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Rants from a Jamaican British Woman

Friday, August 11, 2006

The police do seem to be onto something this time re terror threats to airlines. It's impossible to believe that they and the government would to such extraordinary lenght and phenomenal cost, not to mention the mass dissruption to peole's daily travel plans, unless absolutely certain of their sources. However, I am completely perplexed as to some of the decisions taken on hand luggage. Would it not make more sense for the police and the airlines to properly target their searches? I mean, how many mother and baby in history have ever carried out a terrorist attack? How many families going to a wedding in say Cananda have also managed to pack liquid warfare into their handbags? And what on earth do people carry in their glases case but glasses? Whilst I am thrilled that the police are trying to locate and arrest people who for whatever reason are threatening the lives of innocent people, I cannot help but thisk that the way they're going aboaut it, is just pure theatre. Well timed too. We've all come to that there's nothing like a high profile police raid with the word 'terrorist' attached to kick other little problems lie 'Iraq' and 'Lebanon' off our screens and out of our newspapers. If this latest raid shows that these people were really out to get us, all I can say is God help us. It seems to me we in the Western World need to stop spouting nonsense like 'War on Terror' and instead start a real dialogue with these people who equally believe that we are threatening and undermining their cultures and belief systems (mind you since the young people arrested are actually British Citizens) I am not actually sure that culture is the right word. Anyway we in the West need to start talking (The Irish problem is a good case in point) Even when the IRA came to the mainland and blew up people, the talking continued. In these cases of course we need more than talking. We need some serious changes in Foreign Policies. We really do.

.: posted by womanist 2:22 AM


Thursday, August 10, 2006

Like most decent people in this country, I am delighted that the Taylors have at last found some justice for the callous killing of their little 10-year-son Damilola. I hope the now two young men who are charged with his killing have their freedoms taken away from them for a very very long time. I certainly would be very unhappy to hear they were back on our streets in 3-years when the likelihood is that little about their brutal behaviour would have changed. I also hope that during the time of their confinement, work will be done with them in the hope that in some future years they can come back into society minus the need to kill, attack or rob others. Whilst I am completely agreed that this was a mindless, exeedingly cruel, vicious attack on a defenceless young child, and that these young men deserve to be locked up, I am nevertheless dismayed at some of the language being used to described them in some of the less intelligent press. Descriptions such as 'scums' , 'animals' etc. are wholly unecessary. When White youngters do terrible acts, they're never described in this way by the press. One cannot help but feel that these nasty descriptions carry nasty underlying messages about Black youths and possibly Black people in general. Lets face it, whilst I am not offering up any of what I'm about to say as an excuse for these young people's behaviour, we nevertheless have to pay attention to how they in turn have been failed by their parents and society. I mean it cannot be accidental that these two boys from early childhood have been involved in robbing and attacking people including I understand sexual attacks on young girls. Where were their parents, extended family members, school, social services? These were neglected and disaffected children who only got attention by behaving viciously. The government tells us that 'Every Child Matters'! How exactly do they matter I wonder, when vast numbers of them are left to be dragged up by parents who themselves were dragged up , when fathers are refusing to take responsibilty for them, and when society just pretends its someone else's problem?. Make no mistake, these youngters who go off the rails in such highly destructive manner are all our problem. We must stop waiting for somebody's child to be murdered before calling for action, All parents need to be made to behave like parents and act responsibly in bringing up their offsprings, and where they cannot do so, it is the job of the local authorities to assume that task, using properly trained, properly paid and committed staff. We as a society need to take a critical look at ourselves. We need to really analyse our complicity in creating these disaffected youths. We need to really believe that 'Every child really does Matter'. And that this means the right to a decent home, the right to be brought up in a caring and respectful manner, the right to a sound and fair education, the right to good health care, the right to take their part in society. Whilst society continue to treat some of its members as inferior beings, whilst others automatically see themselves as superior, we will undoubtably go on to have the kind of wicked behaviour we seen in the killing of Damilola, Stephen Lawrence, the young lawyer in Kensal rise, the school boy murdered in Edgeware and the endless knife, gun and drugs related violence.
Ok this is a real rant, but just had to get it out of my system. Wake up people!!

.: posted by womanist 1:07 AM


Tuesday, August 08, 2006

I am not an Arab nor a Jew, and in truth I cannot say I truly understand what's really going on between the two nations. However, I am fedup with the bias nature in the reporting of the news in this rejoin. I am particularly disgusted with the stilted messages being put across by the BBC news about what is happening in the rejoin. Every time an Israeli dies in the conflict, it is reported very thoroughly. When Israel drop their bombs on the Lebanese people, we are told that there was an Israeli air strike in Beruit or wherever. We're often shown a building and left to guess how many were killed. Even when great numbers of Arabs are killed, the emphasis always seems to be on the loss of one or two Jewish lives. One begins to get the very powerful message that Arab lives are not worth as much as Jewish lives rather in the same way as Black lives are not given the same status as White lives. I think the media needs to wake up and as well as reporting the conflict fairly recognise that it is also a conflict which is heavily imbued with racism and which is being fuelled by so-called Western democracies. This conflict have so far killed upwards of a 1000 people, the vast majority of them Arabs, and an awful lot of them innocent children who must have faced death with pure bewilderment. It's a nightmare for every parent who have lost a child, every family member who has lost a relative. Be they Jew or Arab, the pain of such fruitless loss of human lives will be practically unbearable. And what is it really for? I personally don't believe this conflict started over the taking of the two soldiers. I think its far more cynical than that. Wherever the British and American's choose to poke their collective noses, you can bet your bottom dollar that there's billions of dollars and pounds involved. The ultimate greed of the West will eventually destroy this planet and all in it.
All the nonsense written about 'never again' after the attrocities committed during the second world war. Well it seems these modern warmongers have the collective memory of a single gold fish. If all their gods are really behind these wars, then I say God help them and us all.

.: posted by womanist 1:31 AM