We Brits are so impartial, moderate, unbiased and true. And that’s the difference between us and the yanks. We keep up this pretence, believing it to be true.
The poor young visionary — once champion of social justice, investing heavily in health, social welfare and the minimum wage — drank from the poison chalice. From a brave new dawn, when things could only get better, to babbling fool, driven to madness by his own deceit. Never thirst for power, for it will consume …
The Guardian: Israel pounds Gaza Strip with air and naval strikes The Times: Israel hovers on brink of Gaza invasion BBC: Israel under renewed Hamas attack The Independent: The agony of a nation: Germany thump Brazil 7 – 1 to shatter hosts’ World Cup dreams The Telegraph: Germany destroy Brazil to leave World Cup hosts …
I don’t understand the contemporary concern that charities have become businesses. I expect an international relief organisation to have governance in place to comply with legal and statutory requirements. I expect it to have a board of trustees and directors, and specialist staff. I expect it to have HR, finance and IT responsibilities, to have …
To me, British values are: – To stop for pedestrians at Zebra Crossings; – To pull over in busy traffic to let emergency vehicles through; – To queue up in orderly fashion, even when nobody told us to; – To be patient, even when inconvenienced, and then to say sorry to the person who inconvenienced …
Pinch yourself. Awake! The Internet is like Alice in Wonderland, a strange unreality, so unbelievably true. The maddening clamour of decapitated voices call to folly, chaos and the obscure, like a cloudy magic-mushroom induced alternative dimension. This tenacious entanglement is a web indeed, a pretender to reality, an exaggerated representation of a billion souls unfiltered …
The keyboard warriors are doing battle, clashing on all frontiers. With rage they tap ever faster on keyboards of glass and plastic, outdoing their opponents with snippets of sentiment, oblivious to the weight of their words. All is fair in love and war, they believe, unconscious of the cautious wisdom of old that sought to …
Those who have migrated call back to those left behind: migrate! But where to? Qualified professionals will find lucrative jobs in rich Gulf States, but the poor have no easy choices. Migrate to the country of your ancestors, where you will be exploited for your perceived riches, or oppressed because your mindset no longer fits …
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, …
“Verily, in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest.” (Qur’an 13:28) “Spread the salaam, feed the poor and stand up at night while people sleep.” “The real fasting is not the fasting of the tongue and the stomach, but the fasting of the heart.” May manufactured controversies and schisms pass us by. May we …
The disintegration of adab, which is the effect of the corruption of knowledge, creates the situation whereby false leaders in all spheres of life emerge; for it not only implies the corruption of knowledge, but it also means the loss of the capacity and ability to recognize and acknowledge true leaders. Because of the intellectual …
Is there a disconnect between fund raisers and ordinary folk? I accept that there are some very wealthy people in our community for whom a hefty donation is easy. But to say to those living close to the edge, “you couldn’t buy a small car for that” or “that’s less than you’d pay for an …
This week a Saudi student named Nahid Almanea was brutally murdered in a park in Colchester, Essex. We do not yet know why she was stabbed or who attacked her, but already the belief amongst a significant number of Muslim commentators is that she was killed because she was recognisably Muslim; because she was wearing …
To me, it is remarkable that the progeny of a community which invested so heavily in the sciences of verification and authenticity to preserve the teachings of our religion will nowadays forward and repost every piece of unverified nonsense, malicious junk and political propaganda that appears before us on a slab of glass, without a …
