Support for the Amnesty-Begg partnership now follows a predictable shape and form. There is even a template for it. It follows these 6 simple rules-
1) Mention as many times as possible the statements made by present and former officials of Amnesty International, who are paid to tow the official Amnesty line, viz a viz Claudio Cordone, Irene Khan, Widney Brown, Sam Zarifi, Kate Allen et al.
2) Never mention Cageprisoners’ support of jihadi terrorism despite the extensive documentation that demonstrates this support.
3) Never mention Moazzam Begg’s association with Cageprisoners.
4) Never mention the words “partner” or “platform”
5) Never mention the fact that Gita Sahgal has always spoke about the need to protect the rights of Islamists and terrorists from torture, renditions and arbitrary detention.
6) Never acknowledge that Gita Sahgal’s fundamental point is that Amnesty should never have made the individual(s) of point #5 into poster boys or torch bearers of those human rights.
Here is an example of the “Hate Sahgal” template in use at Pickled Politics, which regards itself a progressive Asian blog but which has now become an active detractor of Gita Sahgal.
Criticism of Amnesty on the issues of Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners should be made if Amnesty is to continue as a champion of universal human rights. Amnesty is a human-rights organisation not a quasi-religion.
Update:
Rumbold of Pickled Politics, has turned direction and stands against the blog’s anti-Sahgal consensus, and issued this remarkable statement:
It’s another reminder of why we need organisations like Amnesty and people like Gita Sahgal. The world isn’t overburdened with people and groups who are willing to stand up and document human-rights abuses. Gita Sahgal had some legitimate criticisms to make of Amnesty, but it doesn’t mean that Amnesty is somehow morally bankrupt either. Too many of us felt it necessary to pick sides, including me, which then caused collateral damage to the very causes that both Amnesty and Gita fight for (by shifting attention away from them). Fortunately I was disabused of that need to pick sides by a very wise woman. Amnesty should reinstate Gita, and both should be left to get on with what they do best: championing the rights of the weakest in the world.
36 Comments
With all due respect, the blog doesn’t have a “consensus” on the matter, either on the editorial team or amongst its regular commenting audience. Some of the editors & article writers (regulars & guests) have a anti-Sahgal view, others have a pro-Sahgal view, and others are neutral.
It just comes across as a stridently anti-Sahgal stance because some of the writers possessing that view have been publishing multiple articles on the subject over there.
I beg to differ. If there is a pro-Sahgal viewpoint amongst other writers on PP, it has not made itself heard at all. All 11 posts on the issue over the last 4 weeks since the story broke have all been unambiguously anti-Sahgal, with the single exception of Rumbold’s post yesterday. This is why I have chosen to use the phrase ‘anti-Sahgal consensus’.
Correct — but this doesn’t mean that it is nonexistent. However, given the frequency of anti-Sahgal articles over there, I appreciate why it would give the impression of this being the common stance. I can assure you that this isn’t the case. People just have different priorities, different interests, and different areas of personal focus, whether they’re writers or readers.
As someone here on the Spittoon recently observed, in some quarters there is also a certain weariness about the ongoing tussle between this blog and PP about the subject and the high frequence of associated articles which both blogs appear to be publishing — hence the silence from some of those who may disagree with the perceived “consensus” but have decided to either stop following these discussions or even completely skip any articles published on the subject. Excessive repetition can eventually become counterproductive if it occurs too frequently and includes “too much information” to be effectively absorbed, especially if the motivation for writing articles (on any given topic) is for them to make a positive impact.
As for myself, my own silence is partly due to other priorities and partly due to not having a sufficiently informed & in-depth knowledge of the subject to be able to write about it accurately either way. The latter is exactly the same reason that I usually stay out of any PP debates about I/P, for example, and is also what I meant when I mentioned some people being “neutral”.
Thanks for the advice on blogging frequency. However, I find it a little curious that you have come here to point out your “weariness” with our output on the Sahgal-Begg-Amnesty issue, when the very blog that you are a co-writer on has in fact produced some 13 articles vilifying Gita Sahgal for blowing the lid on Amnesty’s continued partnership with Cageprisoners. if you’re weary of the issue, why not break your silence there and making a similar suggestion on Pickled Politics instead, where you possibly have some editorial input?
We will continue to point out and criticise Sunny Hundal’s silliness on this issue. Especially since Sunny, who has no professional experience in human rights or the processes in Amnesty, thinks it fit to insinuate that Gita Sahgal is a liar here. Or add someone to the PP bloggers who suggests that Gita Sahgal, an Amnesty International professional who has been sacked, is guilty of McCarthyism here for putting her case to the press!
I think we will continue to point these ridiculous slanders as and when they appear on blogs or indeed anywhere. If you don’t appreciate the frequency or the content on this blog, we apologise for distressing you!
I agree entirely with this:
It was me who made the observation recently on the Spittoon.
Faisal:
To echoes Jai’s words, there wasn’t an anti-Sahgal consensus, in fact the first post on the subject was broadly in support of her (when nthe situation wasn’t particularly clear):
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7456
Should I have posted my most recent post sooner? Yup.
Yes Rumbold, I know that and I appreciated it. But then came an onslaught of anti-Sahgal posts. And at the height of the furore, Sunny was even deleting comments which were perfectly legitimate but which criticised his position simply to maintain a semblance of that consensus. Can I just say that neither you nor Jai made any attempt to criticise these actions which is why your readers can be forgiven for thinking there was a consensus on PP from that point.
Well I supported Gita Sahgal in the comments, and had a long e-mail debate with Sunny over deletions, but I see why more casual/new readers might have thought there was a consensus, if judged by posts. Because PP always has a lively comments section, I tend to see that as the ‘real voice’ of the blog, not what I or others write. If the debates weren’t interesting I wouldn’t see much point in writing for PP.
If you write to generate debate I wonder how and why you tolerated that “real voice” being intentionally censored and muted when it went against Sunny’s personal opinion.
PP has a massive following but more than that I also believe Sunny is a reflector of much of the Guardian-formulated liberal-left consensus. The Spittoon does not have anything like that kind of readership or appeal in terms of numbers but our motivation for supporting Gita Sahgal was to use whatever tiny voice we have to support her. I feel it was imperative that we made a stand for Gita since there has been little or no support for her cause (in fact quite the opposite) from the so-called progressive voices in UK in general and even less from British Muslims, liberal or otherwise.
I was referring to Pickled Politics, not the Spittoon.
I’m not going to divulge the specifics of confidential conversations, but as a general point, it’s worth bearing in mind that as a semi-regular guest writer (I’m not a member of PP’s editorial team), I have direct offline contact with the editors and therefore I don’t need to voice concerns on the actual comments threads. I can tell the editors directly.
Again speaking generally, it’s worth remembering that if I wish to criticise any actions undertaken by PP’s editors, I would do so by contacting them directly rather than commenting on any discussion threads, because (as previously mentioned) I have direct offline communication with them. Not only as a matter of courtesy but also because most of the reading public would have zero interest in what may be “personal disagreements”; in these situations, if the parties concerned know each other and are on generally friendly terms, it stands to reason that an appropriate course of action would be for them to discuss & resolve their differences directly and offline, because they have those channels of communication open to them. There is no reason that such people could not simply pick up the phone, write an email or even meet up in person to air their concerns directly, rather than conducting what should actually be private conversations in front of huge numbers of anonymous strangers via the proxy medium of the internet.
However, on this specific occasion, I wasn’t aware of why Sunny was deleting posts and in fact I wasn’t even aware that it was occurring at all until various people started mentioning it on the relevant comments thread. As I implied earlier (and I’m now going to state it clearly), I’m not following the Sahgal/Amnesty issue – either the articles on the ongoing discussions, either on Pickled Politics or the Spittoon.
In the same vein, I have zero interest in “blog wars” and have deliberately refrained from commenting when articles along those lines have surfaced on PP. My original remarks on this thread were purely to rectify the misunderstanding that there was some kind of “consensus” about the Sahgal/Amnesty issue amongst the writers on PP. As Rumbold has confirmed himself, this isn’t the case.
Beyond that, any disagreements with Sunny’s handling of this issue should be taken up directly with Sunny himself, especially if one actually knows him in the real world and has direct channels of communication available. As for me, Pickled Politics is owned solely and entirely by Sunny himself; it’s not a “group-owned website”, and as such I have no editorial influence on what he may or may not choose to write about there.
Finally, to paraphrase what Rumbold said about Sahgal and Amnesty in the paragraph quoted in your article above, any excessive tangents (regardless of whether they occur on PP or on the Spittoon) about the actions of other websites’ editors risk diverting attention from the main subject and therefore diminish the chances of positive resolutions. To quote Rumbold…..
…..the same principle also applies to Pickled Politics and the Spittoon, both of which generally do superb jobs in their respective areas of focus.
Truly wonderful comment, Jai. Thank you.
Faisal
This is an entirely commendable stance. However, at least I was more than a little uneasy at how that stand taken then panned out in practice on PP and here.
Jai,
Thanks for the lovely words. But please remember, you have my email too if you feel the need to contact me should I start frothing like a madman.
Faisal
I, for one, would be fascinated to know what this actually is and how it works.
One of the things about the Left that always struck me was the painful lack of consensus – amongst themselves, let alone with liberals.
How and when did the Grauniad, which generally strikes me as fairly disorganised, come to formulate this consensus – and how on earth did they get muesli-sandal wearing liberals and mad Trots to agree to their formulation?
Just so I know, because obviously I’m a bit politically naive.
thanks for this, jai and rumbold – and just to add my own voice officially, i am against blogwars, i feel they distract us from the issues we are seeking to address.
rest assured that we here at the spittoon also discuss things with each other offline!
b’shalom
bananabrain
I’m not sure about how and when the Guardian developed this consenus Abu Faris, but it’s apparent from the weight they give to particular voices that there is definitely a bias towards certain shades of opinion over others, regarding “Muslim issues”. Perhaps it’s just a misconception on my part but I wonder why Islamists like Bunglawala has a ready-made slot on CIF, when pieces submitted by real liberal Muslims (not just one who simply makes liberal sounds, *cough* Bungles, *cough* Mehdi *cough* Hasan *cough*) from BMSD or Quilliam Foundation get rejected out of hand. When was the last time you saw a piece by Guardian heavyweights such as Seumas Milne, Madeleine Bunting or Gary Younge publishing stuff siding for moderate, secular Islam rather than dishonest, obfuscating bollocks apologising for Islamism, advocating the perception of Muslims as a bloc, or just simply suggesting that the hardline tendencies within the Muslim community are more significant that the moderate voices? Why is there near total silence on the Gita Sahgal-Amnesty-Begg issue? Why don’t incidents like the victimisation of Shiria Khatun get any coverage on the Guardian? Why does the story of the brutal repression of the Paharis, an indigneous minority in Bangladesh which has been repressed by a Muslim majority society get zero coverage when you would think a newspaper which supposedly champions a similarly dispossessed people, the Palestinians, have no room for this issue? And so on, I could write more, but I think you get the picture of this Guardian consensus. Do you think I am over-stating the case, that no such thing exists?
I think that you are misusing the term “consensus” when you use it the way you have in this thread, Faisal – however, you have been consistent in that misuse.
THe Guardian’s editorial lines on the Middle East, the Arab-speaking region and the Muslim world obviously overlap and have points of similarity and identity.
Basically, if you look at the views of an editor concerned with such matters, like Brian Whittaker, you may find sharp differences with other editors not directly involved in matters out of Araby. Georgina Henry sometimes seemed singularly obsessed with the amount of advertising revenue she can generate from hits on the CIF website – a piece of absolutely screaming bat shit crazy double-speak from Bungles, or a combative article from Seth, will draw in the crowds to do war all over CiF, generating revenue at every mouse click. Yet, that was part of her job, in her defence – what else was she meant to do?
In terms of the Muslim world, the editorial line appears to be some sort of variation on the canard that there is a distinction to be drawn between “good” and “bad” Islamists; and that one could and should engage with the “good” Islamists. This position, as you know I utterly reject. However, I do not detect this is a consensus amongst editors (from what I can tell), or senior managers, so much as an editorial line shared by the Grauniad’s Camel Corps which does not clash with the other agenda at work in that institution – like trying to make money.
Where I would go even further is that I also reject the alliance between moderate/ secularists/ modernist Muslims and non-Islamist religious conservatives – as I perceive that religious conservatism to be the bedrock upon which Islamism builds. It is the necessary foundation for Islamism. I, therefore, take issue with people like Ali Eteraz on such matters – as it lets in the backdoor some of the more vile and bigoted in the community and legitimises them by association. What I take to be the Guardian editorial line on Islam generally, as noted above, would not allow this, naturally.
On the other hand, figures like Brian W are both well-informed about Arab culture and would be a boon for any print “heavy” to have on board of whatever political persuasion(I have grown to strongly disagree with some of Brian’s views on I/P, for example – but his deft and subtle grasp of the subtleties of Arab society is second-to-none).
The Grauniad’s approach to I/P is controversial – often wide of the mark – and marked, frankly by what looks like deliberate shit-stirring in order to generate controversy and, here’s the clincher – revenue for the Group.
I agree entirely that the Grauniad, especially CiF, spend a lot of time giving space to those that I think are fundamentally wrong and not allowing rebuttal or alternate voices to be heard. Yes, they are wedded to a liberal and Left phenomenon of excusing the voices of extremism just in case those voices are those of members of some minority community, or community with roots in the developing world. However, I hardly think that this is a consensus on the Left and certainly has its critics amongst liberals.
Sorry, if that is a bit disjointed. Recuperating and now I have the bloody flu!
But I do agree with Faisal. One of the most interesting things I’ve read recently is Chetan Bhatt’s article The Fetish of the Margin: Religious Absolutism, Anti-Racism and Postcolonial Silence (one of those pay-to-read academic articles but a uni librarian sent me a copy) which does I think describe how ‘the consensus’ was formulated – how the British state and the left both promoted ‘community leaders’ with whom it would deal, usually at the expense of less powerful currents within the minority communities.
But it also may be true that maybe those voices are harder for the media to find. I have a colleague and friend here in Tower Hamlets who is an older, secular community activist , just the type that are not supposed to exist any more. He is a practicing Muslim and finds it offensive that white lefties seem to find his voice and experience less authentic because he does not ally himself with Islamism (an understatement – he speaks of his hatred for the JI/IFE and has told me about the times when the local conflicts turned physically violent).
But his orientation is so thoroughly towards Bengalis that it would probably never occur to him to try to write something for the Guardian or other liberal/left media or otherwise try to address himself to mainstream British opinion. I believe he writes for newspapers in Bangladesh. This is one of the things that alienates the younger Bengalis of course.
The Guardian does give space to author Kia Abdullah, not a feminist or secular role model maybe but just someone living a life as not proscribed by community leaders – maybe what we need is a multiplicity of voices, not just the right ones.
I was posting my comment before reading yours, Abu Faris, so not addressed to that.
was going to say first, now I feel like a meanie slagging off Earwicga here. In the spirit of being less nasty and more positive maybe you could remove my earlier comment about her.
However, I hardly think that this is a consensus on the Left and certainly has its critics amongst liberals.
Except I didn’t say “consensus of the Left” in its entirety, I have limited my explanation to “Guardian consensus” as per the editorial line of the newspaper specifically.
And as for Brian Whittaker, I thought his last piece on Fatwas was totally wrong. He argued that Muslims shouldn’t attempt to engage in “Fatwa wars”, in response to the fatwa against suicide bombing formulated by Tahir al-Qadri of the Minhaj al-Quran, because it polarises opinion and inadvertently legitimises counter fatwas by Islamist jurists. That may be the case, but traditionally this is exactly how Sharia law has been formulated. Fatwas are not binding laws, but legal positions constructed by individual jurists which are allowed to be countered by other non-binding fatwas by other jurists. I thought Whittaker’s condescending piece was typical ahistorical liberal nonsense delivered from his position as “Guardian editor” which was completely wrong but given credence because (1) he writes well and (2) his voice is given weight because of his position.
Rachel, done.
I did write that I did not agree with everything Brian W has written. On the Fatwa Wars I am indifferent, frankly – neither the opinions of religious “scholars” or Arabists being of any passing use. The issue is in the Arab world one of removing religion from politics, not further allowing its interference.
And I think I showed that no such consensus exists – even within the Guardian.
Well you’ve certainly given us your opinion in your usual condescending and patronising manner.
“Consensus” and “editorial line” are not synonyms. Ask any journalist who works under an editorial line that s/he happens to disagree with.
Faisal
I think I have given my opinion and you have chosen to read that as a personal attack because you don’t agree with it.
Perhaps you and Sunny have more in common than you like to admit?
No Abu Faris, I didn’t take it as a personal attack, my skin isn’t that thin, you know. All I said was you initiated and continued this discussion on the “Guardian consensus” in your usual condescending and patronising manner.
I am fundamentally not interested in your attempt to divert from the content of my comments by reference to your views on the style of my comments.
I see little different in the approach you are displaying here to the one you are claiming Hundal subjected you to below the line on PP in the past.
I find that telling. Sorry if you find that patronising or condescending.
Consensus doesn’t mean everyone agrees. We talk about the ‘cold war consensus’ in the US in the 1950s- in this usage it means the general paradigm, not actually consensus.
Please don’t fight. Some of us count on this blog for information and education.
There is no general paradigm shared by the Guardian-reading Left or liberals. That is my point.
I was unaware, however, that I was being marked for style as well as content. That is my objection.
guys, seriously! put the handbags away.
b’shalom
bananabrain
Thanks, Abu Faris. Very kind of you to say so.
No problem, Faisal.
**********************************
Off-topic, but PP recently published an article I wrote called “The BNP and the Hijacking of Christianity”. It should be of interest to you guys if you haven’t already read it.
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7702
Thanks BB and Jai.
Faisal- regarding the deletion of your comments, Sunny told me it was specifically in response to what he saw as the Spittoon’s vendetta against him. I disagreed with him, but he wasn’t deleting your comments because he disagreed with them.
I think Faisal’s recent conversion to moral probity and the principles of good manners is both sterling and rather sweet.
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/4425
While Pickled Politics continues to wage a vendetta of slander and smears against Gita Sahgal, we will continue to criticise Pickled Politics. Of that, you may be sure.
Of course, none of this has naything to do with Faisal’s long-running hissy fit with Sunny Hundal – of that you can be sure.