Posted on 02/07/2008 6:11:58 AM PST by camerakid400
London Mayor Ken Livingstone faces controversy today after it emerged he made a joke about Muslims in a magazine interview.
Mr Livingstone was asked by a journalist to tell a joke and responded with a story that name-checked Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie, Yasser Arafat and Shia Muslims in general.
According to today's Evening Standard, Mr Livingstone made the joke during his first mayoral campaign in 2000 in an interview for the now-defunct magazine The Face.
Journalist Alex Needham asked him: "Can you tell us a joke?" The then independent candidate responded with a gag in decidedly dubious taste.
"Salman Rushdie was on a train and it pulled into a station," said the future mayor.
"He saw Yasser Arafat and his entourage of bodyguards and was so overcome with the emotion of seeing his great hero, he raced to embrace him.
"But the bodyguards weren't very well versed in modern literature and had no idea who he was.
"So they shot him dead, thus proving the value of that old adage: never go for a Shi'ite while the train is in the station."
In more public moments, Mr Livingstone has gone to considerable lengths to court the Muslim community.
As Mayor, he had even met extremists such as Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi - who has described Palestinian suicide bombers as martyrs and was today refused a UK visa by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The gay rights community was furious when Mr Livingtone greeted Al-Qaradawi at City Hall with an embrace. "Qaradawi endorses stoning of gays," said a banner for gay rights group OutRage at the time.
The Mayor has also offended the Jewish community by likening a persistent journalist to a concentration camp guard.
The latest revelation, too, shows an aspect of Mr Livingstone quite different from his public pronouncements.
He once said that Muslims were being singled out for demonisation on a par with the victimisation of Jews during the last century.
The Mayor's team in City Hall has even scrutinised the writings of Tory opponent Boris Johnson - whose grandfather was Muslim - in search of racist gaffes that could be turned to Mr Livingstone's advantage.
Only last month, leading Muslim organisations announced their backing for Livingstone, praising his continued support for a multicultural society and his efforts to protect Muslim communities against racism and Islamophobia.
The Mayor's office has not yet issued a response.
BWAHAHA! Will “Red Ken” Livingstone, Britains vilest and most odious anti-American, antisemitic communist (after Galloway) have to hide from his Muslim friends and masters? Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
That’s actually kind of funny.
If Red Ken lost his head his IQ would increase 20 points.
He deserves the controversy. That is a really really bad joke.
It is amusing how Mayor Livingstone thought he could "buy a pass" of sorts by doing this.
—ditto—
It’s interesting that Red Ken has offended other groups with impunity, but he only gets nailed when he’s seen to have offended Muzzies.
Look on the bright side. He’ll get a fair execution under Sharia Law.
This pretty much supports my feeling that no matter what you do these days, you're gonna pi$$ somebody off. If you have Glen Beck's book An Inconvenient Book, re-read the chapter on political correctness. He had it right...people today can read symbolism into a phone book. To all the obsessive PC-types in the world: Screw you. (Try to make something PC out of that.)
“Mr Livingstone made the joke during his first mayoral campaign in 2000”
2000, nothing going to happen.
It made me laugh. Almost shiite myself.
Fatwa soon to follow.
As they argued, the Canadian kicked the sand and overturned an expensive oil lamp. The Islamic saw it and immediately knealed down and began rubbing it and out popped a genie.
The Genie, upon seeing all three men said, "Alright, I have three wishes to grant and I see that there are three of you...so that's one wish each."
Pointing to the Canadian who had found the lamp, he said, "We'll start with you."
The Canadian thought for a moment and then said, "Well, my Dad was a farmer, I am a farmer, and my son will be a farmer. I wish that all of Canada always has fertile soil."
Upon hearing this, the Genie snapped his finger and said, "It is done, Canada's soil will forever more be fertile."
The genei then turned to the Islamic who had rubbed the lamp and said, "Ok, your turn."
Scowling, the Islamic said, "I and all my brothers and famly are sick of infidels invading and living in our nations. I wish that all infidels, including all Americans, Canadians, Australians, English and any others not of our faith be immediately expelled from all Islamic lands and that a barrier be established to never allow them entry again."
The genie snapped his fingers and said, "It is done. From Pakistan to Africa, and in the Far East, all infidels have been removed from Islamic lands and a wall has been placed around those lands to forever more keep them out."
The genie then turned to the Texan who had been watching the whole time and said, "Ok, you're last. What is your wish?"
The Texan simple asked, "Before I make my wish, could you tell me something about this wall around Islam? How big is it, what are it's properties?"
The genie said, "Of course. The wall is 10,000 ft tall and 5,000 ft thick. It is made of an impervious material and no technology made by man can penetrate or destroy it. Nothing comes in and nothing goes out. The Islamic world is forever more sheltered from infidels."
The Texan nodded his head and said, "That's about what I figured. Fill it with water."
I think it's a really funny (i.e., a 'good') joke.
My only conclusion is that “liberals” are the ultimate cowards.
Islamists would destroy and suppress EVERYTHING that libs want to promote, yet they side with them because they are “brown” and because they are on the same side of the fight to destroy western civ.
Hey! Shi’ite happens!
If it’s so funny, perhaps an explanation would help.
Sorry to say, maybe because of my ignorance of things train related, that I didn’t get it.
Was this from the times when waste from trains’ lavatories simply dropped on the tracks?
Too. Darn. Funny.
Live by PC, die by PC. And I don’t mean Police Constable.
Rushdie was a fan of Arafat? Who knew?
It’d be funnier with Hillary Clinton, Rachel Corrie, or Jimmy Carter running to Arafat’s arms.
Yes, and judging from a discussion on an unrelated thread last month, in some places they still do.
George Orwell remarked on this trait among Socialists too.
the so called Red Scare is a genuine menace. The Left denounced it all as McCarthyism but they don’t call Animal Farm or 1984 trash from the Red Scare.
I agree...and take it a step further. Liberals are cowards in an intellectual sense. That is, they wish to sway the argument by an appeal to your sense of guilt. Like national health care. Their litany is: "How can you deny the poor children health care?" Sorry, but I won't fall for the guilt trip...for several reasons.
First, no one has ever been denied health care in this country. It may be in an emergency room with doctors they don't know, but they are cared for. Second, health care is NOT a right. It is something you earn by being a productive member of society.
If you paid attention in school and invested in yourself, you probably have a job that pays part of your health care. If you screwed around in school and had more fun than I did, you probably don't have a job that pays for part of your health insurance premiums. I fail to see why that's my problem. You made some bad choices...why should I pay for them?
Indeed, that is the entire Democratic position: Take from and penalize the productive members of society so the unproductive members become Dependant parasites of the system. Since they die without your policies, you get reelected. Like I've said before, I'd be a horrible President, but a great dictator.
Perfect answer:
"show me the receipts where you have voluntarily paid for a stranger's healthcare/insurance, then we'll talk. Until then, stuff it."
Not the world’s worst joke. A little stupid. But not anti-Muslim.
Anyway, it serves him right. He’s a bleeding communist and needs a taste of what we go through every time we open our mouths.
I think the idea is that if you leave the boarding area to go to the bathroom, then you might miss the train.
Hey, Ken - did you hear the one about the London Mayor who fell flat on his fatwa?
The thing that I don't get about the joke is the use of Salman Rushdie.
A fatwah has been issued on Salman Rushdie, so if Yasser Arafat's bodyguards did recognize Rushdie, then they would be required to shoot him dead in that instance, as well.
Also, Arafat was a Sunni, not a Shiite:
Obituary: Yasser Arafat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/890161.stmSupposedly wedded exclusively to the Palestinian cause, Arafat - a Sunni Muslim - surprised the world in 1991 when he married Suha Tawil, from a prominent Christian Palestinian family, with whom he had a daughter, Zahwa...
Now that I think about it, it could be that they pump the waste from the trains into the station's sewer pipe, and that that waste might back up the pipe and be forced out into the station's restrooms.
Which would be pretty disgusting.
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