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| Getting a good picture outside Tooting Broadway tube station is obviously a tricky job |
British bigots seem to have
reached a new level of stupidity. Closet racists nationwide will mutter on
about how Muslims need to be more ‘integrated’ and ‘accept the values of
our country’, but can’t seem to calculate that a Muslim man being
democratically nominated for a position of political authority is the ultimate
pinnacle of integration. I am proud of Sadiq Khan, but it is disappointing to
see the backlash against him already brewing amongst London’s most foolish.
Still being essentially a toddler, I sadly
didn’t get my say in this election. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to just assume
that, should I be able to vote, I would have voted Sadiq purely for my general
affliliation to the left. At the end of the day, Mayor of London shouldn’t really
be decided based on whether they’re Red or Blue, so I did a bit of researching
around the issue. To be quite honest (perhaps I am uneducated but this is how it seemed to me) the biggest difference between Zac and Sadiq really was their skin colour
and background - Sadiq’s dad was a bus driver, Zac’s father is described as an ‘Anglo-French billionaire financier, tycoon, and latterly a magazine publisher and
politician’ on Wikipedia. A contrast, to say the least. But despite that rather large chasm between
the rivals’ family backgrounds, there wasn’t a huge amount of variation between
what they wanted for London – bar the fact that Sadiq is sceptical on the night
tube.
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| The Guardian does point out that Zac is benefitted by his 'snappy first name' |
To me, the lack of dramatic
differentiation between the two candidates’ plans for the city, as well as the
upcoming EU Referendum and the worrying American Presidential battle, was what
made this election a bit of a race race. I say race race because the profiles and
policies of both Sadiq and Zac seemed pushed into the shadows, the biggest
difference between them being absolutely nothing to do with London.
And much like the difference between
the candidates being nothing to do with London, the bigots’ hostility towards
Sadiq is now nothing to do with London. It is to do simply with the embarrassing
profile of Islam currently plastered all over Western media, and now ingraining
its way into mainstream politics, a la Donald Trump. Katie Hopkins tweeted a
few weeks ago that Islam is a #ReligionofMurder. A fifth of the world is
Muslim, Katie, I think we would all be dead by now if it was such a Religion of
Murder.
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| Zac's desperation sank to new levels four days before election day http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3567537/On-Thursday-really-going-hand-world-s-greatest-city-Labour-party-thinks-terrorists-friends-passionate-plea-ZAC-GOLDSMITH-four-days-Mayoral-election.html |
Racists will argue that Sadiq Khan is
a representation of the murderers of Lee Rigby, or the perpetrators of the
Paris attacks. Sinking to the lows of Daily Mail readers when things were
looking desperate, Zac Goldsmith himself conveniently included a picture of the
7/7 London Bus Bombing in his last-minute online plea for votes last week. Like
I said before, when Muslims are told so forcefully and aggressively to ‘integrate’
if they want to show the world that Islam is not synonymous with terrorism, why
are they then rejected when they do just that? British right-wingers love the monarchy, but when it came to Nadiya Hussain winning Great British Bake Off and being given the opportunity to bake for the Queen, she and her husband became worried for the safety of their children after receiving Islamophobic abuse on twitter.
As it's often put so eloquently, religion is like a penis. It's okay to have one. It's okay to be proud of it. However, do not pull it out in public, do not push it on children, do not write laws with it, and do not think with it. Sadiq Khan is doing neither of those things. Racists will continue, but as a proud supporter of new Mayor I can only laugh at the fact that a city with a 60% white majority has outsmarted their embarrassing beliefs.
