Originally a comment by newenlightenment on Letters demanding £5,000.
(Repost)
Galloway’s endorsement of dictatorship extends beyond the Muslim world. Here he is in 2008 at a rally for the ultra Stalinist Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist Leninist)* praising Mao’s cultural revolution and denouncing free Tibet protestors as ‘Running dogs of imperialism’:
The CPGB (ML) is a tiny little sect whose sole purpose appears to be to endorse every brutal despot in existence, provided that despot is at least vaguely anti-American. The party has pledged its colours to North Korea, its chairman Harpal Brar wrote an entire book praising Robert Mugabe, they offer unconditional support to Hamas and Hezbollah and have marched under the slogans ‘victory to Assad’ and ‘victory to Gaddafi’. (Though even they draw the line at ISIS) since they lack any resources to bribe Galloway in the manner to which he is accustomed I can only conclude he was at that meeting out of genuine solidarity with their warped ideas.
What a great friend Galloway is to the Muslim world, endorsing a Chinese dictatorship that occupies and subjugates Muslim East Turkestan with far more viciousness that Israel has ever shown in Gaza. He displayed that same friendship when he endorsed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which resulted in the deaths of over a million Muslims. Fraternal love towards the Muslim world must have been utmost in his mind when he opposed effective intervention in Bosnia, to prevent the attempted genocide of its Muslim population by Milosevic’s thugs. Galloway once said ‘a billion Muslims know my name’. I truly hope so, George, I hope they never forget it.
*not to be confused with the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist) or the Revolutionary communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist) never mind the Communist Party of Britain, the Communist Party of Great Britain or the New Communist Party of Britain. Seriously, I’m not making any of this up.
George Galloway never saw an authoritarian dictatorship he didn’t immediately fall in love with.
When I was in high school out of curiosity I went to a meeting of the Socialist Party of America (now the Social Democrats, USA). They spent much of their time denouncing the American Socialist Party as being too Leninist and not enough Marxist. It seems a tendency among Marxist and socialist parties in the West to split over minute differences in ideology.
….and now we know where the inspiration for that scene in Life of Brian came from. Also, it’s reminiscent of the way oft-schismed fundamentalist sects have to elaborate and qualify their names to distinguish themselves from their recently-beloved brethren (now bitterly despised as heretics).
Canada also has a Communist Party and a Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). The latter came about because of the Sino-Soviet split, the CPC(ML) supporting Beijing.
Seriously, the purity drive that leads to so many little communist islands, each with their own infinitesimally small deviations from what the other communists are thinking, brings to mind the tens of thousands of little christian communities that damn each other to hell over things that the rest of the world can only shrug over.
It’s not religion or ideology, it’s about being right. What you’re right about, is trivial. The main thing is that you are right and the rest is rong.
…tens of thousands of little christian communities that damn each other to hell over things that the rest of the world can only shrug over.
I don’t see much of that happening anymore. What I see these days is all of those sects, big and small, new and old, uniting to support each other’s destructive con-games and marginalize their critics.
This is the telling thing. Not so much the ideology of the group, or the nature of the splinter. You see it over and over in human affairs. What does it mean?
And since when do Ultra Stalinists wear pin strips and Botox their foreheads?
Galloway has been a terrible pernicious influence on politics in the UK. Back in 2010 he campaigned in Bradford by out-Musliming his rival – accusing him of being a “bad Muslim” and going to pubs. It’s likely that he is a convert himself cos’ his wife is Muslim but he’s very cagey about it – says it’s between him & his God – and the guess is that he doesn’t want to admit it outright as he would have to plump for Sunni or Shi-ite, and could end up pissing off one part of his followers/associates in eg PressTV.
The Muslim community in Bradford is mostly from Pakistan but he has them wildly exercised over Palestine. Also about Charlie Hebdo. Here he is holding a rally telling them to “defend the honour of the prophet Mohammad pbuh”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kycpOE6zkOU
His populist campaigning in Bradford did break through the old corrupt “biraderi” politics – i.e. clan based block votes delivered by elders which the Labour party especially has taken shameful advantage of. He and Salma Yaqoob rallied the electorate as Muslims rather than clan members.
http://www.psa.ac.uk/insight-plus/blog/de-mystifying-biraderi-politics-bradford
Salma broke with him, to her credit, after his stupid remarks about rape with regard to Julian Assange.
“Even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100% true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don’t constitute rape,” Galloway said. “At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it. And somebody has to say this.
“Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat, gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him, claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know. I mean, not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion.”
For the next general election he now has the Islamsst Yvonne Ridley helping him out eg with their Hello Ladies poster calling women to women only groups to help him campaign for re-election. Ridley is fairly horrible – she was speaking in favour of the segregated meetings at the universities – and I don’t know if she has the pulling power of Salman Yaqoob, who has got an agreeable personality. Again, if Muslim women do turn up for this kind of campaigning they are acting independently from their families and in the long run this may not be all bad.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gorgeous-george-galloway-says-hello-5265783
But Bradford is a sectarian place with a lot of Muslim fervour. Tablet ran a very good and disturbing article about the antisemitism there. A good deal of it can be laid at Galloway’s door. He has done real evil. (He’s one who is always careful to say “Zionism” but he may as well use the J word.)
http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/189347/a-polite-hatred-2-bradford-galloway
“I recently spent a day in the city’s central square asking people what they think of Israel and the Jews. Without fail, every white respondent I put the question to expressed indifference. “Galloway is stirring up tensions between different races to get the Muslim vote,” a middle-aged printing mechanic told me. Others agreed. “These white MPs are going after the Muslim vote by whipping them up with the Jews,” grumbled a twenty-something product designer. But some others, particularly younger Asian Muslims, took a more troubling view. An asylum seeker from Iraq told me he voted for Galloway because “he tells the truth about the Jews.” Passing a joint between them, two youths in hoods explained: “It’s all about 9/11 and Bush and how they did that to get at Iraq and Afghanistan and all that. People are angry with the Jews for terrorizing Muslims all over the world. That’s what we were told in the community.” Two law students, one heavily made-up in a hijab, were even more strident; “Those Jews, they are worse than Hitler those Jews, they are murdering and massacring children, the Jews, they deserve whatever they get.”
During the Scottish referendum Galloway was one of the most popular and eloquent pro-Unionists. One of his reasons was that he thought an independent Scotland would become more sectarian i.e. between Catholic and Protestant which is a dark part of Scottish life. It expresses itself in football rivalries but with the growth of Scottish nationalism the Scots of Irish Catholic descent are deserting Labour to support the SNP while the Proddy lot go in for unionism. It’s odd that someone who could warn about the dangers of sectarianism in one religion should whip it up with another. However Galloway is an Arab Nationalist by proxy. Hence his worship of Saddam Hussein and Bashir Al-Assad.
https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/537903297295052800
27 Nov 2014 – One Arab people from Marakesh to Bahrain from the Atlantic to the Gulf;one language one culture one God. What a power it would be.
Did I mention he’s a total scum-bag?
@8: So, I guess I should I feel embarrassed on behalf of my parents’ home town (which they left around the time of WWII, but still).
M’thew @ 5 :
… “brings to mind the tens of thousands of little christian communities that damn each other to hell over things that the rest of the world can only shrug over.”
Before the reformation pretty much all Christians were under Catholic Church. The reformation opened up a direct relationship with the deity and got the foot in the door for the thousands of sects, sub-sects, and vanity interpretations.
I’m hoping Islam will go through a similar reinterpretation that opens the door to a multitude of idiosyncratic interpretations as Muslims gain a more direct relationship with their deity. In effect emulating Mohammed’s relationship with God, not his wider behaviors or tendency to molest children, hold slaves, and use force to impose his beliefs upon others.
Presently there are two major sect but those a divided less by how they approach their deity than by simple questions of lineage, specifically who was to be in charge after their prophet died.