Well I really don't need to apologise for being absent for so many days from the blogosphere since probably no one reads my blog, but I do apologise anyway. Feeling lazy, writer's block (I wish) - usual excuses. Just finished watching Good night and good luck, George Clooney's movie about how Edward R. Murrow took on McCarthy and triumphed shall we say. Not a brilliant movie but leaves you musing anyway. The tension in David Straithairn's face was pretty palpable and I couldn't believe how much everyone on screen was smoking. There was even a cigarette company ad thrown into the mix. It was all satirical me thinks, but then I haven't won any Nobel prizes for thinking lately, have I?But the real reason I mention the movie is because it struck a nerve with me. For those who know nothing of London, we have an evening newspaper called the Evening Standard. They have posters with hand scribbled headlines like this one at vendor stalls and shops. The one outside my tube station this evening read - "Guide dog refused by Muslim cab driver". No prizes for guessing why they didn't go with "Guide dog refused by cab driver". On the same day a former foreign affairs and home minister asks Muslim women not to wear veils and then of course a veiled woman gets attacked by a 60 year old (go figure) man in Liverpool.
Point is this: I have witnessed this sort of stirring up of communal feelings before in the media, not here, but in Hindu nationalistic media in India. So called "mouthpieces" of right wing Hindu parties are more likely to publish these kind of headlines and stories. I am not going to go into a tirade as to how the western society with its values of tolerance blah blah are held up as a beacon for all supposedly backward and fractured societies to follow. This is plain not right. If you have issues with integrating some of your own citizens into your society, then there ought to be a better means of dealing with those issues than to pick on them as a collective in the media. Wiser people might dismiss them as mere sound/news/whatever bites but I can imagine how painful and hurtful these comments must be to any muslim. For all those who are going to immediately brand me a "bleeding heart" or worse, I don't really care, its your already threadbare society you are shredding. This is a cowardly attack on a section of the UK's own citizens, to gain media headlines, sell newspapers or for self advancement. Happened before - with McCarthy and his commie witchhunt - seems to be happening again.
If we have such seemingly unsurmountable problems with a people, then let's cut through the chase. Let all the Muslims in the world move to one place and let all other religions live in some other place or maybe each religion gets its own continent or country or something and we can all have a nice little cold war again. Dilemma - what do we do with those pesky black christians and white muslims? Conclusion - its not going to happen. Wake up and smell the stuff you are peddling. This behaviour is counterproductive, its not going to lead anywhere - ever - and these problems will outlive our miserable lives unless we stop insulting and picking on each other. If we don't want muslim women to wear veils, sign it into law and let everyone abide by it and live with the consequences. Do not be surprised if we are then asked to stop drinking on Fridays or going to our GP's for routine health problems like cancer or something. Its the contract of the society that one lives in that lays down the basis for behaviour. We live in a society where hands don't get chopped off for mugging and stealing and no one gets shot up with a whole load of lethal stuff for killing someone. That's the contract - it guarantees our freedom - and that's what we must live up to. Pointing fingers at different but nevertheless harmless behaviour or rounding up on a section of our own society doesn't form part of it. Let's all grow up and be respectful to each other - regardless of religion, height, weight, penis size, colour of mole on nose, whatever. But next time someone holds up a placard telling me how Osama is going to blow my arse to smithereens, apply the law, the very contract of this society that I am living by, and teach him some manners.
