority of London’s large-ish Muslim community. The Guardian last week published a statement on its blog site, Comment is Free, signed by a raft of Muslim leaders, writers, academics and activists and headlined: "Give Ken A Third Term. Describing Livingstone as an “outstanding mayor”, the signatories – who include the likes Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain and Anas al Tikriti of the Muslim Association of Britain – draw attention to the Mayor’s progressive positions on foreign (and specifically Middle East) affairs:

“His stands and policies have constantly championed justice in the Middle East and around the world, freedom for the Palestinians and withdrawal of occupying troops from Iraq; a rare trait of modern-day public figures.”

There is no doubt that this statement is both true and accurate, and a tribute to Ken’s anti-war, pro-peace, political progressivism – and much-needed Islamophilia.

But I can’t help but sympathize with those commenters on the Guardian blog who wonder what on earth Ken’s Middle East views have to do with a municipal election and why London’s Muslims are so concerned by them. A blogger called McLefty, for example, asks:

“What this has to do with Londoners I do not know, but it shows that British Muslims are pre-occupied with events that have nothing to do whatsoever with most of their daily lives (the vast majority of Muslims in this country not Palestinian, Iraqi or from the Middle East).”

Be honest: does it – or should it – really matter to you what the Mayor of London thinks about Iraq or Palestine or any other foreign conflict or controversy? Isn’t it more important that the buses run on time? Or that our taxes are spent properly? Or London’s homeless have a place to sleep at night? Or, for example, that the city’s police force is not Islamophobic or racist or - dare I say it – trigger-happy?

Let’s not forget, after all, that the Metropolitan Police has, in recent years, shot and killed an ethnic-minority man on the Tube and then subsequently claimed (falsely) that he was a terrorist and then shot and wounded an ethnic-minority man inside his own home and then subsequently claimed (again, falsely) that he was a terrorist. (In the former – de Menezes – case, a court even found the Met guilty of violating health and safety laws and endangering the lives of Londoners.)

Yet, interestingly, I notice that the ‘great and the good’ of the British Muslim community who (presumably) queued up to sign this encomium to Red Ken conveniently failed to take note of the fact that Ken Livingstone supported the Metropolitan Police in every instance and has been one of the few public figures to vocally and vociferously lend his backing to the hapless, incompetent and dishonest Met police chief, Sir Ian Blair. What do the Muslim letter-writers have to say about this? An issue that touches all of their – and our – everyday lives, as Londoners (and as Muslims)? Nothing. Not a word.

Shame.