Category Archives: News

Chelsea fans “whiter than white”, get a slap on the wrist

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I was surprised to hear that some Chelsea fans were caught on camera singing racist songs and stopping a black man from getting on a train, yet they received suspended sentences?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38501033

Why does this kind of complete hypocrisy exist in predominantly white societies that allows white people to avoid retribution or get off with crimes they are clearly guilty of? I’m certain that under similar circumstances, a black person would have either:

  • Been institutionalised
  • Been convicted of a crime with no suspended sentence

I’m getting sick of black people always being the victim of white institutional systems, which work well for white people but poorly for people who are not white.  If multiculturalism is really going to work, it can’t just mean that people who are not white can represent your countries national sports teams, have good jobs and material wealth. A principal part in having a fair society is that we all have equal rights to justice. Justice shouldn’t be something black people should continually have to fight for, it should be like the air we breathe – it just is there, we take it for granted – we don’t want to have to be made to frantically grasp for it.

Footballers and abuse

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Yes, I’m really sorry to hear the stories about footballers being abused by coaching staff.  Andy Woodward’s story, and the stories of other abused players is really troubling.

However, I wonder at a time when the media and the police seems to be focused on abuse in this narrow sphere of society, what could happen to “regular” people qho are not in the public eye who are suffering from this type of abuse?

In my view an abused child, no matter what sphere of life they are invovled in, deserves as much attention and justice as an abused footballer.

85 richest people on earth own half the world’s wealth

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Money attracts money, so the saying goes. The rich get richer not only because money, influence and power are on their side, but also because our cultral aspirations are set on gaining wealth, property, goods and services. Wealth isn’t a bad thing, but sometimes we see that people who have wealth get away with doing things which those lacking in wealth can not, even to the extent that those who have the ability to increase society’s wealth (i.e. bankers) can mage huge losses which cost society, but can still be rewarded with bonuses even though they have failed to live up to the expectations society has for them. In these situations where wealth and the promise of wealh blind society to noble concepts like fairness and justice, I believe it is clear that society is corrupting itself and headed down a path to tyranny and greater injustice.

Oxfam has just published this artice and report.

Mark Duggan Verdict

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This is a strange verdict, the jury agreed that Mark Duggan did not have a weapon when he was shot, yet the same jury judge the killing “lawful”. I thought what constituted lawful meant the propper adherence to the process of law.

I’m not in favour of treating people like Mark Duggan with kid gloves, aledgedly he was a known figure in the criminal underworld. But at the same time, they way the police handled this case, and the way the justice system has presided over it, in my mind gives further weight to the distrust many people in the black community feel toward both the police and the justice system as part of the British establishment. I think it is right to bring criminals to justice, but it has to be done in the right way so that justice can be seen to be done fairly and correctly. Put fear into criminals by demonstrating good examples of policing and judicial conduct that puts criminals behind bars, not by policing with sloppy methods and judicial decisions that defy logic that inflame relations with the community you seek to serve.

I’ve had situations in my life where people have wronged me because they “believed” something that wasn’t correct, like someone reversing into my car because they “believed” I had parked somewhere else. When you are dealing with potentially taking someone’s life the gap between belief, certainty and reality, if misjudged can have tragic consequences. My point is this, if the police were not sure that Mark Duggan had a gun when they shot him, even though they “believed” he had, why not Taser him instead of using lethal force? In that way they could have still incapacitated Mark Duggan while disarming him. As the police and they have these types of tools available for their use, why don’t they use them? Why isn’t there wisdom enough in the chain of command, or with those on the ground at the sharp end to use the right tools to achieve the best result?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25657949

My verdict: and unlawful killing, and an unlawful verdict!

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

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Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Just a day after I heard about the new Nelson Madela film “Long Walk To Freedom“, news somes in that Nelson Mandela is dead.

When growing up I was often the target of racism, fear, misunderstanding, sometimes arrogance, but more often ignorance because of the colour of my skin. I thought about the much harder struggle that black people from previous generations had gone through, and for me Nelson Manedela represented the kind of dignified attitude toward suffering and injustice that I could identify with to some extend and was felt pent up inside me too, and which I often found hard to express.

Some people people view Nelson Mandela as a terrorist, others as a freedom fighter, and others as an inspirational figure who strived for human equality and an acceptance of all people regardless of skin colour. I believe Mandela’s more extremist tendencies were curbed by his time in prison, and to many black people he emerged from that experience as a tame figure in comparison to the man he was when he was jailed. However, the stature of Mandela is such that even after imprisonment and in his older years, he emerged from prison to do something remarkable for South Africa and indeed the whole African Continent, because to steer a country on the brink of civil war through a peaceful transition from the oppressive regime of Apartheid to a democracy, and to underpin that transition with sound ecomonic principle is something many leaders in countries with long-standind democracies wouyld struggle to achieve.

This isn’t to say that the situation in South Africa is perfect now, or ever has been even under Mandela’s leadership, but Nelson Mandela had true vision, he inspired people not only with words that sounded sweet to the ears, but also with a lifetime of experience that testified to the principles he wanted to make part of the society he loved. It takes leaders with vision, with grit, sometimes imperfect people, but people with passion nonetheless to inspire and engender feelings of true allegiance in followers and supporters. In the sanitized political life we are used to in this age, politicians seem to be more interested in their image and winning petty political arguments, there is little substance to them as people and their policies never really change the situation a country is in, they never change the way a country is headed, they just alter the route to the same desitnation which is inevitable. Mandela on the other hand is a leader who went through true pain to achieve the ideals he stood for and played a large part in changing the course of history, and only those people who experience the pain of suffering for what they believe in, can truly appreciate the joy that comes when in fact they do achieve their aims.

Nelson Madela’s death is a really tragic loss, not only for South African’s and the continent of Africa, but for the world. The world needs more poeple like Mandela, without vision of a good leader, nations come to nothing. Without people who have the faith and courage to change things that are wrong and stand up for what is right, the world is overcome by evil. Everyone of us needs something of the spirit Mandela had inside of us, a spirit of truth, peace and justice, to encourage us to do what is right.

BBC News Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23043987

Sanitizing Mandela: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/07/02/sanitizing-nelson-mandela/

Marine breaks Geneva convention

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I can’t believe this news story, parts of it read like a sick comedy sketch: Marine guilty of Murder. There is a definite injustice here, and while I agree that one Marine’s heinous actions should tarnish the reputation of Marines in general, I do not believe that this Marine’s sentence should be lenient as some people are suggesting. In addition the Marines who witnessed this should also have been punished for not reporting the crime.

Marine A as he has become known basically shot a captive this was caught on video with the helmet camera of marine B who witnessed. Marine C was heard discussing the possibility of murdering the captive with marine A. Soldiers should have the emotional and mental capacity to operate and do their job on the field of battle, or in a humanitarian capacity. Having the training to do this and perform with integrity in such a role is what distinguishes a soldier from a gangland thug or vigilante. How these soldiers managed to lose the plot so drastically is alarming and embarrassing for the British military effort in Afghanistan.

It seems however that it isn’t only the soldiers who have lost the plot, because even though we constantly hear about how abhorrent it is when other country’s soldiers break the Geneva Convention, it seems like some people within the military especially want to mitigate such acts when our own troops are at fault. This kind of double standard adds further disgrace to the initial act of murder and that the witnesses to the murder remain unpunished. This just starts to make Britain look hypocritical.

Madeleine McCann

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Another tragic story, but at the same time as I feel for the parents, I do think they are partially to blame for what happened – although the sick person/people who abducted Madeleine is obviously more to blame.

However, I believe that it is neglectful and potentially dangerous to leave a child on their own even in their own home, and in this country it’s an offence to leave a child alone if it places them at risk. When this is the case, why would you leave a child on their own in another country, in an unfamiliar environment for that child, where if the child needs help and asks for help there will be a language barrier?

I guess it seems easy to sday with hindsight, but I really beleive if I had children, and I had taken them on Holiday, I would want to have a good time, but I would want to know that my children were safe, and I couldn’t have a good time unless I knew that for a fact.

This is just one of many stories of missing children:

http://www.missingkids.co.uk/
http://www.missingkids.com/home
http://www.missingkids.com/search
http://www.findmadeleine.com/

A One Sided Media Panic?

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Child trafficking and abduction are terrible things. I get the feeling though that sometimes the media latches onto things in such a superficial manner. Take the example of “Maria“, a light skinned girl thought to be illegally resident in a darker skinned Roma community. There was another case in Ireland where in fact the dark skinned parents of a light skinned girl were wrongly suspected of abducting the girl. Amnesty Internation see the later case in particular as being part of an attitude of racism toward the Roma community.

I also have an issue with this kind of panic, what becomes of dark skinned children who are in families where their parents/guardians and/or siblings are lighter in colour? Are the media worried about those children?

What about children in abducted and forced into families where it isn’t possible to visually tell they aren’t really a part of that family? What does bbc news have to say about this? Why is the story of Maria a special case?