Sometimes our activists get so caught up in the feedback of their own echo chamber that they no longer even hear themselves. They’re completely oblivious to the ridiculously trite casual racism that manifests itself in their agitated soundbites. People I once thought were voices of reason now present as simple reactionaries, casting aside their apparently …
We witness in all its barbaric horror the consequences of dehumanising entire peoples.
I logged into Facebook today for the first time in ages to find out what people were saying. I logged out again shortly afterwards, disappointed. I searched in vain for even a modicum of condemnation of the reported attrocites which set in motion all of the heartbreaking tragedy which has followed. No, but nothing. It …
It is extremely distasteful to hear those who have made comfortable lives in the west calling back to people living in the most horrendous of circumstances: “Stay where you are to defend your land!” If that instruction were true, why did you not stay in your land, rather than settling five thousand miles away, leaving …
Congratulations: you’re making a name for yourself, telling white nationalists exactly what they want to hear: that the contribution of immigrants to Britain has been negligible. Presumably you exclude yourself from that statement, given that having emigrated to Canada as a child, you migrated back to Britain in adulthood to make your life here. Standing …
It is heartening that some media organisations like Reuters, AP and DW have begun fact-checking online (mis)information, to verify the accuracy and authenticity of videos and photos circulated on social media. A few years ago, I was obsessed with doing that myself, insistent on running every harrowing video or image shared by friends through a …
Why take your work so seriously, when nobody around you does? This is the question my wife asks me, worried that I’m going to let my job make me ill. I’d say it’s precisely because others don’t take it seriously that I feel I have to. Because we are paid to deliver a service, and …
I think we’ve reached peak whataboutery. It doesn’t wash anymore. The moral high ground has been ceded. Stop making excuses for the indefensible.
Show me a terrorist attack which has ever benefitted the alleged perpetrators. In truth, every single act of barbarism has benefitted only their foes, always ready to spring into action in defence of their own strategic interests. Ask the millions dead, their societies smashed to pieces by these wars without end, justified as a response …
My day was going well, until the dot of nine o’clock. That was when our team sent out that all staff email. Now I am dying inside. We’re such a hopeless bunch of incompetents. Daily I’m banging on about the appropriate use of the technology available to us. I’m working twelve hour days to get …
I had been Muslim three months when a terrorist organisation we had never heard of before blew up the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998. These simultaneous acts of barbarity killed 224 people and injured 4,500 others. That was the first time many of us had heard of a man called …
Personally, I don’t understands the tactics or logic of Hamas in attacking Israel as it does, knowing full well that the world’s fourth most powerful military will respond with all its brutal and merciless might to further its own well-stated strategic aims. On Saturday, we heard that Hamas had attacked Israel by land, sea and …
Is it permissible to attack civilians? No, it’s not. What about civilians on their holy days? “But they do it.” Such is the law of tit for tat.
If we remain in our little market town, venturing not much further than familiar streets, the crossing of paths may seem unremarkable. But spend two hours on the motorway in heavy traffic weaving between major towns, and that notion comes crashing down. To the rational mind, these paths crossed seem impossible. But here we are: …
Sometimes I feel that my life began 22 years ago, aged 24. I wonder if those married in Birmingham today will feel the same way in years to come. Today’s event was not just any wedding. This the marriage of the second daughter of the couple who introduced me to my wife back then. When …
