Though Cowards Flinch

In 2002, French voters had the option either to vote for the “crook or the fascist“. In the future, their options are for the crooked or the fascist – and Sarkozy is fully aware of this, wooing as he is the far right vote by maintaining the burka ban, while aiming to keep the centre ground happy by shrouding it in the language of “women’s rights”.

Sarkozy contends that the veil imprisons women – for which he may well be right, but in banning the veil he seeks only to touch base with the outcome of the problem, not the causes of it.

The stipulation of the veil in any religious text is contentious, and symbolises a deep discard between men and women in communities. To say that women are wearing it without choice is rather paternalistic, but certainly is beyond most people to understand why anyone would freely choose that.

When Kenza Drider, who says she will stand against the architect of the ban, Sarkozy ally Jean-Francois Cope, in Meaux,  the city east of Paris, posits that she will “serve all women who are the object of stigmatization or social, economic or political discrimination” who can but believe her.

To be sure, even if we find it difficult to believe veil-wearing is a fully free choice, we must at least concede that the decision to wear one is experienced as a free choice, and thus the measures to ban it will be experienced as a measure against ones freedom to choose.

Sarkozy has also used talk of the veil ban to reinforce the secular values of France – but what does he think secularism is? While many may erroneously guess that secularism is a policy of stamping out religion in its totality, sensible people will know that it is simply the filtering out of pro-religious bias from the state. Moreover, it is a civil society that recognises all religions and none, as well as ensuring a single religion does not get dibs over government policy.

If the veil is a threat to anything, it is equality between the sexes in the Islamic community. If it is considered an item of clothing that is allowed for its religious credentials, and in this way is allowed to flout security issues of face covering, then this is a cynical ploy by the French government to recognise the religious context it is worn in – despite the legitimate dispute of the religiosity of the veil – to serve its own ends.

Providing Kenza Drider keeps the parallels between veil-wearing women and Jewish women in Nazi Germany to a single, off-the-cuff mistake, then I can see no reason why her candidacy in Meaux is anything but a good thing – her ticket should be one of showing the Sarkozy government to be weak on the context of veils, and weak on the causes of community tensions beyond the far right and Islam itself, which it seeks only to court.

Last night, my LRC comrade and friend Simon, of Latte Labour (from here I will refer to him as LL) penned a criticism on his blog of my piece on why anti-fascists must fill the political vacuum that the EDL aims to exploit.

The piece is very convincing, and you can read it here, as well as remind yourself of the fantastic, yet worrying, Muslim Ray Guns video, and a number of original images.

LL starts his piece with a quote from Labour councillor David Adley who tweeted the following re Peter Tatchell: “”stop far right Islamists” is completely missing the point of today’s demo. Where were the “far right Islamists” today?”

The point here about an absent enemy is clearly not the crux of LL’s argument, even though he begins with this quote – but rather that it seems inappropriate to mention far right Islamism on the day where many gathered to support Muslims against the EDL. LL develops other themes, some of which I pick up here.

I want to start with a quote, around a 1/3 of the way down the piece which reads:

Carl himself quotes the East London Mosque as saying that the event of concern was the doing of an ‘external hirer’. One wonders what has happened in church halls over the years. And here, I think, is part of what is going on. There is a basic failure to understand the function of a mosque as a fairly fluid community space.

I’m so glad LL picked up on this point, because as it happens one other point of disagreement we have has regard to platforms for fascists. I, for example, will allow far right opinions to be published in the comments thread of my blog if, and only if, they are challenged – either by myself, or by a reader. I don’t take ad hominem argument very seriously, but I do take fascist ideology seriously, and am prepared to challenge it. LL on the other hand has made it clear that spokespeople from the British National Party, for example, should have no platform at any level, lest we take their ideas seriously. For me, taken to its furthest logical extension (a total ban of these ideas being made public in any way) is not only, itself, totalitarian, but would drive it underground and make it harder to track.

The reason I raise this is because Anwar al-Awlaki was allowed to speak first of all – and it has been found true that he was not moderate before his arrest in Yemen in 2006 – and also unopposed and unchallenged via video link to mosque-goers. I contend that had it been Nick Griffin speaking at a church hall for example, the noise would have been ferocious, but not only that – the vicar of the church would not have heard the last of it; giving voice to a fascist, how dare they (and rightly so – no matter the subject on which Griffin, hypothetically, was allowed to speak).

This hypothetical church also has a duty to be a “fluid community space”, but allowing free terrain to a person with demonstrably dangerous ideas is beyond reasonableness. It would be absurd not to expect the East London Mosque (ELM) to abide by these same principles.

Further still, the spokesperson for the ELM at the time did not come out to blame al-Awlaki’s presence as the work of an “external hirer” – instead took responsibility and then implied they had no idea al-Awlaki was as dangerous as he is – an unlikely story.

LL notes at this stage that the details here may not be important – which I contend they very much are – but does say, on giving me the benefit of the doubt (though, there is no doubt?) that it would be “wrong to push the point in tandem with an anti-fascist mobilisation”. It is here that we reach the meat of what LL is saying, and here we come to understand a basic design flaw in the Left’s analysis of the far right.

The English Defence League are dangerous for one reason alone: they are growing in number and with that comes the threat of attacks on innocent people and the prospect of vigilantism – with it a return of violent fascist street gangs, roaming the streets picking on people, probably at random, for their religion and a number of other varying factors (have we not also seen the worrying pictures published by Hope Not Hate of the EDL members carrying armed weaponry – are these people who are against extremism?). They are not, we should remind ourselves, a threat because the convincing and difficult set of ideas they hold.

To be sure, the EDL is largely politically immature. A pertinent question, I think, here is to ask is a political group the sum of its parts or the sum of its party line? If the latter, then is the party line what they tell us, the public, it is, or is it what they tell themselves internally? If the former, then at best the EDL is a group of agitators who have sought to wind up what they perceive as the Muslim enemy with petite tactics (Israel flags, pig masks, songs such as “Muhammed is a paedo”) and street presence (of which one must include the almost inevitable escalation to violence, racism and general threat).

I hope that we all, especially on the Left (which is my tribe), can agree on this analysis of the EDL. In which case, if we can, why are we not honest about our opposition to all forms of extremism, not just the extremism they represent. After all, when the right or far right accuse the Left of being soft on far right Islamism, to the point where we often team up with it (Moazzam Begg is someone who is on record as being unable to discount his own support for the Taliban, their disgusting pursuits and ideologies – who only oppose al-Qaeda on issues surrounding national strategy. But in spite of that is given free terrain, even today – by the human rights organisation Amnesty International [for the Rights based Liberal ticket] and by the Socialist Workers’ Party at their Marxism Festival [for the Trostkyite far Left ticket], for example) there is some truth in that. We don’t exist only to appease the EDL, obviously, but it makes no sense for this truth to be present in their rhetoric. How many, for example, while writing articles and blogs from a Leftist perspective on how vile the EDL are, will be writing about the homophobic threats Peter Tatchell received on that day – on the side of the road supposedly representing enlightened thinking, unlike across the road where the pinheaded thugs lay, pissed – for even daring to hold a banner suggesting Muslims and Gays unite against a fascist mob?

So, to the challenge of whether it is appropriate or not, my answer is unequivocally: yes. One of the interesting things about the EDL, and neo-fascist, anti-Islamic rhetoric today, is that much of it professes to being tolerant of homosexuality and homosexuals. The EDL even has a gay division of sorts. But Peter Tatchell sees very well what cynical ploy is going on here, and has acted on it. He recognises that at heart the EDL is a “clash of civilisations” organisation that thinks Muslims and Islam is, at its very core, backward. Tatchell refutes this. His aim is to work with the Muslim community, particularly with the gay Muslim community, against the extremism they experience from both sides. Not only are they Muslim-bashed by the EDL, they are gay-bashed by homophobes in their own community, who use Islam as a weapon against them, and not a tool of peace, which it was intended for. Tatchell is standing on the side of those Muslims for whom coming out has meant not only neglect but torment and backlash – it could not have been more appropriate for him to demonstrate who exactly it was he was bellowing against that day, because it shows up the lack of nuance in the EDL’s message, and it is altogether concrete who and what he stands against, lest the Left be confused.

We, as the Left, are against the extremism from all angles, and Tatchell’s placard that day was not simply a message that confronted the aggressors across the road, but provided a box around the ears for the Left, some of whom don’t feel it necessary to challenge hard right thinking of those to whom they give victim statuses. If that isn’t patronising, paternalist, dangerous and, ironically, rather neo-colonialist, then I don’t know what is.

We could come back another day to hold a smaller protest about the Islamist far right (and we should, in the spirit of this – which Peter Tatchell was only one who even bothered to reply to) or we could allow Tatchell to protest in the capacity in which he is known, against extremists on both sides, and from whom Muslims suffer severely.

For LL to say, as he does, that Tatchell’s “words will do absolutely nothing for gay Muslims” is dangerously to forget how much ignoring it, or pushing it to one side, will do – undoubtedly, were Tatchell to stage a protest condemning homophobia in the Muslim community, he would still receive abuse from the Left on the grounds that it is inappropriate while there are still imperfections in the power balance between Muslims and non-Muslims (just one proof of why the Left must readdress its own opposition to far right Islamism). Indeed, as Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate himself once said: “We oppose the racism and Islamophobia of the EDL just as we oppose the religious bigotry and antisemitism of the MAC.” Was he being inappropriate?

Where does Sarkozy sit today? Really he is at the centre of a rigorous national debate; that of multiculturalism, mass immigration, liberalism and secularism. France is well placed to have this discussion.

In 2010, Muslims made up two-thirds of all new immigrants to France, and while there is no question of the nation’s historical appeal to freedom and equality, tension had been whipped up on the notion of fraternising and the glue that holds up its civic republicanism.

The far right have made grounds with the new Le Pen, at the fault of Sarkozy in some people’s minds, and the President has to make a choice: does he sweep up the centre with appeals to France’s liberal heart, despite the relative depression of the socialist party, or does he drum up the hard right with a protectionist hue?

The outcome of France’s intervention in Libya could swing either way, but the possibility of a negative turn could prove disastrous for Sarkozy; at home, lubing up the right seems the least risky option.

It is no surprise, then, that the President’s loathing of religious symbols and facial coverings have culminated in a burqa ban.

But it’s proportionate right? At state schools, Christians cannot wear large crosses, Jews cannot wear yarmulkes, Sikhs cannot wear turbans. However the direction of these latest moves in France are quite clear, and the excuse that this is a wink and a nudge towards women’s rights transparent; as American philosopher and author Martha Nussbaum recently said, in her examination of the burqa ban:

“Sex magazines, nude photos, tight jeans — all of these products, arguably, treat women as objects, as do so many aspects of our media culture. … Proponents of the burqa ban do not propose to ban all these objectifying practices. … banning all such practices on a basis of equality would be an intolerable invasion of liberty.”

But might this ban be for the common good? The burqa is a symbol of repression and subjugation after all. The point is, for Sarkozy, that covering up is not the product of a free choice. But in philosophical terms, no act is free, and we are steeped in a chain of cause and effect; the point is we experience reality as though we were free, and as though we had primacy of will.

And this is the rub: In 1970s Iran, or Suharto’s Indonesia in the 80s, the burqa was worn as a symbol of political and religious defiance when Islam found itself under threat. I was reminded of this once more as journalists took pictures of a women in France who ignored the ban and wore her veil anyway.

I dislike the veil myself, it has no Qur’anic justification and should be seen through the lens of deep-rooted, political weaponry to suppress the power of women. The problem today is that, for the Muslim women who wear the veil, the decision to wear it is experienced as a free choice. The ban will do two things at the expense of real political action: 1) it will punish that which is seemingly a free choice, and be regarded itself as subjugation – the very thing the ban pretends to mitigate against; 2) it will ignore, and push further to the bottom of the pile, the real problem of deep rooted oppression against women.

Mehdi Hasan has received much praise and criticism for his opinions, and for him I have both. Mr Hasan is a superb speaker, an erudite and able critic of the right wing and a principled thinker. What comes with this, however, is fine attention; every little thing he has to say is closely examined which means one slip will be grounds upon which his critics will pounce almost without hesitation.

On BBC Question Time last night Hasan said:

“Lets look at the reaction to David Cameron’s speech, Nick Griffin said it was a provocative speech; when Nick Griffin says your speech is provocative you know you’re in trouble. The daughter of the leader of the French National Front Jean-Marie Le Pen said she wanted to congratulate David Cameron on his speech and the leader of the EDL in Luton said “he’s saying what we’re saying, he knows what his base is saying”, so when hear reactions like that I do worry about such speeches”

The bottom line is that as part of his criticism to Cameron, what adds to his “worry” is the reaction to “such speeches”.

I don’t often do so, but I agreed with Douglas Murray when in reply he mentioned the opportunistic nature of these far right sympathisers of Cameron’s, and that this says more about them than it does Cameron – who at least adequately distinguished in his speech the difference between Islam and it’s violent, politically extreme offshoot.

It also highlights the fact that the left have been rather slow to demonstrate its  own opposition to extreme political projects as observed by militant Islamists – but instead of driving this point home, Labour MPs like Sadiq Khan resort to calling Cameron’s speech “propaganda for the EDL” (which Hasan has praised).

Hasan did not “equate David Cameron with the EDL” as he says, but he has accused Cameron of “dog-whistling” to them – a point he of course could not substantiate.

Imagine if all of us were accused of dog-whistling when politically unpalatable groups tried to jump on a particular bandwagon. Imagine if I were to judge Mehdi Hasan’s opposition to US drone attacks simply because the banned UK Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir cross-posted an article of his onto their website, where a commenter has replied to it with this disturbing message:

Soon, he [President Obama] too won’t see the funny side, as the people of Pakistan move to re-establish the Khilafah, Insha’Allah [Caliphate (Islamic government), God willing].

Or if I were to judge Hasan on account of the fact that his views on Jesus have been given praise by the Muslim Brotherhood, a group who tonight he said he did not “share the political or theological views of”.

I doubt anyone would think it fair to judge a person by the opportunists he attracts. This principle should be levelled at Hasan, as much as it ought to be at Cameron.

Recently I wrote:

An anti-Semite by the name of Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky will be addressing an otherwise very respectable Mosque tonight in my local area of Kilburn.

He is the head of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), the website of which has an article clearly demonstrating the extent to which he views Jews as plotters. An article on that website details a recent seminar given by a deeply dubious character Sheikh Yusuf Ali who talks about the Zionist plot against Muslims; then clearly details Zakzaky noting “the Jewish plot against Islam is manifested in Iraq as they sent Bush to capture Iraq for them”. There is of course the obligatory reference to the “protocols”.

According to his biography on the official website of the IMN:

The goal of the Islamic movement is to enlighten the Muslims as to their duties as individuals and as a community. The movement owns more than three hundred primary/secondary schools located in different places mainly in the northern part of the country. They are known by the name of Fudiyyah Schools. This is in addition to many Islamic centers and other institutions. The movement also owns the Nigeria’s most widely circulated newspaper, Al Mizan, in the Hausa language.

It also details Zakzaky’s arrests, which the site claims were “for his ideas”.

The Jerusalem Post – one of the few publications with details of Zakzaky’s visit – mentions details of the host of the conference, the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). They say:

The IHRC is a Hezbollah and Islamic Republic supporting organization. At an anti-Israel rally in Hyde Park during the Second Lebanon War, its chair Massoud Shadjareh wore a Hezbollah flag as did research director Reza Kazim, who was seen chanting phrases like “We are all Hezbollah” and “Bomb, bomb Tel Aviv.” At a pro- Israel rally in London’s Trafalgar Square in 2008, Kazim was ejected by the police for filming within the roped off area.

According to an article written by the Middle East Strategic Information written in 2009:

• Zakzaky’s IMN is growing popular among impoverished Nigerian Muslims
• He believes Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden do not exist, acts of terrorism in the west are organised by western intelligence services, and that Tony Blair was behind the 7/7 bombings
• He claims Nigeria’s secularist leaders perform ritual sacrifices removing unborn babies from their Mother’s wombs by ripping them out
• He believes Jews are “”dastardly infidels” and draws inspiration from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the deceased Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin

He has been and gone now, but came almost unnoticed.

I hate to come across all Eustonite or “decent” but if Geert Wilders or Le Pen or someone dreadful like that came to our town, we’d be all over them like a rash, but with figures such as Zakzaky – who is not small beer by the way, he is the head of Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) – we give it a miss.

Some may say that Zakzaky has never committed terror himself, which is why it is not important, but this does not disprove his threat. Some may say, in his words, he does not cause terror. This is questionable, but I’m careful not to make claims I cannot substantiate. During the conference season, the Quilliam Foundation held an event on how non-violent extremism can be just as dangerous as violent extremism. Whether directly or indirectly, Zakzaky has sounded off to the tune of racial discrimination and religious violence, and this should not be sniffed at.

Some will perhaps accuse me, and have done before, of making straw man of whom to knock down. The point here is that I’m not accusing anyone of supporting Zakzaky – though there obviously are some who do - and I’m certainly not saying that in the absence of an anti-fascist picket of him, that I should therefore deduce the anti-fascists in fact support Islamic fascists. It is not true. But I have difficulty understanding why people like Zakzaky don’t wind them up to the point of protest, whereas smaller targets like David Irving, do.

Now let me quickly qualifiy this before I get myself into trouble. Of course Irving is bad news, and has dangerous ideas, but at least he is an army of one; him and maybe some idiots in the National Front or Combat 18. His words are largely ignored by the vast amount of thinking human beings, and are taken on board by a small group of twits that if they express their counterfactual opinions, land themselves in court. Zakzaky, on the other hand, is the head of a church, has many followers and is fiercely anti-Semitic – context, here, is all.

In my quest to get more airplay on Zakzaky, I wrote to three individuals/organisations that I thought could maybe help; Peter Tatchell, Hope not Hate and Unite Against Fascism.

I requested their help in numbers to picket the arrival of Zakzaky and ask questions of the mosque why they felt it responsible to invite someone with a evident history of anti-Semitism and crime.

I saw something on him at the Jerusalem Post and some bits on Harry’s Place blog here and here, as well as a cross-post on the Spittoon website, but when I read next to nothing about him in the mainstream press I wrote to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jewish Chronicle – as well as tweeting Martin Bright and Stephen Pollard – Hampstead and Highgate Express and the Kilburn Times.

The only response I got from any of these places was Peter Tatchell to tell me he was ill and had no campaign funds. Tatchell in his email recommended I contact the Board of Deputies of British Jews and contact local news sources – which I had done. It is a great credit to the man for at least writing back to me and taking my email seriously; there indeed is someone who will not allow sentimentalities affect his principles, and I can’t talk highly of him for doing so.

Tatchell’s first line said it all: “I share your anger about Mosques hosting extremist clerics and preachers. It is no better than having a right wing white racist speaking.”

There is no such thing as a “decent” left. There are leftwingers and rightwingers, with some mixing in the middle, and there are hypocrites and those who allow confused politics affect principles. I do not level this charge at anyone in particular, but in the fight against fascism in all its forms, we can’t just sit on our hands, we should be pulling our fingers out.

In the end I went down to the mosque by myself, and I was ineffective and nervous about getting on the wrong side of anyone. But were I backed up with the same level of energy certain organisations reserve for other far rightwingers, we could have told a number of people what we think about foul ideas infiltrating vulnerable communities.

Kenan Malik has been on my mind lately. I recently read his book From Fatwa to Jihad and I have learnt that he will be speaking at Westminster Skeptics early next year.

Today I thought I’d search his name on YouTube and was thrown up a video of a Newsnight episode on which he appeared with Tariq Modood, Ekow Eshun and Germaine Greer.

The latter guest, Germaine Greer, is often thought to be one of those annoying feminist, liberal, middle class bastards!

She once stood accused of asking Salman Rushdie to apologise for writing his book The Satanic Verses and offending. Though on Newsnight, she denied having done this, before explaining what she meant when she used “apology”, “Rushdie” and “The Satanic Verses” in the same sentence.

Below is the video of that episode of Newsnight where Greer says:

I don’t care if people burn books, my books have been burnt, as long as they pay for them they can do whatever they like with them, but I do think that nobody should die for a book, and that if you think you can prevent anymore people dying for the book – we all know how the book was manipulated – and all you have to do is apologise, go on your knees to Mashhad or whoever, then do it to save your life, you shouldn’t die for your book either

(09.56 – 10.29)

If you have had your head buried under rocks you may also have upset Iran, the most important part of the Rushdie affair occurred on February 14, 1989 when Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa calling on all Muslims to execute all those involved in the publication of the novel.

At the time, an Iranian religious foundation called the 15 Khordad Foundation offered a reward of $US1 million or 200 million rials for the murder of Rushdie.

Greer in the above video, recognises some necessity in Rushdie apologising to Mashhad, a very holy city in Iran, but adds an important clause: to save his life and the lives of other publishers and people involved in the publication of the book in other countries.

The question becomes harder I feel at this point: should Rushdie have apologised to people who feel it justified to kill people on the grounds that they have offended them, or, since he knows these people will stop at nothing, should he have apologised to save the lives others?

Even more tricky: because to apologise, or not to, is a choice that Rushdie had to make, at what point would he have been responsible in the event of a death (Greer notes later in the programme that “the thing was Salman was the safest person around. It was everybody else who was at risk, and nothing was done about them”).

For me the answer is simple: Rushdie should not have apologised because to do so would be to give credibility to the idea that when someone is offended by something, the obvious reaction should be to kill that person – that is all it comes down to.

But not everyone agreed at the time. Tory tabloids pictured Rushdie as someone who purposely put national security in jeopardy; mainstream politicians talked about at what stage something should no longer be protected under the banner free speech.

I think when people believe Rushdie should have apologised because other people were in danger, they themselves are in danger of not recognising that those who call for the murder, or those whose desire it is to carry out the murder, are not making a choice, and that they are acting on some uninterruptible compulsion over which we can have no intervention.

Also I often wonder what motivates this view. Many people once felt that there was a causal link between poverty and terrorism, but this does two things: first, it doesn’t take note of the facts; people who have had otherwise stable backgrounds, university educations and decent jobs have committed terror acts (such as the 7/7 bombers), while not every person who experiences poverty commits terror, so it doesn’t follow ipso facto that terrorism is a determinant of poverty. Second, it assumes people of a certain class, or I dare say race or nationality, are simply automaton not able to think for themselves and act upon the sort of compulsion that Greer assumed those who wanted to kill Rushdie did.

Drawing this back to Rushdie, by blaming him for not apologising gives credibility to the murderous bastards that wanted to kill him or anyone involved with the book he had written on the grounds that they did not like what he’d written (or they’d heard from someone else that they wouldn’t like what had been written – Malik in his aforementioned book made note that Khomeini had definitely not read the book before forming an opinion on it).

By pretending certain people cannot form opinions or carry out actions without their being some obvious symptom is to allow the opinion that people are stupid. Since Muslims were involved in the Rushdie affair, I’ve little doubt that to blame Rushdie for the desire of certain Muslims to kill Rushdie is to assume Muslims are stupid.

Remember that ironically titled article by Yasmin Alibhai Brown called God bless the foreigners willing to do our dirty work where she mourned the exploitation, often unregulated and often un-unionised work that people from abroad have to suffer. The one where she castigated the managerial class for embracing the free movement of labour as a way of driving down wages, and enjoyed the lack of laws relating to temp workers so hours can be longer and wages minimal? No?

I guess that is not what she meant when she penned the following:

Two fit white British men loiter outside my local bank. They beg. I asked if they wanted to clear out my back garden for a fair wage. They said I was one crazy lady. Polish Andrew did the job cheerfully and efficiently. God bless bloody foreigners who do our dirty work and are then damned by an ungrateful, obtuse nation.

If this is the voice of someone left wing or progressive (that, among other things; self-described of course) then I’ll get my coat. But left wing this is not.

Brown has made quite a name for herself as being someone who derides the “lazy” – demonstrating, not simply a lack of knowledge in the writing of Paul Lafargue (won’t blame her for that), but as one who forgets the golden rule against using dangerous generalisations and sweeping statements unable to be substantiated upon.  

Eagle-eyed Reuben, over at TTE, noticed this as well. He says:

While Yasmin says she knows a number of lazy immigrants, she observes “most of us immigrants feel insecure and vulnerable and can never take anything for granted. The survival instinct makes us push the work ethic into our kids.”

The point Reuben goes on to elaborate is immigrants should not have to work for nothing, or next to nothing, which can quite often be their option, and points out that if this “ethic” is to substantiated, it is not necessarily the most rewarding in a society predicated so fixedly on exploiter and exploited (similar to the conclusion made by Lafargue in fact).

I want to go further; I’m happy for Brown to say this instinct is present in people who have felt vulnerable, but in context with other comments she has made about  who she might refer to as lazy white British men, what results is excluding the white working class from being either “insecure” or “vulnerable” – which of course is baseless.

Read again, with knowledge of other things she has said about those who do not work; is insecurity and vulnerability necessary elements to a good work ethic, and if so, does that mean people who do not work are not “insecure” or “vulnerable” enough?

I might forward this reasoning to the caricature bourgeois, suburban liberal middle class comments awards taking place at an as-yet-unnamed venue.

Her latest offering, at first glance on the subject of how Taliban values are entering Muslim children in the UK, turns out to do with middle class Muslim attitudes to rogue British children in state schools.

She “interviews” a representative sample:

Samad Hussein, who runs a corner shop near my home, speaks for many when he says: ‘When I first came to England, it was a nice country – polite, respectful.

‘People knew good behaviour. My older children had English friends, no problem.

‘Now these girls, nearly naked in the roads, drinking and swearing, sex everywhere. I can’t let my young daughters be like that.

‘So I send them to Muslim schools. I don’t want to, but it is bad out there.’

What I detect in Brown’s attitude is, not sympathy with the difficulty in juggling progressive values with wanting to ensure ones child(ren) receives a good education, one which they have a right to, but rather a moral superiority very few of us on the left would ever wish to promote positively.

(Below is the fourth part of TCF’s series of articles on International Women’s Day, by Claire Spencer. Claire is a contributor to Labour List and a financial journalist).

When I came across this article in The Daily Mail, I hadn’t thought about “fatwa girl” Ayaan Hirsi Ali for a very long time – and never in this context.

Back then, I had been picking my way through The Lonely Planet guide to Amsterdam, noting sights that I might want to see, and generally finding out more about The Netherlands and its history.

At the bottom of page 36, in the Arts section, was a piece on the artist and director Theo Van Gogh, who had been murdered in 2004, shot off his bike by a member of the alleged Islamist organisation The Hofstad Network for his short film ‘Submission: Part 1’, which showed how verses from the Qur’an could be used to justify violence against women.

Right or wrong, it was a bold piece by an already controversial figure, and that boldness ultimately had its price. Pinned to his chest was a letter, promising among other vengeances the destruction of Hirsi Ali, with whom he had made the film. She has been under constant police protection in the US, where she now lives, ever since.

I wanted to find out more, so I did a bit more research. A brave, if polemical figure, Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia in 1969, the daughter of a prominent member of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front. Hirsi Magan Isse, who had studied abroad in his youth, was opposed to female genital cutting, but during a period of imprisonment, Hirsi Ali’s grandmother had the procedure performed on her.

She was five years old.

But she did not become the atheist and outspoken critic of Islam that she was to become until much later.

As a student in The Netherlands at the time of 9/11, her faith was rocked when she heard Osama Bin Laden using the book that had defined her life up until that point being used to justify those attacks. She became an atheist in 2002, and started to formulate her critique of Islam and Islamic culture, rising to national prominence as she did so.

Up until this point, she had been a member of the Dutch Labour Party, but the events caused her to switch allegiance to the centre-right Party for Freedom and Democracy, and to stand for Parliament.

Her tenure was characterised by controversy, and often saw her incorrectly blur the lines between devout Muslims and extremists, dividing opinion and making her plenty of enemies.

As such, it is no small wonder that she caught the eye of Theo Van Gogh, who, in the words of political writer Ian Buruma in his book ‘Murder in Amsterdam’, was drawn not so much by what she said, but “the fact that people wished to prevent her from saying it.” She wrote the script for and narrated ‘Submission: Part 1’, Van Gogh directed. She had wanted “to get a discussion going and needle people into thinking” by confronting them with “dilemmas” and Van Gogh, thriving as he did on controversy, was a willing partner. Neither of them anticipated the consequences.

In light of her life, its rights, wrongs, abuses and achievements –I found the Daily Mail article strange, incongruous. True or not, it reads like just another sensationalised sex story, throwaway and tawdry, small fry compared to the death of a man, a fatwa, a clash of cultures.

You can probably surmise which is more important to the editors of The Daily Mail.

I’m sure they weren’t the first to take such an approach, and they probably won’t be the last. But it wasn’t without value, and reminded me of what she gave up to stand up for the values she held, to try and change the world she saw for the better, and that as much as she is a symbol, a fascinating narrative, a cautionary tale, a heroine, a threat – she is also human, and comes complete with everything that entails.

So on International Women’s Day, I urge you to take a look at Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who demonstrates that morality is highly subjective, and never straightforward.