The Facebook Wrath of Khan
Trying to discuss Sadiq Khan's victory within 1984 conversational guidelines.
May 12, 2016
Danusha V. Goska
On May 5, 2016, London elected Sadiq Khan its new mayor. Khan is a Muslim and the son of Pakistani immigrants. The anthropologist in me sought a thorough understanding of how this seismic shift was being received by England's Muslims and non-Muslims alike. I wanted to know what demographics supported Khan, who opposed him, and who took his victory as a serious blow. I wanted to know what significant statements Khan had made about his own history-making place in society.
I turned to NPR. In lieu of news, I heard a blast from a confetti cannon. NPR journalists are nothing if not expert at using every feature of their voice to instruct the listener in the correct response. Pauses, high pitch, sighs, monosyllables snippily clipped, all conduct the listener's progress as deftly and firmly as your tour guide at a super-max prison. This day the NPR announcer was giddy. Surely Khan's election was as worthy of unalloyed celebration as the rescue of a kitten from a well. It was as if Mayor Khan had saved Britain from a long, dark night in which only – ew, yuck –
Christians had held office. Khan's election lifted some medieval curse.
I mentioned my frustration on Facebook: "Cairo, Egypt surprised the world today by electing a Christian Englishman as mayor. Next on NPR, we explore how this will impact the world's most populous Arab nation."
In that imaginary scenario, journalists would do the real work of exploring how millions of Muslim Arabs felt about being governed by a Christian Englishman. These Muslims would not be pressured to smile and announce their multiculturalism. They would not be shamed if they expressed anxiety. Reporters would merely take it down if their Muslim informants invoked the Crusades, colonialism, white supremacy, or Islamic
sanctions against Muslims being ruled by Christians.
Demographers would astutely analyze population shifts, culture shifts, and the social anxiety that inevitably follow – as documented by Harvard's
Robert Putnam and other social scientists. The information would be treated as a neutral commodity. There would be no badge of virtue in celebrating this English, Christian Cairo mayor, and no stigma or exclusion in questioning what his election means.
I'd like to hear a reporter calmly ask Khan, "How do you, a devout Muslim, understand
qisas and diyya? This system attributes a sliding scale of value to human beings, with Muslim males on the top and Pagan females at the bottom. How do you understand the
Koran's command that Muslims not take Jews or Christians as friends? How, as mayor, will you navigate Islam's prohibitions surrounding
men talking to women?"
I'm Polish, American, and Catholic. I get asked tougher questions regularly. Wake me up in the middle of the night, shine a light in my face, and ask me to give my position on the priest sex abuse crisis, the Inquisition, or Vietnam. I respect people's concerns about these issues and I've done research to respond responsibly – that's what the
Bible tells me to do in 1 Peter 3:15; it's what Thomas Jefferson said Americans must do in
the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence. I wasn't asking any more of Khan than others have asked of me.
I posted my frustration that Khan's election was being treated as a litmus test for righteousness. "Marek," a Facebook friend who lives in England, chided me. "Religion plays far less of a role in British political life than in America," Marek tut-tutted. He argued that Khan's religion was not worthy of discussion, and that Khan is a model multiculturalist. Marek posted a photo of Khan standing next to a Christian cleric, and he reported that Khan voted for "marriage equality." Marek closed with, "I will forebear from commenting in depth on the irony of an American pontificating on racial tensions."
Khan-boosting like Marek's can be found all over the web. Again, like Marek, there is the competitive factor: Khan's election is an ornament showing that the English, unlike Americans, are not mired in racial strife. The single most disturbing factoid used to quash any serious discussion of Khan's historic win: Khan attended the UK's Holocaust memorial ceremony; therefore, he must be a really good guy.
Let's get serious. Ken Livingstone is the former mayor of London. He is a leader of the Labour Party. Last month Livingstone said that Hitler was a Zionist. He said this after Naz Shah, another Labour pol, was revealed to have posted on Facebook in 2014 that Jews should be expelled from the Middle East. The Labour Party, Khan's party, faces charges of being
anti-Semitic.
What freshly-elected public official, especially under these circumstances,
wouldn't attend the UK's official Holocaust memorial ceremony? Khan did something that is as necessary, normal, and tactically beneficial for a politician as kissing babies and eating rubber chicken. In any case, Khan's visit "unleashed an anti-Semitic twitter barrage," according to
Haaretz. (
The Forward mostly likes Khan.)
Marek's comments praising Khan and pooh-poohing my desire for a deeper discussion of his election felt, to me, like the heavy hand of thought control. The official narrative: there is no tension between Muslims and non-Muslims in England. Anyone who even asks how Khan's religion affects the worldview of various demographic groups in the UK is race-baiting. There is nothing to see here. Move along.
I disagreed with Marek. I stated my disagreement in a series of photos. I posted a photo of Anjem Choudary. I posted a
photo of Lee Rigby, in his scarlet uniform, holding his son, Jack. I posted a meme of mug shots of four of the
Rotherham rapists. I posted a link to an article about an increase in attacks on Jews in London.
On April 11, 2016, ICM released the survey "
What Muslims Really Think." One subsequent headline: "
Jail Gays, Introduce Shariah."
...
The Facebook Wrath of Khan