2005 UK General Elections

ozerkhalid #46

`` Of course you would not dream of giving an iota of importance to the thousands of innocent Iraqi mothers and children getting pillaged and slaughtered by foreign troops?
Surely more than a “tinge” of neo-fascism on your part amigo? ``

As a matter of principle I do not like the US invasion of Iraq. However it is hard for me to vigorously protest against acts of ommission by US troops when I looked the other way for most of Saddam`s 25 year rule. I can see why Americans do not want their citizens to die in Iraq and spend their hard earned dollars on the war. I fail to see why British Muslims would be so agitated to vote against Blair for the Iraq war.

Re ALL who wrote to my points:.....Yes Syke and few others....thats exactly correct....we`re talking 4% in a 50 mill nation..its still a tiny amount, and honestly the community as whole regardless of faith is still facing some of challenges they have have had to deal with since their initial arrival in the late 50s....namely..equality in the housing and job markets..access to decent public education...and adequete minority representation in parliment. This fractionalization of the community along faith and communal lines does nothing for all parties. Honestly about half the 2.2 million asians are muslim...another 30% is hindu and the remainder mainl sikh..with maybe a few christians. Just look at the numbers then..it becomes quite pathetic for each individual sub-community if they try work on their own for political gains. Pakistani and Kashmiri muslims breaking away for a pan-islamist identity with other muslims..just does not make sense. Honestly speaking what genuine cohesivness could there be in community interests of areas of large arab populations in london;s west end...edgeware road..knightsbridge and all...and the Pakistani community of north Manchester. Anger over the war in Iraq is perfectly justifiable and voting against an individual who led the nation to that war is a perfectly acceptable democratic right. The problem is when..for example BBC World ran a program just before election night on the election candidates in Blackburn (which has a 25% muslim population). There was the anti labour British Pakistani candidate who was unabashedly running against the labour incumbent Jack Staw on a rigid SINGULAR main issue of Iraq.....that cannot be a cohesive strategy for the Asian community in Britain..honestly..at one point or another 2 million people marched against the war...so u imagine how many more silent anti-war supporters..do the math..the anti-war movement had large support among Labour and Liberal Dem voters...white..black..asian..christian..muslim..hindu...whatever...the main point that the anti-war movement was largely not a simple muslim led religious based movement and should not be painted as one. On the other hand of more than a few muslim British Asian community leaders..faith leaders and politicians to paint it exactly as a ``war on islam`` and so forth was far too opportunisitic and it seems clearly that there was much sheepish voting by members of the said community on these lines. Now as some others have noted..what could be solutions...honestly I think there has to be far greater communication and interaction between all these community...faith leaders and politicans among British muslims..hindus and sikhs..to bring the overall political framework on the vast majority of issues if NOT ALL....improvement s housing..education..job access...and removing the still lingering racism that clearly exists in these areas of ALL asians regardless of faith and community...certain foreign policy issues will always divide communities to an extent...it is less likely for British hindus to get worked up over the religious angle in Iraq...similarily for British muslims over say the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan...the point is ultimately elections and life is generally about so called bread and butter issues that I have mentioned above..these are what fundamentally impact day to day life for a british asian living in manchester..london..wherever..and on all these issues..there is great commonality that all British Asians face regardless of faith and community...far greater commonality than say like I said between the predominant British Pakistani community in Manchester and northern England and the large relatively wealthy arab community in West London...Both of the latter may be muslims...but believe any British asian knows from the history of the entire community..from the 1950s..the challenges of british sikhs in southall and british pakistani muslims in manchester are always gonna be more similar than the lebanese community around edgeware road. Also just in case some steps in and says the British Indian community clearly outperforms the British Pakistani community as seen by comparitive GCSE results etc shownb by BBC..that is largely true..but you also have to understand that a large part of the British Indian community`s success comes from the specific Gujarati community that migrated from Uganda in the 1970s..so called African Asians...this community was largely rich..highly educated community .very very very different from the majority of the classical Indian community that came since the 1950s..(not including all this South Indian nurses/doctors lot that have come in the last 5-7 years)....the latter would be far closer to the British Pakistani migrants in terms of educational and occupational background...and also in current educational standards. Anyways coming back to point...all I can say is that inspite of differences such as Iraq..there is far far clearly more that unites all british asians on real domestic issues that are gonna affect 99% of their daily lives..and it is high time leaders saw that.

#84 by Zakkk on May 10, 2005 5:02pm PT


Tell me Arjun..what do you think of Irish Americans who supported the IRA?


Were they behind as an ethnic group and still voting on that one issue? If they were, they were no less stupid than the brit-pakis....


Or tell me how many people of Indian descent non Sikhs demonstrated when the Sikhs were getting massacred after Indira Gandhis gov?


People who vote based on pan-Islamist causes and then try to pass it off as a vote on humatarian grounds have something to prove.....not Indians....

It`s your contention that the voting based on the war in Iraq was based on humantarian grounds and not pan-islamism...so the burden is on you to show that your humanitarian concerns apply to all cases and not just cases in which non-muslims are fighting muslims...If you had protested the atrocities of the saddam regime half as loudly as the war in Iraq, you`d have a point...



wrong with being an idealogue who believes Islam is the root of all evil


Aww..you poor picked-upon muslim you....

search through my posts...find one post where I thought the war in iraq(in which a bunch of muslims were killed) was a good idea...in case you need help in searching through my posts, let me know and i`ll help you....

Tell me Arjun..what do you think of Irish Americans who supported the IRA?

Or tell me how many people of Indian descent non Sikhs demonstrated when the Sikhs were getting massacred after Indira Gandhis gov?

Your gross generalisations and gross simplifications are those of an idealogue..there is nothing wrong with being an idealogue who believes Islam is the root of all evil (closely followed by Pakistanis)...to your credit though you probably know more about Pakistan & Islam then most Pakistanis ...it`s a shame it`s such a prejudiced view though...

Re: # 75

Ozer

Thanks for the invite.I might do just that.My cousin lives in London, so i have a place to stay, and he has a house in Manchester too.Manchester has improved a lot, even from seven years ago.I remember it as a dreary place when i was a kid.I love the scenery in the UK, especially the lake district and Scotland.I`m going to Gangtok, Sikkim for a week`s vacation, en famille, to escape summer a little bit.I wouldn`t be surprised if the hotel room is wired for the internet,( even in the Himalayas) so i can still rant and rave on this site and get my daily dosage of porn.India is all `IT` and wired everywhere.Even the fruit vendor calls you from his cell phone , before he comes over to the home!!.Time is money for him too.How things have changed in Bharat.Cut and paste this link to pics of Sikkim state......you won`t regret it!.I chose Sikkim for my vacation after checking these pics.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=4089556#post4089556


cayenne

paging the apologists for pan-Islamism..(ozerkhalid and Zakk)...how do you explain this poll?

http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/reviews/2002/guardian-muslims-poll-june-2002.htm

Forget Iraq for a minute...the war in Afghanistan against OBL was a real war against terrorism...so how do you explain why 66% of brit-muslims disapprove of the war against OBL and only 20% approve?

93% of brit-muslims are concerned about war in the middle east...95% of brit-muslims are concerned about the war in Kashmir....

Once again...how doesn`t that reflect a higher degree of concern for pan-Islamic causes...

And if brit-pakis are so concerned about the sufferings of their fellow humans, why hasn`t any brit-paki protested against the government of sudam for what it`s doing in darfur?

Did we hear of pakis, with their concern for the suffering of fellow humans, planning a bomb attack against the saddam regime? No...

POLICE SEIZE EXPLOSIVES
Eight men are continuing to be being questioned over an alleged plot to unleash a terrorist bombing campaign in Britain.

Detectives found more than half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertiliser - the same explosive ingredient already used in terror attacks in Bali, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Africa and the United States.

The suspects, aged between 17 and 32, are all British citizens and Muslims of Pakistani descent, sources said.


Pakistanis held in Iraq with explosives

BAGHDAD, March 26: Iraqi forces said on Saturday that they had arrested 120 suspects, including foreign Arabs, Pakistanis and Afghans, on suspicion of planning attacks against the country`s Shia community.

A source at the defence ministry said the suspects were arrested during a raid in Jurf al-Sakhr, about 60km south of Baghdad.

#66 by thunder on May 9, 2005 5:27pm PT


what about all the campaigning the british pakistanis did against saddam ? infront of embassies around the world, the US , the UK, there were massive rallies in London against Saddam ? how can you overlook that ?


I searched for that in google and didn`t find anything...maybe there`s a special search engine for pakiworld™, the magical mystical place where right is left and black is white and where brit-pakis came out on the streets protesting against saddam or didn`t back islamic terrorism in Kashmir....

maybe some brit-paki can post the url for that search engine...

#61 by ozerkhalid on May 9, 2005 4:52pm PT


Has your head been buried so deep in the Saharan sand that you did not take heed that Brit-Pakistanis, Brit-Hindus, Indian and Pakistani diplomats campaigned head-strong round the clock and relentlessly for years to push forward multi-lateral legislation against Saddam and his brutalities: to cite but a few concrete examples:


The odd brit-paki diplomat working against saddam is not the same as the vast number of brit-pakis marching in the streets..or voting primarily based on that issue...

I`m sure there were some brit-paki diplomats who worked with blair on the dossier or whatever lies he used to push the war...should we take that to mean the vast majority of brit-pakis were in favor of the iraq war?

Tell me how many brit-paki parliament members sponsored resolutions against saddam hussein when he was killing iraqis?


Please be informed before waxing lyrical.


Please post some links on brit-pakis making saddam`s opression or the genocide in rawanda the number one issue when that happened...

I`ll repeat so it`s clear: The vast majority of brit-pakistanis didn`t care when saddam was murdering iraqi mothers and children....or when rawandan mothers and children were being murdered....when that happened, it wasn`t their number one issue....

So please excuse me for not believing that brit-pakis were motivated by concerns for the sufferings of their fellow humans...

#60 by Zakkk on May 9, 2005 4:34pm PT


and as the decision to go to war effects millions of people it supersedes debates on education and health..


Education policy and health policy effects millions...millions of brits...including brit-pakis...this is absolutely about pan-Islamism...Most brit-pakis are against the war in Afghanistan too...


I could quote them to you..but I really wouldn`t wanna burst your Islamophobe bubble...


Umm...why don`t you quote them and actually burst the bubble...

and another thing...pakistan is not the same as islam...saying brit-pakistanis are more prone to terrorism is not the same as saying brit-muslims are more prone to terrorism...nice try tho...

ozerkhalid,
The manifesto looks good to me. But then I don`t live in UK so cannot say for sure if they really have achieved what they have claimed to have achieved.

thunder,
Britain seems to have an uneasy relationship with EU. Seems like if the crunch point comes when they have to choose between EU and USA, they almost always choose USA. I guess its because they share the same heritage.

spiritualgypsy,
Tony Blair seems to have done a decent job with everthing else. I mean look at their NHS. It does not seem to be as bad some in the press have made it out to be, and if it had been left to the conservatives, they would have sold it out.

Re: # 64

Pakistanis outperform Bengalis and people of Afro-Carribean background..Pakistanis are outperformed by Indians ( regardless of whther they are Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs)..but Pakistanis do better when you exclude the Mirpuri community..

As far as the justification of the war..Saddam should have been toppled..but for the right reasons..what was done..in the end was purely for neoconservative idealogues...and one shouldn`t kid themselves into thinking it had any humanitarian motives..

Those who oppose Islamists should in fact have opposed the war..as a result of this war there is an Islamist wave sweeping the Arab world which is far more anti american...

Re: # 74

cayenne

when the cards of the trip to london have been placed on the poker table give me a shout (my details including e-mail are on my profile) and we can partayy !

Re: # 58
Ozer K

You`re welcome.Pounds into rupees means party time in india for ye.I have a cousin , born in the UK, and i have visited there many times, tho` not in the last seven years.Started working!!.Actually, my cousin visits more often bringing with him a whole group of his limey friends and many of them never want to return , or do so reluctantly, after enjoying themselves here.With more private airlines operating from india, airfares should start coming down, so a trip to London is definitely on the cards for me.Right now it costs the same whether one flies from New Delhi to Cochin or to Singapore!!!.Guess where the janta will head?.

Well, back to the `serious` discussion of the Uk elections.For you!!.

cayenne

Re: # 14

theo what do you feel should be done with pakistanis in britain ?

should they be deported ?

is that the assumption by you and the judge ?

Re: # 29

sajj

what concrete steps and tangible ones can Asians living in britain take to foster multi-culturalism ?