Nick Cohen writes:
Galloway’s victory shows that if the secular left does not take on sectarians, they will flourish…
Having established to his satisfaction that he was a Muslim, he told a public meeting: “I believe in the judgment day. I believe that one day we will have to answer to the Almighty.” Members of the audience were to say to their friends, “especially to other religious people”, how they would explain to Allah “on the last day” their failure to vote for him, George Galloway, God’s chosen candidate.
Not even Rick Santorum has said: “Vote for me or you will go to hell.”…
A commenter called Marko writes at Socialist Unity:
These savage bitter attacks on Galloway show we on the left need to purge ourselves of the vermin in our ranks.
He means us, folks.
Finally, it’s worth remembering that democratic politics don’t end with any one election. Rather, they are a continuing process, which resulted in a moment like this less than two years ago:
George Galloway was chased out of the East End as his former seat of Bethnal Green & Bow was taken in a Labour landslide by a woman who becomes Britain’s first Bangladeshi MP. Muslims of all parties wept as Rushanara Ali, who spent her first seven years in Bangladesh, spoke of her community’s pride that one of their own had been elected to “the mother of Parliaments”.
…..
“We say goodbye to George Galloway,” Ms Ali said. At the mention of Mr Galloway, almost 200 Muslim activists shouted “scum” and “out, out, out”. Ms Ali continued: “We decided it was time to pay our final respects to Respect. Together we voted to end the division and unite the East End.”
