Election: against identity politics

Anwar Akhtar has a good post at The Samosa on British Muslims and the Ballot Box.

“I have an issue with decrees on how Muslims should vote coming from organisations such as MPAC, an outfit that frequently labels those not sharing its myopic worldview as ‘Zionist scum’ or ‘coconut sell-outs’.”

Meanwhile Roshan Muhammed Salih, the London head of news for Iran’s state-funded Press TV, issued instructions that all Muslims should vote solely on foreign policy grounds – specifically Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to Salih, “every single election issue, including the economy, education and health, pales in comparison” to the Iraq war.”

He goes on to model what a more far-sighted, broad-minded and informed decision-making with British Pakistani sensitivities might look like, concluding:

“So my advice, as an individual with no pretensions towards being a community leader or representative, is to think about everything, local as well as global, and then decide for yourself who to vote for.”

It’s not all that different for Anglo Saxon residents of Ilford North and what the BNP says is good for them. What Anwar Akhtar writes is good advice for any member of a social group whose leaders or opinion formers are attempting to mould them to a common cause based on identity politics and its narrow and exclusive interpretation of self-interest.

Or whose prospective parliamentary candidates are trying to court them as if they were already moulded.

This is good advice stands for any member of a social groups whose leaders or opinion formers are trying to unite them in a common cause based on identity politics and its narrow interpretation of self-interest.