Sadiq Khan, a British politician of Pakistani descent, wrote history Friday, becoming the first Muslim Mayor of London.
A member of the Labor Party, Khan assumed charge of the coveted office on Saturday. The 45-year-old politician is the most powerful Muslim in Britain, with a budget of £17 billion to be spent mainly on policing, transport, planning and environment of London.
His father worked as a bus driver and his mother as a seamstress to raise their family, having migrated from Pakistan in 1970. While Khan’s victory signals the Labor Party’s turnaround in London, it also has profound meanings in the context of ongoing fight against extremism after last year’s attacks in Paris, multiculturalism of London, the arrival of Muslim refugees in Europe from ISIS-afflicted areas of Syria and Iraq, anti-Muslim rhetoric in some European capitals, and instructive lessons for Pakistan.
In Friday’s election, Khan, a former human rights lawyer, triumphed over Zac Goldsmith, a businessman belonging to a wealthy and influential Jewish family, and a member of the ruling Conservative Party of Prime Minister David Cameron.
Khan, who calls himself “the British Muslim who will take the fight to the extremists”, has repeatedly accused Goldsmith of trying to scare and divide voters in a proudly multicultural city of 8.6 million people, more than 1 million of them Muslims.
Khan’s successful campaign – representing inclusiveness and diversity – contrasted with Goldsmith’s smear attempts at linking Khan to extremists. But that did not work for Goldsmith in the cosmopolitan city and a major center of Western civilization. A large majority of Londoners chose someone they could relate to as a hardworking citizen, leading to criticism of Goldsmith’s negative campaign tactics. Several Tories joined the chorus.
Sayeeda Warsi, former chairman of the Conservative Party, and the first Muslim woman member of the British cabinet, noted that Goldsmith’s campaign backfired and cost the Party dearly.
“Our appalling dog whistle campaign for #LondonMayor2016 lost us the election, our reputation & credibility on issues of race and religion,” she wrote on her twitter account.
Even Goldsmith’s sister Jemima, ex-wife of Pakistani crickter-turned-politician, criticized his campaign.
“Sad that Zac’s campaign did not reflect who I know him to be- an eco friendly, independent- minded politician with integrity,” she tweeted.
In London’s intellectual and progressive political circles, Sadiq’s victory reflected a lot – acceptance of diversity, pluralism and inclusiveness.
“A Muslim mayor of London might not end the Islamophobia in British politics – any more than Obama’s win cured racism in the US – but it offers a moment, at least, of hope,” Homa Khaleeli wrote in The Guardian newspaper.
In the United States, New York’s mayor Bill de Blasio congratulated Khan, and looked forward to working with the “fellow affordable housing advocate.”
A Washington Post report on Khan’s win noted that the” outcome would resonate far beyond a change in city hall: challenging the rise of anti-Islam political rhetoric in the West.”
The New York Times noted in a report that the Khan “won a striking victory after a campaign dominated by anxieties over religion and ethnicity, and remarked that Britain’s “Muslim population, in contrast to France, is considered well integrated.”
“I’m a Londoner, I’m European, I’m British, I’m English, I’m of Islamic faith, of Asian origin, of Pakistani heritage, a dad, a husband,” Khan told the Times in an earlier interview.
Khan was elected a Labor MP for the London constituency of Tooting in 2005. Gordon Brown, the then British prime minister, included Khan in his cabinet, first as minister for communities and then for transport. After Labor lost power in 2010, its leader Ed Miliband included Khan in his shadow cabinet.
Khan’s election came as a welcome news for 200 million Pakistanis who have been struggling for a sound democratic system for the last seven decades. It was also a cheerful moment for more than one million Pakistanis living in the United Kingdom. Ten Pakistanis were returned to the British Parliament during the last general elections.
But more importantly, the election of Sadiq Khan as the Mayor of London is a source of inspiration for all those Pakistanis who believe that local government system should also be strong in Pakistani cities in Punjab and Sindh. The two provinces have not been able to elect their mayors and deputy mayors , even months after they had local bodies elections.
Mayors and deputy mayors in Balochistan, Khyer Pakhtunkhua and the federal capital have already been elected. While celebrating the occasion, Pakistanis also have a lot to learn from the precedents of fair elections and multiculturalism of major Western cities.
