Andrew Sullivan, he of the well-known eponymous blog, has posted an absolutely astounding comment (24 February) on the Livingstone affair:

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, is suspended for a few weeks because he said something vile and inappropriate to a reporter? Who has that power? I had no idea that in England, democracy is really a veil for a bunch of unelected prissy tut-tutters to pick who can and cannot govern. Here's Sharia law from the Jewish lobby in England:

‘The London Jewish Forum welcomed the ruling, with chairman Adrian Cohen calling for the mayor to create a strategy which would ensure London's Jews would be treated with respect.’

Screw that and screw them. Just do your job. And if you don't show enough ‘respect’ for the voters, they can always throw you out of office.

Sharia law??? Let’s just get our heads round this one. Jews objected to an offensive remark which was hugely compounded by the fact that Livingstone failed to apologise. This was the most important point because it destroyed any hope that the remark had been a slip and institutionalised it as a deliberate intention to offend Jewish people – the reason the Standards Board found that he had brought the office of Mayor of London into disrepute. Sullivan, however, thinks this is the same thing as trying to impose Sharia law upon Britain, by which the values of British society would be subordinated to Islam. To put it baldly, he appears to think that Jews defending themselves against prejudice is an illegitimate act that threatens a society. So Jews who are the victims of prejudice are cast as cultural aggressors merely because they dared to protest at being treated like dirt.

There is an argument that the Standards Board overreacted. I happen to disagree –- as I said in my post below, the House of Commons acts in a similar fashion towards MPs who bring Parliament into disrepute -- but it is a respectable argument. Sullivan’s point, however, is something else altogether. It is an egregious example of moral equivalence whose outcome is to deny actual victimisation and blame the victim instead. It is disgraceful.

Posted by melanie at February 27, 2006