What goes round, comes around..

I've been reading with much interest the plight that Tony Blair finds himself in. The current "cash for honours" quagmire that Tony Blair finds himself stuck in (and the Labour Party by association), is to many older pundits a rerun of the Tories sleaze tag, from which the Conservatives have not quite fully recovered.

Blair's speech as the leader of the Labour Party declaring that the Labour government, "must be whiter than white", now rings hollow. While no one has actually been charged with any crime, the fact that a number of Blair's aides have been questioned by the police on more than one occasion does not bode well. As the old adage goes, mud sticks!

My feeling on this subject is that Blair is well aware of the long term damage that he is inflicting on the Labour Party, I believe he wants to be remembered as the man who brought Labour back into government, and the man to have held the longest term in office as Prime Minister from the Labour Party (I may be wrong). There is much ill feeling between Blair and Brown, and I don't think Blair is going to make Brown's life any easier after he has gone...

As for the opposition, well can the Liberals and Conservatives hammer home the corruption point to the prospective electorate? Only time will tell.

To be or not to be.. (a moderate Muslim or an extremist Muslim)

I feel compelled to write after reading and hearing quite a lot about how moderate Muslims must stop other Muslims from becoming extremists. I'm not quite sure what people exactly mean. Are they implying that Islam is a religion, which if one becomes a devout believer and a practicing worshipper you are liable to blow yourself up along with innocent bystanders? Am I correct in interpreting this to mean that if a Christian decides to devoutly follow their faith, it is seen as a commendable act, they are pious people serving God.

For me it's quite simple. If you are saying that you can be too much of a Muslim and end up an "extremist". How far are we from actually dehumanising Muslims to the point that the Jews were demonised under the Nazis? Why is it difficult to understand that faith is not the issue (see yesterday's post). What Blair and Bush have succeeded in doing is to play into the hands of the terrorists and provide them with propaganda to set up a "them and us" scenario.

It IS the foreign policy stupid!

My apologies for the lack of updates, but as I said unlike other bloggers I can't guarantee that I'll be able to keep up to publishing a daily post! And anyway, like all good things its best to be patient and to wait for them to arrive!

Right, back to business... I'm writing this post, because frankly I'm utterly bemused at the brazen manner in which Blair's government dismissed the open letter written by representatives of the Muslim community. As a Muslim myself and from speaking to many friends who are also Muslim, each and every single one of us certainly believes that the unbalanced approach (to put it very mildly!) Blair and Bush have adopted with regards to the policies in the Middle East ARE the major sources of grievance.


Blair and Bush spout untold amounts of BULLSHIT. As citizens we are continually being told that the terrorists are out there (and among us) doing all they can to destroy "our way of life". HELLO!!! I think I must have missed that news bulletin. I don't ever recall reading nor hearing any of the speeches made by Osama Bin Laden and his cronies actually stating that their aim was the destruction of the "Western" way of life. Correct me if I am wrong, but what I HAVE heard and read on countless occasions is that al Qa'ida has stated that it's aims are the removal of the House of Saud and all "occupying" forces from Muslim lands.

I guess the point I am trying to make is this, without a doubt we are facing a threat to our national security and consequently we live in very uncertain, dangerous times. But to lie to us, the people who elected these politicians into power with crap about WHY we are in these uncertain times is immoral and so very wrong. As a friend of mine said to me, "it's much easier to bend a population to your own will if you can convince them that their way of life is at risk in itself, rather than because of what we do in their "enemy's" land. It's a sad truth, but truth all the same".