Faisal Gazi: Anti-Arab racist

Faisal Gazi: anti-Arab racist

Ever wondered how a writer as talentless as Faisal Gazi managed to get so prominent? Such that he is commisioned to write pieces for the Guardian and is lauded by the anti-Muslim Zionist blog Harrys Place?

Even though he is barely able to write legible English or put together a coherent argument without contradicting himself, and his own ex-boss at Pickled Politics Sunny Hundal says of him

“And anyway – I’m not going to take advice from a cunt who yesterday said I was fully endorsing Cage Prisoners despite me writing the opposite. You can’t read Faisal and your advice is not wanted. Fuck off. Can you not get the message?”
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7537#comment-193671 and
“‘I don’t take lessons on what is right or wrong from people who constantly smear others, have little knowledge of what is going on, spend little time trying to understand the context of what people are saying, have a specific agenda, ally themselves with authoritarians who excuse torture and black-ops, and also people who excuse state-sponsored terrorism. Does it not bother you that you guys are pretty much full-throated apologists for that? Probably not.’
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/9096#comment-211141

The answer is not how he writes but WHAT he writes that makes him valuable. Specifically he is someone with a Muslim name (though a self-confessed apostate) willing to viciously attack Muslims in general and Arabs in particular.

Here are just a few samples of his vicious anti-Arab racism, writing as Sid on Pickled Politics:

“I agree, but the really funny and somewhat worrying thing was prior to these elections in Bangladesh, the Islamists joined forces with the right-wing nationalists to try and usurp the Bengali identity and replace it with one which wears Arabic fancy dress. You would have loved them.”

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/2619#comment-142353

“You see my problem with the Quilliam Foundation, and Southasian Muslim institutions in general, is that they are still beholden to Arabian Islam with all those weird and nasty cultural features. Arabs have the money to set up these think tanks, Southasian Muslims have the nous to run them. Southasians ultimately end up aquiescing to their paymasters by becoming their mouthpieces and this means papering over some very disgusting world-views. Look at any Islamic organisation from the Hizbut Tahrir to the Quilliam and you will see that they are populated by Southasians who have never stepped into an Arab land, trying to out-do one another in Arab-ness. For some reason it is a weakness to be Anglicised (“coconut”) but it is a virtue to be Arabised (“jazaak-allah-khair, ya akhi”).
Why is this? Why do Southasian Muslims regard Arabs as their de-facto spiritual superiors? Is it because we go weak-kneed whenever we hear the guttural tones of spoken Arabic, simply because it is our lingua sacra?

Surely we should know better by now? In spite of universal human rights abuses of Southasian migrant workers, and the horror stories we hear year after year, of abuses dealt out to women and aged relatives at the hands of Saudis during the Hajj season, there is still a steadfast belief amongst Southasian Muslims that the sun shines out of Arab behinds.

Now that the Quilliam Foundation is free of their Arab financiers, I hope that they can truly come into their own. I was hoping that one of their biggest achievements might be to develop a progressive, vernacular (read: British) school of Islam that is free (in every way) of reactionary Arab backwardness.

And if they ask me for a donation, I’ll be happy to help.” http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/2010

According to Ed Husain, Quilliam’s Gulf backers pulled out because of their criticism of Qaradawi. This may be true but I think these moneymen have pulled out because of political reasons. They probably fear having their Rolls Royce limousines detonated if they profess to fund an organisation that is anti-Muslim Brotherhood. We actually don’t know their side of the story and we probably never will.

Ed Husain is a good man but I think he, like the other Quilliamists, is far too enamoured by Arabic Islamic culture. I can excuse his being an Arabophile but he does spend a lot of energy whitewashing their illiberal politics and presenting Arabs as latecomers to the progressive party. Fuck that Ed, if you’re as secular and pro-democracy as you say you are, how about calling a spade a spade?

Qaradawi’s views are invalid in the modern world but they have enormous currency in the Arab world. I really don’t understand how you can live in the UK and support his views and his fatwas on legalising terrorism, punishing homosexuals by death, and supporting the Taliban’s actions amongst his other heinous endorsements. If you agree with his views, then you should really think about moving to the Middle East.

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/2010#comment-119636
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As PP commentator Dave comments:
Dave — on 30th May, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I agree that this is full of racist overtones. The most blatant example being:

progressive, vernacular (read: British) school of Islam that is free (in every way) of reactionary Arab backwardness.
You implicitly equate “Arab” with “reactionary”, and explicitly equate “British” with “progressive [and] vernacular”. Nuff said.
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/2010#comment-119798

Dave — on 31st May, 2008 at 1:16 am
A quick lesson in English phraseology is in order I see.
I’m well aware that the phrase “reactionary Arab” is not, in and of itself, racist. It could be simply used to distinguish from those reactionaries who are not Arabs and those Arabs who are not reactionary. Context is everything. And in this context it’s pretty clear what is being implied. I mean come on:
a progressive, vernacular (read: British) school of Islam that is free (in every way) of reactionary Arab backwardness.
I mean it’s very hard not to find a bit of anti-Arab racism lurking there. You draw attention to the word “vernacular”, ok, in the common tongue, whatever, except “British” isn’t a language, is it? I don’t think it’s much of a response anyway; the dichotomy between, on the one hand, the vernacular British and the progressive, and on the other hand, the reactionary, the backward, the Arab, speaks volumes.
I am appealing for British Muslims to start just that, a British, progressive school of Islam. Is that so hard to understand?
What’s hard to understand is the obsession over the “Britishness” as opposed to “Arabness” of such an institution. The former is no more progressive than the latter; British people can be progressive, but it rarely coincides with them going on about just how British they are.
Of course it’s not just about one little phrase. The overall message of people like Ed Husein – and, given the above quote and the fact that your main criticism of him seems to be that he doesn’t go far enough, I gather this includes yourself – that progressive Muslims should focus on criticising elements of Muslim culture and recognise Western culture (“Britishness”) as the superior state towards which they need to progress (into which they need to “integrate” themselves), is hardly a progressive one, is it?
Or had you not noticed the massive predations that certain Western nations are currently inflicting on certain Muslim nations, or the near-hysterical Islamophobia that underpins the whole War On Terror, or the tendency of politicians to find scapegoats in the form of immigrant communities?
Here’s a racist concept for you: Foreign immigrants like me speak and write better English than natives like you.
I’m sure you have a better grasp of British values too, or whatever the fuck we’re calling it these days.
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/2010#comment-119827
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Sid — on 31st May, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Thank you Anas, that has been my point precisely.

The QF angle was not to conflate British Islam with the Quilliam Foundation, though I now see that this might have been a cause for misunderstanding for some. But that they (the Quilliam Foundation), now thay they are free of their Arab paymasters who have skee-daddled, should develop their remit in the direction of developing a religious and legal consensus amongst Southasian British Muslims which is vernacular in nature and free of this misguided deference to Saudi religious authority.

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/2010#comment-119890

Sid — on 31st May, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Refresh, I think we’ve said everything we need to say [to each other]. Our individual positions towards reactionary Arab backwardness, amongst other things, are as clear as day.

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/2010#comment-119911

When other commentators pick him up on his racism he responds thusly:

Sid — on 16th March, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Your anti-Arab racism is evident on numerous posts

Naturally when Saudi Arabia’s or Kuwait’s record of human rights abuses and racist attitudes towards Southasian migrant workers (especially women) is held up to scrutiny and criticised, Islamists of your sort will personalise it and attempt to shut down debate by throwing down the “anti-Arab racism” card.

Nothing new there.
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/3704#comment-154358

More examples:

What I’m saying is that in the dialogue I highlaighted between between Bunglawala and Siddiqui symbolise the two schools of though about the role of politics in Islam. Bunglawala clearly believes in his bones that religion and politics in Islam are indistinguishable. Asim Siddiqui represents the suggests that there is no such connection in the earliest sources, and that this connection has been perverted by Arab demagogues, specifically Qutb and al-Banna.
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/1743#comment-105762

Things havent changed since he joined Spittoon either, as this recent post, posting as Effendi, illustrates:

“When Muslims who are higher up the Islamic foodchain (i.e. are percieved to be more “Arabised”) engage in murder and genocide of other Muslims – as was the case in Bangladesh and Darfur – is that regarded as a form of “destruction of Islam” or just “religiously justified”?”

http://www.spittoon.org/archives/9900#comment-23287

And of course Mr Gazi is happy to allow a poster with the racist name Abu Wanabee Arab to post articles on Spittoon.
We wonder would he find someone being called say “Sholomo Wanabe Jew” acceptable?

The irony of this and the supreme hypocrisy is, despite his blatant anti-Arab racism, Mr Gazi hypocritically style himself as a “Software developer, anti-racism activist and blogger”!!!