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Showing posts from July 12, 2015

The World is Crying for Justice...

Is it just me that sees a world where those that are undergoing the most difficulty are being seen virtually as an economic detail? There used to be concern purely about the "Third World" and how those poor aboriginals needed help to generate their own economies and be supported through their growing pains. The reality, however, has been that the West has succeeded in supporting mostly non-viable governments and, in any case, it's China that has taken over as the main source of aid in mid-Africa. While the West was trying to be seen as 'the good guys', it was also quietly supporting the Shah of Iran and then Saddam Hussein - and we have seen what has since developed in both countries. That the West has been such a friend of Israel has further provided confusion and antipathy in the Middle East countries. Western policy has to a large extent been the cause of the rise of the Islamist in my view. It's all very well to brand them as "evil", but w

Narratives will not stop terrorism

Howard Jacobson's Saturday article in the i newspaper "Narratives will not stop terrorism" receives an A1 rating from me. I am not short of knowledge about Islam and Muslims and I love their religion and what their prophet stood for - as did Thomas Carlyle and George Bernard Shaw - and I believe there has grown an enormous resentment amongst many in the larger Muslim community about Western policy in the Middle East this last near-100 years. Therefore, Howard Jacobson is so right in asserting that we in Britain and the larger Western world need to offer more than platitudes as an alternative to the perverse Daesh (aka ISIS or ISIL) line. What we should offer is a genuine and heartfelt sense of being brothers with Muslims in their aspiration to be recognised for what they truly stand for, and not expect them to 'fit in' to ou