In the recent local elections, a few ‘truths’ emerged; sometimes the Tories lose badly, other times Labour actually poll fairly well.
These are, of course, two extremely broad definitions of politics that almost defy definition, sometimes, in that they seem such a broad a church respectively that to even bother explaining them without just a sheer focus on Jesus is pointless.
Many of us beg to differ, of course.
We don’t see politics like that, and thanks to modern enlightenment we see things in a very different way between each other. We don’t see ‘truths’, we see ourselves.
This leads us to an organisation called The Muslim Vote, aptly titled and so-called aside, it looks to be a very engaging if only dynamic political group online, and off.
There has to be substance or weight to a political movement if it’s going to succeed and not just stick in our imaginations as a clever idea or some great new effort that won’t go anywhere. Take Momentum for example, and you get the point.
The group The Muslim Vote says that this year the Muslim community politically organised in its first ever coordinated effort to influence a set of elections. These would be local elections where Muslims tend to feel that things are not reflective of the way they want to live in local areas in England.
The import of the far-right (which is neither imported nor exported) in the UK is usually in local areas and has its effect in local neighbourhoods and around the sort of Mosque’s that don’t always invite trouble but get the addresses right if they do.
These are the more provocative times and moments that the Press in the UK want to ignore, but they happened, and they still do, I guess.
Yet, The Muslim Vote has trended in the same Press behind a ‘character’ in Leeds who won his seat on a local council through that old fashioned method of campaigning, and connecting with local voters through a blog about growing vegetables.
This is how ‘truths’ come up, now, but it’s not the way realities bear down on us.
Councillor Mothin Ali is certainly not an eccentric for wanting to grow his own food, and get a seat on a local authority, but anything else about his life may still fall into this unfortunate category.
It’s a fact that being Muslim is still not understood unless it’s there, in person, and not the subject of debate or controversy.
The feeling and reality of being Muslim is still not in the political mindset or public perception of what it’s like to feel and live like a Muslim. These two ways of describing the situation will never include my own thoughts unless I meet the criteria for being one.
Hence, our way of representative democracy.
The election of a candidate who is not you is not a cause for celebration, unless you voted for him or her, or that you missed hearing about them but their work will benefit you, anyway. It means though that there are at least a portion of the local population who definitely felt the need for someone else, rather than the preferred candidates of other residents.
This is democracy, and this is the way it works. It’s upsetting at times but it gets the initial job done. The rest is left to Mr Ali and what he decides to do with the time allotted to him.
