Saudi Arabia’s Got Talent
This headline in The Times caught my eye. The first paragraph describes a hit show on TV throughout the Arab world.
Much of the Middle East will grind to a halt tonight as an audience of more than 20 million gathers round television sets across the Arab world for the final of the hit show Million’s Poet.
But the surprise is that one of the five finalists is a housewife with four children from Saudi Arabia, who appears fully vielled in black.
Three weeks ago, she stormed into the penultimate round with a blistering attack on extremist Muslim clerics. Her poem, The Chaos of Fatwas, denounced those who issue hardline religious decrees, comparing them to suicide bombers as “monsters wearing belts”. She attacked the segregation of the sexes maintained by preachers who “prey like a wolf” on those who seek progress and peace.
Her performance won an ovation from the audience and the highest mark of the round from the judges, who praised her courage and honesty. As the scores were announced, she punched the air.
She has received death threats for what she has said, but it would appear that she has certain backing from the King.
The West may blanch at Saudi Arabia’s human rights record but Hilal is full of praise for King Abdullah’s efforts to drag the country forward in the face of the same opposition and bile that she has endured in recent weeks.
Radical clerics were outraged when the kingdom opened its first mixed-gender university last year. Fatwas have been issued calling for those who promote equality of the sexes in education and the workplace to be put to death. Through it all, the elderly king continues to force the pace of change.
I wish Hilal all the luck in the world in the final of the contest.
The Battle of Bolton
Yesterday, what happened in Bolton was not the way to protest.
You could argue that on the one hand it was a protest very similar to the Battle of Cable Street, where East London was determined to stop a march by the British Union of Fascists. My father, a left-wing Tory, was at that battle in 1936 and his view was that it was all of the East End against a rather nasty group with connections to Hitler. It could not be argued then, that we didn’t know of the ambitions and awful nastiness of the German dictator.
You could also argue that on the other, there are strong fears about such things like Sharia law and militant Islam.
I was listening to Radio 5 last night and the two sides had an argument with the presenter, as they thought they’d been duped into talking to each other by the BBC.
That probably shows more about the groups than anything else. They wanted a fight and that is what they got. But it was mainly with the police, who as ever were stuck in the middle. They should have let both of these groups get on with what they wanted to do. Preferably, in a place where they couldn’t do any damage to anybody else.
Those on both sides of the argument should talk to make sure that nothing like this happens again.
We’re Under Control
Last night’s television was frightening.
It wasn’t any old horror story, but two programmes which shared a common theme.
The first was Panorama about the Government’s, Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) which aims to stop unsuitable people working with children and vulnerable adults. A laudable idea, but it is being done in such a heavy handed way, that it will end up with large numbers of people being branded unsuitable, despite there being no real evidence.
Here’s what Sir Ian McKellen had to say about the effect on the theatre.
A new vetting scheme is dissuading amateur theatre companies from casting child actors, Lord of the Rings star Sir Ian McKellen has said.
The Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) aims to stop unsuitable people working with children and vulnerable adults.
But some theatres say they do not have resources to carry out the paperwork it entails, and Sir Ian fears child actors will lose important stage experience.
He may be overreacting, but then I always worry about schemes like this, as I have a very common name. As an example I’m in a database in Hong Kong and every time I visit, I’m called aside for special treatment. At least I haven’t ended up in jail, but one day my namesake might have upped his level of crime or annoyance. I also used to live in a small village with a criminal with a similar first name and the same surname. I had great difficulty getting a credit card, as I was thought of as one of his relatives.
I will be very unlikely to have any trouble with the Act, but then I only have about two hours contact alone with children in every year. And that is with my granddaughter, either when I take her to the supermarket or show her something on the computer, with one of her parents in the next room!
However, I’m thinking about volunteering to perhaps provide transport or computer help. Because of this Act, I have said that I don’t want to do anything concerned with children or their parents.
Is that the purpose of the Act? Because if no-one worked with children, then we wouldn’t have any problems would we!
And then I watched Generation Jihad.
This was chilling as young Muslims talked candidly about their outlandish views.
I feel that we may be winning some of the battles against those who feel we should be punished because of our lack of religion. The Police are arresting people before they do any damage, mullahs seem to talk sense in good English, and the tone of Muslims on phone-in programmes seems to be very much more tolerant to others.
But again oppressive legislation has been used against the Muslim extremists, that in the end may prove to be unproductive. How many people have downloaded anti-Western videos? Probably a lot more than you would think. For instance, I’ve been sent links to them in spam, by spammers in the Middle East. I unknowingly downloaded the first bit, but then as my Arabic is a bit rusty, so I deleted it.
If your brother was locked up for doing something like this, would you support the authorities or the brother? I suspect, where no actual threat has been proved you would support him.
So is this legislation actually creating more potential terrorists, rather than reducing them? After all if you’re prepared to be a suicide bomber, then a few years in jail if you get caught preparing, is a small price to pay. You can wait and probably you’ll learn a lot more in prison to help you on your way.
Let’s face it, on a scale of nastiness, terrorists and paedophiles are the lowest of the low. Oppressive agencies feasting on innuendo as well as facts, relying on typical government computing and staffed by people on not the best wages are one way to do it. But is that the best?
No!
These systems only catch those on the radar of the authorities. The London bombers weren’t and neither are most paedophiles.
I also have a big worry about these sort of systems. Supposing one was found to be a complete waste of time. Would it be scrapped? After all, if a government did, they’d be described as pro-paedophile or pro-terrorist. Look at how long it took them to sort out the Child Support Agency and the damage that was done in the interim.
So what should we do?
We should look at what causes people to become paedophiles, terrorists and criminals for that matter. One thing stands out; poverty. There is also the way that the parents treat their children. Many paedophiles were abused by their parents, many criminals take up their parents habits and there are terrorists, who have strained relationships with their family. Obviously, not all, but as the programmes pointed out last night, the seeds of criminality are sown within the family home.
Poverty is a very difficult one. The poor are very little better off after nearly thirteen years of Labour rule. But perhaps we should radically change things like the tax system to make sure that those at the bottom end keep more of what they earn, paying for it with taxes on energy. The tax system should also be seamless with the benefit system, so that part-time work is better and less hassle than no-time work.
I have hopes though about poverty and from a rather surprising person; Iain Duncan Smith.
As to family problems, my late wife spent a lot of her working life dealing with their breakdown. Barristers like her are being squeezed by the Legal Aid Fund and anyone worth his or her salt would not go into that field today. But then government doesn’t properly fund the Social Services, so that we get so many problems there.
But then those at the bottom end of society don’t vote, so looking after them is not on the average politician’s radar. Also horrendous crime plays well in Middle Britain, when the government says that they’ll bring in ASBOs, Super-ASBOs, life for littering etc. etc. I bet some wish capital punishment was still available.
But perhaps something that would help everybody, is that we should look at society and make it all a lot simpler.
Let’s have a Bonfire of the Regulations.
Security? What Security!
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is a Nigerian man, who attempted to blow up an airliner flying between Schipol Airport at Amsterdam and Detroit.
The fact that he got as far as he did is a complete failure of security.
- He had been put on a security watch list.
- He bought a ticket from Ghana to Detroit in cash.
- He was making a two week trip to the United States with hand baggage only.
- He had visited countries like Yemen.
But he was allowed to board the plane with virtually no security at Schipol, when he transferred to the Detroit flight.
Any of the facts above, should have meant that he was properly searched. But then we don’t do profiling, as it might upset some people.
So now we have the knee-jerk reaction by governments to add more levels of security, which will result in large queues in terminals all over the world. As Patrick Mercer, has just said on television, that will create a nice soft targets for these lunatics.
Religion or Male Chauvanist Piggery
Stories like this one from the Sudan really get me annoyed.
If Muslims want us to take them seriously, then they really ought to move towards the present day. In the UK, there are many Muslim women who wear trousers, so it can’t be a real religious thing at all.
It’s just another way to keep the women down.
Islam was once a great forward looking religion, which for example guarded and expanded our science for hundreds of years. Now many of its so-called adherents, seem to try to find more ways to bring it to ridicule and disgrace.
The Anonymous Widower 