Blowback (28/09/14)

I wrote a post recently in which I said that if I had been around when the MP George Galloway was attacked in the streets of London, I would definitely have intervened because I disagree with people who resort to physical violence to make a political point.

'Sticks and stones may break my bones' and all that. 

But I'm not sure if George actually agrees with that sentiment because my take on this article from The Guardian is that George is saying that he deserves what he gets in terms of 'blowback' over his book The Satanic Verses.

I'm not sure what 'blowback' means either, does it mean for example that if someone physically attacked Salman Rushdie in the street because they were offended by The Satanic Verses, that the Respect MP would regard this as justified or excusable in some way?

If so, I think the same could then be said about the behaviour of the idiot who assaulted George while he was going about his own business in Notting Hill the other week; Neil Masterton, a thoroughly misguided man, in my view, who reportedly told the police that "George Galloway is anti-semitic and I am Jewish'.

Now I don't know about that, but in any event it certainly doesn't allow him to give George a good kicking even is he has made what many people would regard as foolish and ridiculous comments about making Bradford and Israel-free zone. 

Rushdie dismisses Galloway's claims

By John Plunkett and Tom Service - The Guardian (Monday 29 August 2005)

Salman Rushdie clashed with George Galloway yesterday in a debate about TV and religion and a hypothetical small-screen adaptation of the novelist's controversial book The Satanic Verses.

Mr Galloway, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said TV executives had to be "very sensitive about people's religion" and if broadcasters did not show sufficient sensitivity they "had to deal with the consequences".

He said: "You have to be aware if you do [offend people's beliefs] you will get blowback. You should do it very carefully, especially if you are a public service broadcaster."

"Is that a threat?" asked Rushdie during the debate at the Media Guardian Edinburgh international television festival.

Describing Mr Galloway's argument as "craven", the author said: "The simple fact is that any system of ideas that decides you have to ringfence it, that you cannot discuss it in fundamental terms, that you can't say that this bit of it is junk, or that bit is oppressive ... we are supposed to respect that?"

Rushdie drew laughter from the audience at the special edition of Question Time when he said TV rights to the novel were still available. "For the record, there is a French project to make a theatrical adaptation of The Satanic Verses, so maybe that's a start."

Andrew Neil, chairing the session, joked: "I hope it's not near my house."

Rushdie had appeared at the Edinburgh international book festival the previous night to talk about his new book, Shalimar the Clown, which focuses on Kashmir, the birthplace of his grandparents, and evokes rural Indian life.

"I have a deep feeling for Kashmir, and I just had to write this book," Rushdie said. "[But] it's very hard to write about real events. It becomes unbearable. The challenge in writing this book was: how do you write about these things bearably without sweetening the pill?"

Rushdie said Kashmir had changed since the 1950s and 1960s. "There was no radical Islam in Kashmir then - it was pacifist, Sufist - and it had nothing to do with jihad. But in the last half century this terrible fundamentalism has got hold of the region."

He was asked if there were echoes of his experiences under the fatwa - imposed on him by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 and not lifted until 1998 - in the story of an assassination in the novel.

He said: "I really wasn't thinking about me when I wrote this book ... There's such a desire to read my books in the light of my life. You know too much about me: forget it. I wrote this book not because of me, but because of what's happening in the world."

He claimed that Islam was "backsliding into bigotry" and described Muslim leaders in Britain as "a joke, because no one follows them".

George Galloway interviewed by police over Bradford 'Israel-free zone' speech

Respect MP's comments and visit by Israeli ambassador cause Muslim leader to accuse both of creating disharmony in the city

Helen Pidd - The Guardian (19 August 2014)

Respect MP George Galloway has claimed that Israeli goods, academics and tourists are not welcome in the West Yorkshire city of Bradford. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/ Mark Kerrison/Demotix/Corbis

Respect MP George Galloway has been interviewed by police under caution after claims that he incited racial hatred by declaring Bradford an "Israel-free zone".

West Yorkshire police said the 59-year-old spoke to detectives voluntarily after complaints about a speech he gave in Leeds this month in which he said: "We don't want any Israeli goods, we don't want any Israeli services, we don't want any Israeli academics coming to the university or the college, we don't even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford, even if any of them had thought of doing so."

A police spokesman said that the matter would be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for their consideration once inquiries are completed.

Galloway said: "This is a monumental – and monumentally expensive – waste of police time set off by people who apparently find it excusable to incinerate innocent children and babies. I will not suffer any attempts to have my freedom of speech curtailed and I am confident that at the end of this charade my right to speak the truth will be upheld."

The news came as a prominent Muslim community leader in Bradford accused Galloway, who is the MP for Bradford West, and the Israeli embassy of creating disharmony in the city.

The row escalated on Tuesday after Daniel Taub, Israel's ambassador to the UK, visited Bradford and held meetings with Jewish groups and prominent councillors. According to the embassy, he came at the invitation of members of the city's small Jewish community and supporters of Israel, after Galloway said Israeli tourists were unwelcome in the city.

During his visit on Monday, Taub said: "In the best spirit of Yorkshire, the real voice of Bradford knows that there has only ever been one good boycott – and that's Geoff Boycott."

He also tweeted a picture of himself holding an Israeli passport outside city hall and another with an Israeli flag in the Greengates area of the city: an act described as a "deliberate provocation" by Zulfi Karim, secretary of the Bradford Council for Mosques.

Karim said on Tuesday: "For an ambassador to unfurl an Israeli flag by a Welcome to Bradford sign is a deliberate provocation and not the behaviour I would expect of an ambassador of one of the world's most important countries."

He called on Galloway and Taub to stop using the city for their own political ends, saying: "This is to Mr Galloway and the ambassador: please do not bring your politics on to the streets of Bradford to create disharmony among our communities. If you have concerns, share them in your embassy or in parliament or in a neutral place, not in Bradford."He added: "We work in harmony in Bradford and we support our Jewish community. Last year it was the Muslim community which helped to secure the sustainability of the city's last synagogue."

With only 299 Jews left in the city, the final synagogue was under threat of closure when members could not afford to repair the roof, until local Muslims kickstarted a campaign to save the 133-year-old building.

In his speech on Monday, Taub praised the cross-cultural understanding in Bradford. "This real Bradford has a great deal to teach the world about a multicultural city where Christians, Muslims, and Jews live, work, and cooperate together. Here, the historic synagogue thrives thanks to the support of the Muslim community. It's a much-needed model of how people who may not agree about everything can still listen to each other, hear each other, and treat each other with genuine respect."

On Twitter on Tuesday, Galloway called on Bradford council to table a motion of no confidence in the leader, Labour's Dave Green, who met with Taub in city hall on Monday along with his Conservative and Liberal Democrat counterparts.

Green said he met Taub "just as I would meet the ambassador of any other country" after the embassy asked for a meeting with prominent local councillors. He said he welcomed the opportunity to raise with Taub "concerns that exist within the Bradford community about the conflict inGaza".

Green said he also wanted to refute Galloway's claims, which "give an unjust and unfair view of the city".

"By making these ludicrous and outrageous statements, Galloway is doing something very dangerous because what it does is cause tension within communities in Bradford," he said.

Jews in the city had raised concerns about an increase in verbal abuse of late, said Green. "You may like to ask Galloway how he is going to identify Israeli citizens. It's one of those statements, which may get him a round of applause among his acolytes but which is underpinned by something really dangerous."

He accused Galloway of playing politics and using the conflict in Gaza to raise his own political profile locally and internationally. On Twitter on Monday night, Galloway wrote: "I think Labour's open invitation that 'Israelis are welcome in Bradford' and the ambassador's furtive visit ensured my re-election, no?"

Galloway won a landslide victory in a byelection in the Bradford West constituency in 2012, which he dubbed the Bradford Spring.