… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Author: dizzy

  • Hundreds attend world peace event at London Mosque, calling for immediate ceasefires and ‘sustainable peace’

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/hundreds-attend-world-peace-event-at-london-mosque-calling-for-immediate-ceasefires-and-sustainable-peace/

    Cross-party MPs urged for a concerted effort for lasting peace.

    On March 9, the eve of the start of Ramadan, more than 1,200 people from 28 countries around the world met at the Baitul Futuh Mosque for the 2024 National Peace Symposium.

    The Baital Futah Mosque in Morden, London, is the largest mosque in Western Europe and is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the third most popular branch of Islam.

    The Peace Symposium, now in its 18th year, is organised by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Attended by dignitaries, including Ambassadors of State, MPs, and academics, as well as representatives from charities and faith communities, this annual event is aimed at promoting a deeper understanding of Islam and other faiths, and bringing communities together for the cause of peace.

    As wars continued to devastate communities in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen and Sudan, as peace-making efforts fall deeper into crisis, this year’s Peace Symposium called for immediate ceasefires and to build sustainable global peace.

    The panel of speakers comprised of cross-political party representatives. Dame Sioban McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitchem and Morden, spoke of the oppression and suffering in Gaza. Addressing the Symposium, the MP said: “The Ahmadiyya community has been at the forefront of calling for peace since the very start of the conflict. It is his holiness who urged all world powers to de-escalate and work towards a lasting peaceful solution.”

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/hundreds-attend-world-peace-event-at-london-mosque-calling-for-immediate-ceasefires-and-sustainable-peace/

  • Humza Yousaf tells Owen Jones about Diane Abbott and concerns over Speaker Lindsay Hoyle

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  • Morning Star: Politicians can’t be trusted on racism: we must build from the bottom up

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-politicians-cant-be-trusted-racism-we-must-build-bottom

    People take part in the Resist Racism Scotland rally in George Square, Glasgow, organised by Stand Up To Racism and the STUC, March 18, 2023

    …

    You will not find Gove, or Sunak, or for that matter Keir Starmer, on this weekend’s anti-racist marches. For them racism is an accusation to be deployed cynically for factional advantage, not an evil to be confronted through standing in solidarity with its victims.

    So Starmer can condemn the Tories for permitting racist abuse of Diane Abbott, while ignoring a leaked report into Labour officials’ racism including multiple instances directed at her, and blandly brief that “disciplinary processes take time” when challenged over her ongoing suspension as a Labour MP — though 10 months in, we know the party hasn’t even spoken to her. Some investigation.

    So Sunak can retort with another attack on the left — repeating the lie that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership tolerated anti-semitism — a jibe eagerly accepted by Starmer.

    These people cannot be trusted to oppose racism. Even their performative anti-racism is often racist (as in the insinuation that Muslims are a threat to Jews, or Labour’s disproportionate crackdown on Jewish anti-zionists).

    They are the “forces at home trying to tear us apart.” They do so because nothing scares them more than people power: than a mass movement for peace that challenges British imperialism, today, as for centuries, one of the main drivers of racism.

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-politicians-cant-be-trusted-racism-we-must-build-bottom

  • Tory prejudice won’t deter our proud multiculturalism

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/tory-prejudice-wont-deter-our-proud-multiculturalism/

    This war on multiculturalism is an affront to our country

    Sarah Owen is the Labour MP for Luton North

    What does Lee Anderson mean when he says “I want my country back?” Who does he want it back from – and why is it only his version of our country that matters?

    Because as far as I can see, there has been no take over. Most people in control of our country still look like Lee Anderson. They are his demographic and age, if perhaps not class. So who else could he possibly mean?

    This comes with the backdrop of his demonstrably Islamophobic comments about Sadiq Khan (which he still refuses to apologise for) and his most recent former Party receiving political donations from a man who says that Diane Abbott makes you want to ‘hate all Black women’ and wishes she was shot. Only some Conservatives have admitted it was racist, but stopped short of apologising for racism and no Ministers have indicated that the money should be handed back. It is a shameful lack of leadership that Sunak is having to be dragged to admit what is clear for everyone else to see. 

    The idea that any of this can be forgotten about, as the Prime Minister wants, is for the birds – not because it has dominated the media cycle for the last two weeks, but because this racism is the cold reality of too many people’s everyday lives in Tory Britain. Recorded incidents of both Islamophobia and Antisemitism have risen following the geo-political crises in the Middle East, and a 2022 study found that nearly two thirds of Black workers in the UK have encountered racism in their workplace.

    This war on multiculturalism is an affront to our country. I am from a multicultural, mixed heritage family – my father is white British and my mother is from Malaysia. I have considered it to be a blessing in many ways but the political discourse lately ignores the fact that our country is so much richer for its diversity – not just in culture, but also economically. Luton came third in JustGiving’s 2023 list of the highest donating areas. Our community is as generous as it is welcoming, and it comes as no surprise to me that the bulk of our donations are given during Ramadan.

    The town I live in, love and represent is Luton North. It is a town that knows the importance of community cohesion and that it doesn’t just come without trying, especially when those in power or particular media outlets seek division and distraction from government failure.

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/tory-prejudice-wont-deter-our-proud-multiculturalism/

  • Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle slammed for not calling Diane Abbott at PMQs after Frank Hester row

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/speaker-sir-lindsay-hoyle-slammed-for-not-calling-diane-abbott-at-pmqs-after-frank-hester-row/

    “What was Lindsay Hoyle thinking?”

    The Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has been criticised after failing to call Diane Abbott at PMQs, despite the MP having racist remarks made about her by the Tory party’s biggest donor, a topic which dominated this week’s session.

    Labour leader Keir Starmer and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak clashed in the Commons over racism within the Tory party, after the Guardian revealed that the Conservative party’s biggest donor, Frank Hester, had said that said Diane Abbott made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”.

    The Guardian revealed that Hester made the comments during a business meeting in 2019.

    He is reported to have said: “It’s like trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like … you just want to hate all black women because she’s there.

    “And I don’t hate all black women at all, but I think she should be shot.”

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/speaker-sir-lindsay-hoyle-slammed-for-not-calling-diane-abbott-at-pmqs-after-frank-hester-row/