Sajid Javid sums up everything the Conservative party would like to believe about itself. The son of a bus driver who dragged himself up by his bootstraps to get to university, before embarking on a dazzling career in the City and a seat in the Cabinet.
But Javid’s tale of social mobility and hard work is all the more compelling because of his ethnicity. Specifically, his Pakistani-Muslim heritage. For a party that barely has a toe-hold into Britain’s ethnic minority communities, he is a powerful emblem.
But here’s the problem. Javid isn’t religious. In his own words he is “not practicing”. Nevertheless, he felt able this morning to weigh into the dubious debate about the culpability of all Muslims for countering Jihadi terror, telling BBC Radio 5 Live that:
“All communities can do more to try and help and deal with terrorists, try and help track them down, but I think it is absolutely fair to say that there is a special burden on Muslim communities…”
Contrast this with what Rupert Murdoch posted yesterday on Twitter:
“Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible.”
Or when Nigel Farage claimed the other day that there was now a “fifth column” of Muslims who “hate us”.
Twitter exploded in indignation against Murdoch, while Home Secretary Theresa May called Farage “irresponsible”, and Nick Clegg accused him of making “political points”.
So why does Javid, the non-Muslim, get away with claiming there is a “special burden” on Muslims for dealing with Jihadi terror?
Surely, by opting out of the faith of his father, Javid has no more right to make the same, inelegant argument than fellow affluent non-Muslim men like Murdoch and Farage?
Tags: Charlie Hebdo, islamism, Muslim community, Nigel Farage, Rupert Murdoch, Sajid Javid, terrorism
So you claim he is of Pakistani Muslim heritage.
But he has chosen not to practice the religion, therefore he’s lost the right to ever have an opinion about something which you cannot deny is his heritage.
Errr….ok.
Why is stating the bleedin’ obvious “attacking Muslims”? If virtually all terrorists came from my community I’d accept that I had a special burden to combat it. After all, as a non-Muslim, I’m hardly in the know as to what’s going on down the local mosque.
And culpability, which infers blame or guilt, is NOT the same as burden. I don’t see anything in Javid’s words that is putting the blame on anyone.
You know the answer to that. It’s because it isn’t PC to attack the views of those politicians of Pakistani/Muslim heritage. The same effect can be seen in relation to other politicians with similar background when they criticise or support Muslims. Warsi, or Sadiq Khan for instance.
Sorry, where in the quote you provided above does Javid “attack” Muslims?
If you think expecting Muslim communities to take a firmer line tackling those pursuing an extreme deviation of their faith is “attacking” them then, whoever you are, you are part of the problem.
This blog post makes a very good point. Javid is clearly trying to use the fact that he used to be a Muslim, and the fact he’s got brown skin colour, to sound like he is a legitimate voice on matters concerning the British Muslim community. It is exactly like someone who quit the Labour Party years ago trying to sound like they know the ins and outs of the Labour Party today.
Why BBC Radio 5 Live could not find someone with grassroots recognition amongst the British Muslim community is beyond me!
This piece is utter drivel. This a total “non-story”. All Javid has said is that Muslims need to be vigilant for those who have been or could be radicalised within their community. And so you try to attack him because of this ?
Is this the pathetic level this blog has reached ? FFS !!
Because he’s a Muslim, and if gthis Islamofacism problem is hgoing to tnhe solved then its for the so-called moderate Mulims to take the fight to the terrorists, and not for the llikes of You or My honest self. Every Muslim on tnhe palnet is notionalyy held responsible for these and previkous attacks, and they should not find excuses to weasel their way out of that responsibility.
The same argument goes for taking on the bigoted Jewish Lobby and corrupt Arab Fatah/Hamas and getting that basket case of a Israe/Palestine problem solved.
Because he’s a Muslim, and if gthis Islamofacism problem is hgoing to tnhe solved then its for the so-called moderate Mulims to take the fight to the terrorists, and not for the llikes of You or My honest self. Every Muslim on tnhe palnet is notionalyy held responsible for these and previkous attacks, and they should not find excuses to weasel their way out of that responsibility.
The same argument goes for taking on the bigoted Jewish Lobby and corrupt Arab Fatah/Hamas and getting that basket case of a Israe/Palestine problem solved.
Why is it OK to censor the obvious answer?
The Muslims Pakistanis in my area (Manningham, Bradford) probably know about as much about Jihadists as I do about the Real IRA, ie. sweet FA. Javid is just another clueless reactionary Tory wanker. Folk round here are too busy getting on with their very ordinary mundane lives, worrying about their Benefits, paying their Bills, going shopping, fixing their car, etc etc. and are as baffled by the whole thing as anyone else.
Les B says: “If virtually all terrorists came from my community I’d accept that I had a special burden to combat it.”
Les, 85% of sex offenders are white. Should all whites accept fault for it, and hence do they all have a special responsibility to tackle it?
It’s interesting that the same thing is happening here as is on Comment is Free at The Guardian. A post is put up reflecting the official line of the site owners and almost all of the comments are anti, some very strongly so. Do people think that Guardian readers and Labour Party members are trying to say something but aren’t being listened to? And is this then writ large in the rest of the country?
My apologies for my grammar spelling and punctuation, but this islamofacism/zionism issue is one of the very few issues that makes me absolutely livid with anger, and the two are linked, and its about time Jews and Arab Muslims sorted this out. I also get fed up with those ‘liberal’ left colleagues that keep making excuses for both Jews and Muslim Arabs. How much longer are we all going to have to put up with this nonsense.
This absurd article would insult the meanest intelligence and demeans the usually high standard of this site. Will any of the excellent regular contributors assert ownership of this tosh (or disown it)?
I don’t think Muslims have any special responsibility, more than anyone else. How many Christians felt that they had special responsibility to speak out when Christians in the Central African Republic began attacking Muslims? Or is there one rule for Muslims and one for everyone else?
Jack Smith said “85% of sex offenders are white. Should all whites accept fault for it, and hence do they all have a special responsibility to tackle it?”
Well no, not if 85% of the general population is white. But if white people were found to be disproportionately more likely to be sex offenders than other groups then, yes, we would have to debate it and figure out how to tackle it.
Football hooliganism in the 1980s was a problem of needless violence within our own culture. There were various points of view on the causes and debates about the best way of dealing with it.
But saying things like “not all white working class men like going to European cities to smash up cafes and have a fight in the town square” or “hooliganism is nothing to do with football” would have simply been to dodge the issue. It was a problem within our culture that we had to take responsibility for and work to change. Why is it unreasonable to expect all muslims to challenge terrorism within their communities?
@Crispin Hemson
It’s one rule for muslims and another for everyone else.
Of course the general muslim population is not responsible for the atrocities committed by a tiny deluded minority who happen to be of that religion.
Same goes for white people and Anders Breivik or other RWNJs like David Copeland; or Catholics and IRA, ETA.
An awful lot of foul, self centred chickenhawkery from the usual suspects over the last week. In contrast to the dignity and calmness of the French people in the aftermath.
All good knockabout stuff to lay into Javid a) because he’s a Tory and b) becuse he’s a “non practicing moslem – well I’m a non practicing Presbyterian, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t absorb at my mothers knee a certain culture and viewpoint. I suspect he has a better grasp on where the UK moslem community stands than most. It hardly suits the seriousness of the problem he was trying to address and seems to reflect a reluctance to give up old multikulti and culturally relativist orthodoxiies. Perhaps the writer should pay note to the moslem mayor of Rotterdam, a Labour politician this time, who is also quite clear on what is needed; integrate, accept the ground rules of society – shape up or ship out. Are you going to ridicule him? The bien pensant are in grave danger of being left behind as attitudes harden across Europe.
Anyone who thinks we live in a multi-cultural society is barking at the moon. Maybe in the middle classes in Islington, but over most of the country it’s a parallel-culture society and that is the fault of the politicians who for some reason refuse to adopt the policy that voters want of integration – by force of law if necessary.
There are still young kids – particularly young girls, in the pakistani community who have been born here, to mothers that in turn were born here, turning uo for schooll never having met a white kid and unable to speak anything other than their grandparents native tongue. And young asian girls are still routinely used for arranged marriages where the groom is a foreign national and totally unemployable in this country. Even allowing muslims to have more than one wife on their benefits claims – by classing them as dependent as opposed to wife, and this ripples down through social housing allocation etc etc. It is undermining what ordinary people believe is fair and right.
“Surely, by opting out of the faith of his father, Javid has no more right to make the same, inelegant argument than fellow affluent non-Muslim men like Murdoch and Farage?”
As an ethnic minority as well (not that that’s important here, just that the discourse in this place tells me ears will prick), I find these lamentable us-and-them, exclusivist insinuations common in glib student Labour thinking – essentially concluding religious identity is binary and political, not fluid/complex and cultural: a ridiculous position for the left. By opting out of recognising the pope, did Martin Luther have no right to highlight issues within Catholicism? By opting out of Revisionist hasbara, does Ilan Pappé have no right highlight issues within Zionism? By opting out of atheism, did Antony Flew have no right to challenge atheism again?
This sort of language carves up society into quixotic chunks ripe for patronising, which may well be the preferred organisation of society here, but also cultivates minds ripe for closing by the likes of us-and-them, binary, exclusivist extremists on all sides. Don’t let relativistic romanticism get in the way of diversity, man.