In defence of selecting second-choice goalkeepers for cup matches

Stuart Taylor, Steve Harper, Carlo Nash, Richard Wright. Most of these names should sound familiar (Richard Wright even has two England caps!). But they are the footballing equivalent of that exotic herb you bought on special offer at the supermarket because you thought “One day… why not” but it just sits at the back of your cupboard doing f**k all unless you have a Schwarz-themed emergency and have nothing else to season your chicken with.

Remember me? Despite being 36 years old, former Arsenal sixth-choice
Stuart Taylor has made fewer than one hundred first team appearances in his
career.

Frequently, football clubs, at both elite and lower/non-league levels, are deploying second-choice goalkeepers in domestic and continental cup competition. One is tempted to ask why. If there is broad agreement regarding who the stronger goalkeeper is – what is the rationale for cup-goalkeepers?

Last season, Arsene Wenger’s judgment was questioned (as usual), following an error in a Champions League match with Olympiakos, in which second-choice goalkeeper David Ospina made an error. There were rumours that following a pillaging of Arsenal’s defensive line in the build-up to the FA Cup Final, that Mr Wenger might revert to his reliable number one, Petr Cech, in order to give his team some stability.

But he stuck with the man who got them to the final, and Ospina left Wembley with another FA Cup winner's medal. Good for him.

This goes hand in hand with another feature of the modern game which irks football supporters – the sense that managers are taking domestic cup competitions, particularly the cherished FA Cup – the oldest competition in club football, less seriously. In January this year, Southampton used their FA cup tie against Ospina’s Arsenal to rotate the squad. Nineteen year-old Harry Lewis started in goal in a youthful side whose only recognisable first team players were industrious forward Shane Long and the smooth midfield-man Jordie Clasie. An Arsenal side featuring England International Danny Welbeck and former Saints duo Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott blew the Saints away, crushing Claude Puel’s side five goals to nil.

Saints fans were furious that their team had effectively thrown their FA Cup prospects away, and felt that their money had been wasted. But managers might respond that they have to make these changes, because of the nature of a ridiculously congested calendar which fatigues players and causes injuries.

But does this hold for goalkeepers? The reality is that the position is far more mentally demanding, than physically taxing, and there is no reason why a professional goalkeeper shouldn’t have the requisite fitness to play every minute of every match even over the hectic Christmas period.

In Southampton’s case, the match was the perfect opportunity for young Harry Lewis to gain some valuable first team experience but the same can hardly be said for Colombian international Ospina, who has amassed over 300 league appearances since 2005. So what’s the thinking?

   1. Real football is not FIFA

Only a fool would suggest that David Ospina is a stronger goalkeeper than Petr Cech. But beware matter of fact sofa-analysts who speak as if a player’s ability is fixed. This might be a pattern of thinking which emanates from the FIFA-generation – where there is literally a number next to a player telling you how good he is and thereby whom you should select. Breaking news: football ain’t like that. Managers need to keep track of how good their squad is, and will use cup competitions to have a look at players they haven’t seen in the league, including goalkeepers.    

    2. This brings out better performances from your first choice

Goalkeepers should never be too comfortable, and need healthy competition. I have personally been dropped in the past for being too comfortable, but also benefited from a rival keeper being too comfortable in his position as well.

Selecting your second-choice goalkeeper for cup fixtures is a useful way of keeping your number one on his or her toes, which should lead to stronger performances in league games. I recall my team, QPR, signing Alex McCarthy a few years ago as competition to Rob Green, whose performances improved markedly in consequence.

Even the effect of being dropped often has a positive impact on a player. Consdier Simon Mignolet’s improved form following a spell out of the team. A few years back, I recall Manuel Pellegrini dropping Joe Hart for Costel Pantillimon, following a loss of form, and the England Number One returned a stronger player. Even United stopper David De Gea, one of the finest keepers on the planet right now, was dropped by Sir Alex Ferguson in his first season for Danish gloveman Anders Lindegaard, who currently plies his trade with Championship Preston North-End. Competition is a fine thing for any player, and tends to bring the best out of the group.

   

3. Brings out better performances from your team mates

Another dig at FIFA players but I am not here to par you I am here to educate you. Sometimes shit happens. Petr Cech’s horrific head-injury when he collided with a rogue knee from Reading’s Stephen Hunt springs to mind. Kasper Schmeicel  has been out of the Leicester City side this season with injury problems too. And both Jack Butland and Fraser Forster have endured long term injuries over the past 12-18 months. You need to have a back-up goalkeeper that your team mates can trust.

How do you build this trust? You have to give them game-time. I can’t stress enough the importance of your defenders knowing that they have a reliable, commanding goalkeeper behind them. It puts them at ease, enabling them to focus on their own game, and go into matches with a positive, rather than worried mentality.

The same is true of attacking players. If they know that they have a man in the sticks who is competent, then this puts less pressure on them to score goals. The whole team gets a lift when they trust their goalkeeper and this generates a virtuous circle – because goalkeepers themselves will play with greater confidence when they know their team mates trust them.

Sergio Romero has had an impressive season in my opinion, playing at every stage of Manchester United’s Europa League triumph and earning himself a lot of credit. Should De Gea move to Real Madrid this summer, (possibly as part of a swap deal for Cristiano Ronaldo if the papers are correct), then there is a strong case to be made for Romero becoming the first choice. His team-mates trust him because they have played with him. And even the supporters can rest assured that should De Gea get injured or depart Old Trafford, that they have a very talented deputy to step in when required.

 4.  And it is worth having your second-choice keeper ready

As I just said, shit happens. And when shit happens, do you really want your team to be calling upon a keeper who hasn’t played any first team football in six years? Of course not. You want him to have had some game-time in recent months so that he is up to speed with things. It’s not just about keeping everyone happy. You need your whole squad to be match fit too.

  5. But don’t underestimate happiness

You only see what happens on a match-day. But the most successful teams on the field have a good team spirit off it. You want your players singing from the same hymn sheet and you want to keep them all happy. The same is true of goalkeepers. One might think that we all hate each other and wish our rivals embarrassing errors so that we can nick their shirt, but in reality the opposite is the case.

Much is made of the infamous ‘goalkeepers’ union’ and I assure you it is no joke. Goalkeepers work together every day in training and while the goalkeeper coach leads the sessions, the dynamic of training is a collaborative one. Former England International Paul Robinson is often credited for having a positive influence on Burnley’s captain Tom Heaton. And it should come as no surprise that many clubs are keen to hold onto veteran goalkeepers for the impact they can have with a team’s younger goalkeepers (Mark Schwarzer at Leicester City, Brad Friedel at Spurs, Shay Given at Stoke, who were all world class goalkeepers in their heyday). It makes sense that a manager should want to keep these guys happy, so that they can remain a positive influence on the goalkeeping group.

I hope that helps

I have tried to give a goalkeeper’s insight into this debate and hopefully if you come across someone bemoaning a manager’s incompetence by selecting their number two for whatever reason, maybe this will equip you with some points to rebut them.

When does anti-Zionism become anti-Semitic?

Anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head once again on the Left this week. Or at least talk of anti-Semitism. What does it mean? What qualifies as “anti-Semitic”? What is Zionism? Where do we draw the line? These are questions surfacing throughout our public debate and I am often asked by my friends to explain Zionist ideology and its relevance to Judaism and the Middle East.

To be frank, Zionism is a far more innocent doctrine than its public perception suggests. Quite simply, to be a Zionist is to profess support for the principle that the Jewish nation should have a right to self-determination. Some literature then adds on the qualifier “in Israel” to that definition and this is what is causing so much controversy.

Naz Shah, Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn and many more on the Left have spent years of their respective careers campaigning with the Palestinian Solidarity movement by criticising the deplorable actions of the Israeli state in the occupied territories but on its own this does not make them anti-Semitic. Many prominent Jews have been equally condemnatory of Israel including American academic Dr Norman Finkelstein and the great German scientist Albert Einstein. Most Jews living in the United Kingdom express similar disapproval at the occupation.

Criticism of Israel then is not anti-Semitic and more importantly, is not sufficient to even meet our definition of anti-Zionism either, since one can support the right of self-determination of the Jewish people while voicing their criticisms towards the state which manifests in the real world.

But what about criticism of Zionism more specifically? This is an altogether different matter. Understood as the right to self-determination of Jews, one can argue that even opposing this ideology, one which the vast majority of Jews consider to be of at least some importance to their Jewish identity, is not on its own anti-Semitic. But this only applies if you also oppose the right of self-determination for all nations everywhere.

The problem with the anti-Zionist movement is that they are dedicated to the cause of condemning Zionist ideology but seem to be absolutely comfortable with every other national group having the right to self-determination. This is the fundamental double standard. If you oppose rights for one national group but not another then this is discrimination and in this regard the focus by Mr Livingstone, Ms Shah and their friends on the left seems to be rather unfairly targeting one particular national group, so I would suggest there is at least some anti-Semitic sentiment to their words.

I myself have changed my mind on the blurred line of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. I used to defend critics of Zionism (of which the majority of my politically-minded friends are), on the grounds that Jews who self-define as ‘Zionist’ should be ready to condemn the oppressive actions of a state acting in our name.

But my change of heart stems from my awareness of this particular double standard. The anti-Zionist movement is not an anti-Nationalist group, concerned about the presence of borders everywhere. They are a movement with an agenda to specifically deprive Jews of this right to self-determination and they pose their campaigning as ‘compassion for Palestinians’, enabling them to present themselves as more innocent than they are.

It is possible to express solidarity with the Palestinian people without jumping on the anti-Zionist bandwagon. Former Labour Leader and my fellow North-London Jew Ed Miliband is one such advocate of a two-state solution – a man consistent in his support for the right of self-determination for Palestinians as well as for the Jews. He is a far more vocal critic of Israel than Tony Blair or Gordon Brown ever were, and rarely got the praise he deserved for the stance he took.

Discourses inform not only our understanding of social phenomena, but they also actively shape how we interact with them. The longer Palestinian sympathisers continue to eviscerate Israel publicly, the more they undermine their own ‘sympathetic’ credentials. Similarly, the longer Jews on the Right are unapologetic for Israel’s actions, or worse still take offence whenever anyone dares to criticise the government, the more hypocritical they are in only advocating Jewish nationhood.

The discourse is far too polarised and I am calling for politicians, journalists, and people of all political and racial colours, to speak up for the radical middle-ground. Don’t sit on the fence, but rather chop this fence down. It is only when we put serious pressure on constructing a two-state solution in Israel and Occupied Palestine, that justice for both races can ensue, and eventually, anti-Semitism will cease to be an issue for the political Left.

Paying tax should be seen as virtuous

The idea that 'tax is legalised theft' is moulding us into uncompassionate, egoistic citizens, with no sense of community whatsoever (apparently hyperbolic sub-headings are an essential feature of all blog posts... was that any good?).

There is no actual difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. A simple piece of linguistic categorisation; this is merely a strategy by the tax-dodgers and their friends to deflect away from any alleged wrongdoing.

OK stop screaming lefty-hating profanities at your screen. I’m educated enough to understand that technically there is of course a difference between avoidance and evasion; the former considered ‘legal’, the latter prohibited by law.

But the very instance of the word technically illustrates the weakness of this line of argument. Once again, we see a use of the legalistic fallacy to warn away scrutiny of certain individuals’/companies’ behaviour.

President Obama admitted this week in the wake of leaked data from the Panama law firm Mosack Foncesca that many of these arrangements are indeed legal… or to use the language of accountants and lawyers: “strictly in compliance with the institutional and legal framework…” (I’m yawning already).

The President goes on to say that this is precisely, as he refreshingly puts it ‘the problem’. Our legal system is not the benchmark we use for right and wrong. Our legal system itself derives from a moral discourse about what rules a just society should legislate.

No one likes paying tax and it would be disingenuous for me, a student who’s “never had a proper job” and “doesn’t know the real world” to start lecturing the wider public on why they should feel guilty about any misgivings they have over £££ leaving their bank accounts.

However, most of us would agree, centre-left or centre-right, that you need to pay tax in order to maintain at least a basic level of public services… or if you’re a Tory cheerleader then you need tax revenue in order to bring down “Labour’s deficit” because you know, deficits are obviously more important than tackling poverty, low-pay and a beleaguered NHS (just as an aside… imagine stretching doctors and nurses to breaking point and then complaining that they are being ‘inefficient’ and imposing a new contract on them without their consent… I just think it’s funny to be honest).

So it seems bizarre and frustrating, that despite this government’s “best” efforts to close some of these tax loopholes (while it blocks legislation in the European Parliament to blacklist some of these secretive off-shore law firms), that there remain holes in our legal system that enable it to take place.

So I reiterate… there is no difference between evasion and avoidance. They both entail dodging tax. And dodging tax is morally wrong.

One line of rebuttal I often hear from my more neoliberally inclined friends is that I would avoid tax too if I had the means of doing so; that ultimately, we are all rational, self-interested, egoistic, money-motivated at heart and it is sanctimonious for me or anyone else to suggest otherwise.

I have two responses to this proposition. First, note the language of this particular line of attack: “if I had the means of doing so”. The fact of the matter is, I don’t have these means. Not because I don’t earn enough to pay tax, but because even if I get a decent grad job, I won’t be earning anything like the amounts you’d need to make such an exercise worthwhile. 

More importantly, I wouldn’t have access to the networks of lawyers and accountants at some of these big law firms that make a living out of giving their clients a helping hand with their “tax efficiency”.

By and large, the clients of these off-shore law firms are the super-rich – the 1%... the 0.1%. And the sentiment on everyone’s lips is a much more profound one - if the super-rich can do this legally then I should be able to.

This has its origins in our basic understanding of justice; in particular the principle of reciprocity. My blog title is misleading because it glorifies tax in a manner that I don’t actually advocate, because of course no one wants to pay more tax than they need to. But the majority of us comply because we accept implicitly that tax is like a subscription fee for civil society, and on the understanding that if everyone pays their full fee, then society will be all the richer for it.

We pay it so that we may enjoy the fruits of universal healthcare, education, welfare, pensions and so forth. If you really do share with Lady Thatcher that ‘there is no such thing as society’ then you are entitled to that view. Though I expect you to never enter a hospital, drive on our roads, support our sports teams, educate yourself or your child, or really do anything in the public sphere which involves interaction with other citizens.

Okay so not all of those examples are paid for by the taxpayer. But the point still stands. What makes life worth living isn’t the egoistic goals of the atomised individual, but the interactions we have with our families, friends, colleagues, shop assistants, cab drivers, hairdressers and waiters that we go engage with every day. ‘Society’ is a dynamic concept which we are all a part of whether we admit it or not.

But we will only wish to pay our fee if all the other members agree to do the same. Like I said, it’s about reciprocity. So if you really do believe that you should be paying less tax, at least have the balls to let the rest of us know that you’re doing it. And that is pressure that must surely come from our elected politicians.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Can we stop hassling Hasselbaink?

I wasn’t so much disappointed with the section of the Q block singing ‘There’s only one Neil Warnock’ periodically against Hull. Rather, when a few of us in the P block tried to drown these morons out with our own rendition of ‘Hasselbaink’s Blue Army’, surprisingly few seemed to join in. I understand the boys are playing bad football at the moment, but this is no reason not to get behind your team. As I say frequently: we are supporters, not consumers.

However such is the modern consumer mentality, catalysed by the pervasiveness and sheer abruptness of social media, that owners, journalist and fans alike, expect instant results, QPR is no exception, with an unhealthy habit of getting through roughly a manager a season.

When Tango and Cash were still running the show, fans would become increasingly disgruntled at the rapid turnover in playing and managerial staff alike, and it was no surprise that when the owners took a step back, and allowed a manager with a proven track record to get on with his job, imposing his own ideas, that we went up as champions with relative ease.

Stability is the key here, and it is totally unreasonable to expect Jimmy to undo the bad habits created by the previous two managers in under a month. Under both Harry Redknapp and Chris Ramsey, there was never any attempt to play anything that resembles high-pressing, possession-based football, so I for one was delighted when a former Dutch international, who has played with some of the finest players to grace the game, came to Loftus Road.

For me, Jimmy is above all an educator and innovator. He took Burton Albion; one of the smallest clubs in the football league, out of League 2 and further still left them at the summit of League 1 when he left early last month. Now I care little whether he is ‘proven’ at this level like Warnock is… because what he did with Burton is clearly a massive achievement itself.

But it’s not just the statistical success he had with Albion that impresses me (a formidable 61% win ratio by the way), but the manner in which he has achieved it. I often hear from other Rangers fans that we’re simply not good enough to play the kind of football that progressives demand but I wholeheartedly reject that argument. I’ve seen Eddie Howe take Bournemouth up the leagues playing an expansive game. Similarly Brendan Rodgers and Roberto Martinez before him were hugely successful at Swansea City, affectionately known by many in Wales as ‘Swansalona’.

Professional footballers play at the level that they do because they are incredibly talented, and there is no question in my mind that players like Alejandro Faurlin, Matty Phillips et al are up to the job. QPR’s problem is that other than a brief period at the start of the 2013-14 season, we have not had a manager in the last ten years who seems intent on producing good quality football. Even when Neil Warnock took us out of the Championship, we were largely reliant on a resilient base and a magician in the 10 who could win games on his own.

Neil Warnock is a brilliant coach, and we saw once again when he assumed temporary charge a couple of months ago that his impact was instantaneous. But I would hasten to add that he has a considerably poorer record in the Premier League than he has at Championship level, and this I put down to him only really knowing one way to play football.

As I say, Jimmy is an educator, a student of the game – a man who knows what he is doing. And coming into a club who have not been accustomed to playing the right way will take time to fix. Give him a full season, at least a full 2016, so that he can recruit and build in the way that he sees fit. I know that the sensible majority of QPR fans are prepared to give him that length of time, but as usual, both on the internet and at Loftus Road, it’s the stupid minority who are making more noise.

So let's get behind our team. It never was easy being a Rangers fan.

Let's condemn religion for what it actually gets wrong

There’s plenty of comment out there about religion, particularly Islam. There always is in the aftermath of any terror attack, from islamophobes keen to make political capital of any catastrophe, to those of us on the left who become burdened with defending the 1.6 billion innocent Muslims who are the victims of an animalistic and highly uncritical human need to generalise, often crassly, in order to make sense of the world.

Really the argument should stop here. This pie chart is about as simple and factual as it gets. Not that I want to upset any bigots with evidence.

That’s my caveat for the rest of this article. Though I want to make a point about religion in general, not just Islam. All three Abrahamic religions, to a greater or lesser degree, subscribe to St Paul’s/Saul’s (whatever you want to call him) doctrine of the Golden Rule: that is to love thy neighbour as thyself, to do unto others as we would have done unto us. All the Abrahamic religions endorse charity as a virtue. Zakah/Tzadakah in Islam and Judaism. And in Christianity, one of Jesus’ most powerful lessons is that the rich should give to the poor, stating that it is ‘easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ It’s no coincidence, then, that the majority of work done to alleviate food poverty at the UK’s 445 Trussell Trust Food Banks is done through local Church communities and other religious groups. It’s clear, then, that for the most part, religion is a force for good in society.

So let’s focus on the real issues here – the ones that should be getting a lot more attention than bigoted islamophobic terrorism nonsense. Religion, it's safe to say, has not always been the LGBT community's best friend. A 2013 report conducted by Pew suggests a positive correlation between religiosity and condemnation of homosexuality:

Ah yes, well done Josh, you used a graph… but you’re misunderstanding correlation and cause (I can hear my critics shouting at their screens now). It is not religiosity which undermines tolerance of homosexuality; rather it is a cultural phenomenon. It just so happens that those countries with conservative cultures are generally more religious.

Well I don’t really like that argument. It’s a religious cop-out. Religion and culture are not the same entities, yes. Culture is an umbrella term, encompassing sport, entertainment, community and among other things… religion. So when it says in the Bible “No man must lie with another man as he lies with a woman for that is an abomination”, it does not surprise me to see that Christian countries are more “culturally” averse to homosexuality than us enlightened westerners.

But OK, let’s pretend that my critics have a point here. Well I can offset that. In France, only 35% of Muslims sampled believe that homosexual acts are morally acceptable. Christians in Britain do significantly better, with 61% supporting equal rights for gay people, though that still means 39% don’t support equal rights, or ‘don’t know’ which is still reprehensible.

It’s not just homosexuals that religions enjoy to condemn. It has taken until 2014 for the Church of England to approve women bishops. And the Catholic Church still prohibits them. In all orthodox Jewish communities and most mosques, women are forced to worship in segregation from the men. In orthodox synagogues, women cannot be rabbis, or even lead worship. This isn’t happening in the Middle East… this is happening in the United Kingdom in 2015!

I’m a liberal to the extent that I support people’s right to worship whomever they choose, and to belong to whichever religion they so desire. But I am not a liberal to the extent that I champion religious rights above human rights. If you genuinely consider homophobia to be an integral part of your religion, then no, I do not support your right to be a bigot.

So let’s not get distracted by the odd terror attack here and there. More people get killed by wasps and bees than they do by terrorists in Europe. Let’s have a meaningful discussion about religion and where it can improve its contribution to society. Let’s focus on the real flaws. The onus should be on the liberal-minded in the religious communities to lead these conversations.

Why more men should become feminists

Feminists can be bloody annoying – I can’t lie. They drive you crazy. Already, springing to mind are images of angry, short-haired, self-righteous lesbians, who can’t wait to blame everything under the sun on us men.

Maybe not. Perhaps you’re not a bigot and don’t tar everyone with the same brush, and can recognise that not all feminists are as bad as that. But to quote one of the biggest dons in world football, Mr Neil Warnock: “The stupid minority are usually louder than the sensible majority.”

So the stereotype persists, and like many social movements, feminism manages to marginalise itself, because unfortunately the voices of the radical fringes have a knack of drowning out sensible feminist sentiment.

I think one of the things that upsets people about radical feminism is the tendency to focus on men. If we trace feminism back to its intellectual origins, it’s not really men that feminists were ever attacking – it’s patriarchy.

“Patriarchy is the institution by which male shall dominate female, and elder male shall dominate younger” – Kate Millet.

“Women are made, they are not born” – Simone De Beauvoir.

These are not attacks on men, they are comments on the social institutions through which we derive our everyday norms.

But it seems as if feminism itself has forgotten what it is trying to change, and all over the UK, there has been a steady growth in the men’s movement in consequence, and much of its appeal is its general abhorrence towards feminism, which it sees as its arch enemy.

I reckon we can actually reconcile the men’s movement and feminism. Ultimately, whether or not they know it, the two movements are actually fighting a mutual enemy – patriarchy.

Traditionally only girls have had to really focus on maintaining body image, and men have got away with being a little more careless in their own appearance management. Now though, due to the pervasiveness of social media and a raft of celebrities, footballers and models showcasing themselves on the internet, there is a growing demand from girls that boys should have six packs and big chests and arms, and in consequence, a growing pressure on boys, especially teenagers to go out and obtain that, and I have spoken to many boys who go to the gym solely to go and get more girls. Patriarchy is putting the onus on boys to be “more masculine” and with this comes a whole raft of pressures, of which body image is but one.

Patriarchy affects men and boys in other ways too. For instance, over the course of 2014/15, 4% of men aged 16-59 have experienced domestic abuse. That is still half the 1.4 million women who have also suffered over this period. Yet instances of both categories are increasing year on year. An important difference is that it is generally more socially acceptable for a woman to ask for support than it is for a man, and in consequence, many men don’t seek any help at all, because they are too ashamed. Why do they feel ashamed? Largely because in a patriarchal society, men are supposed to be seen as dominant and resilient. Domestic abuse exposes vulnerability and we live in a culture where this is considered unmasculine. THAT’S BECAUSE OF PATRIARCHY.

Consider normal social interaction and gender norms. Society frowns upon girls who sleep around, and these girls are often crudely dismissed as ‘sluts’, ‘slags’ or ‘skets’ (why do these pejoratives always begin with an ‘s’?) as a way of maintaining the norm that girls should be content sleeping with as few people as possible.

Contrast that with boys: if I bring back a different girl every night of the week then my friends will call me a ‘don’, a ‘player’ or a ‘boss’ (of course this doesn’t happen very often, largely because instead of going out and talking to girls, I spend my time writing this sort of rubbish… and I have no friends). This puts its own pressures on boys, because it becomes expected that we put ourselves out there and shag as many girls as we can.

Once again, social media has a manner of reinforcing the perception among boys who are less successful with the opposite sex, that everyone else is getting some action apart from them. Similarly with girls, who can often talk about boys for hours on end without interruption. But it is considerably harder for boys to talk to their friends about this sort of thing, for fear of being seen as weak, unmasculine, a ‘pussy’… all because of the institutional norms patriarchy has placed upon us all.

I could go on. Patriarchy pervades everything we do, and so there are a number of instances where it affects boys and girls differently. I am a feminist… I have the T-shirt so that proves it. But I don’t hate men. I see how patriarchy negatively effects men and boys and I want to do something about it. Joining the men’s movement seems foolish because of their anti-feminist sentiment. But if feminists themselves can start a conversation about how patriarchy impacts men and women differently, then we might just create a more tolerant and understanding world.

Non-Muslims have a moral duty to fight Islamophobia when we hear it

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Those are the words of the German Protestant pastor Martin Niemoller, who spent seven years in Nazi concentration camps for his outspoken views on Adolf Hitler.

What I find inspirational about Niemoller is that he comes not from any kind of ‘holier than thou wet liberal’ perspective; rather – he was a prominent nationalist and right winger for most of his days.

Fast forward to 2015. The Jews have survived. We have our own state in Israel and while anti-Semitism remains a problem in the West, we have fought back and won against the Nazis’ ethnic cleansing.

Nazism is the result of bigotry, and in particular, the power of populism to galvanise the undercurrents of xenophobic tribalism in the general public. In the last week, Republican hopeful Donald Trump remarked that Muslims should be banned from entering his country until his country’s representatives have “sorted it out”… the “it” in this instance being the problem of Islam. More under the radar, because of the sensationalist rhetoric aforementioned, he is also firmly of the belief that Muslims should be compelled to carry special IDs.

This rings as an uneasy echo for me as a Jew. It was Hitler who forced Jews to wear a yellow star so as they could be easily identified. It was Hitler who signposted all Jewish-owned shops with ‘Jude’ so that consumers were aware of their filth and greed. Substitute the word ‘Muslim’ for ‘Jew’ in Trump’s own rhetoric and you essentially have a twenty-first century Hitler… except this Hitler is topping the polls in the Republican nomination to be the leader of the free world… leader of the very country that the international community has tasked with protecting us from the scourge of another world war.

And it’s easy for us to mock Trump and his legion of uneducated cheerleaders. But even in the UK, one in four of us has Islamophobic tendencies, according to the Pew Research centre – one of the highest rates in Europe. It is only because of our highly disproportionate electoral system that these voices are marginalised from the political mainstream – though to be fair, even Mr Farage condemned Mr Trump… surely that’s when you know you’ve gone too far.

But it is one thing to silently and grudgingly shake our heads in disbelief and contempt at Islamophobic rants by our more bigoted friends. But is that really enough? One of the lessons of the Holocaust was “never again” – yet Islamophobia is allowed to prevail in the West largely because the silent majority among us are reluctant to challenge it.

The petition to ban Mr Trump from entering the UK is the most popular one ever conducted but I haven’t signed it – not because I don’t hold this pathetic excuse for a politician and businessman in total contempt, but because provided we allow him to go unchallenged on his views, we allow those who actually agree with him who live among us, to carry on believing that the mainstream sentiment is out to marginalise and demonise them.

To not do so, is to allow the powerful forces of xenophobia and bigotry to extend its grip over national sentiment… and this ended horrifically for 6 million Jews in the middle of the last century.

So I’m not uncomfortable with Islamophobia just because I am a Jew… and I’m not only asking Jews to join me in combatting it. I’m uncomfortable with Islamophobia because I am a human being… and like our good friend Niemoller, I have a moral duty to ensure that “never again” really means NEVER…. AGAIN.