Painful Truths

Despair for Africa

I don't hold much hope for Africa or Africans. 

I am not just saying this because of the "Zimbabwe effect", where Robert Mugabe has brought the country to its knees, starving and disease-ridden, while its neighbours look on. Nor am I saying it because of the economic regression of the continent, its primitive superstition, where voodoo-like practices, including child sacrifices, continue to flourish, or the total inhumanity with which many Africans treat one another. 

I despair of any hope in Africa because many Africans appear to have become corrupted right to the bone. From chronic corruption among African officials to the fraud rackets run by Africans abroad, of which Nigerians have become most notorious, the comprehensive rejection by Africans of honesty as a norm and dishonesty as an aberration appears to lie right at the heart of the continent's problems.

This isn't about race. I am not a racist and I believe that all humans are intrinsically equal and should treat one another as equals, irrespective of race, colour or faith. In fact, I am lamenting the current reality of Africa and Africans first and foremost as an African Arab. This is about a set of social and political circumstances, some a hangover from the colonialist past but most homegrown by Africans in Africa, that today link the typical African, from South Africa to Nigeria to Kenya and beyond, with fraud and corruption in the eyes of many non-African observers.

Coincidentally, while I was writing this post, a friend telephoned me to share a frustrating experience he's been having over the past couple of days. He's been trying to sell an unwanted item on the online auction site Ebay. Three times he received attractive bids for his item only to be told by Ebay to ignore them because they were scams. In two cases the fraudsters were Nigerian and in the third they were South African.

I rest my case, and I pray for Africa.

Dance with the devil and you will get burnt

At long last, the Mumbai horror show that we have been witnessing on our television screens for the past two days is over. So far, the death toll is 195 people, most of them innocent civilians.

We are still no wiser about the identity or motives of the gunmen responsible for this outrage. Predictably, the Indian government has seized the opportunity to blame Pakistan without having a shred of evidence to back its claim.

This is macabre opportunism at its worse by a government that is more concerned with enriching the super rich than with feeding its people, some of whom resort to eating rats in order to survive.

We do, however, have an idea regarding the possible motives of the Mumbai attackers. As I mentioned in a previous post, the gunmen have given us a clue that links their attacks with the craven Anglo-American policies in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. According to eyewitness reports from the hotels that were attacked in Mumbai, the gunmen singled out British and American passport holders. Not German, French, Italian or Spanish passport holders, but British and American ones. One doesn't have to be a genius to deduce at least part of their motives.

But why India? The answer, in my view, is very simple. Since the early 1990s relations between India and the racist, Zionist entity known as "Israel" have been getting increasingly closer, with defence and intelligence cooperation being at the top of the bilateral agenda. Simultaneously, over the same period India has refocused its foreign policy away from Russia and the Third World and towards the USA and its British lackey.

So, for discontented Indian Muslims – or Kashmiris or Pakistanis, if there is indeed a Pakistani connection – India is the South Asian symbol of the critical mass of evil accumulated by the US and Britain in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

This really saddens me. For one thing, the targets in Mumbai – innocent civilians – cannot be held responsible for the shortsightedness and stupidity of the Indian government or, in the case of the foreign tourists, for the policies of Israel's puppets in Washington and London.

It also saddens me because, when I think of India, I would like to think of Gandhi, Nehru and the non-aligned movement of the 1960s and 1970s, not racism, Zionism, imperialism and sheer greed.

Unfortunately, it would seem that one outcome of the Mumbai outrage is that India will be driven further into the arms of the devil. However, as the saying goes, "If you dance with the devil, you will get burnt". 

Sadly, as we have seen in Mumbai, those who pay the price for recklessness are the innocents.

UK civil liberties teetering on the brink

Something rather funny and ominous happened yesterday.

The right-wing British opposition Conservative Party's immigration spokesman, Damian Green, was arrested and questioned by Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism officers on suspicion of "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office" and "aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office" – an obscure and little-used offence under common law.

According to a BBC report, Mr Green's detention is believed to be connected to the arrest of a 26-year-old man suspected of being a Home Office whistleblower.

Whistleblowers are protected under British law if they reveal to those in positions of authority suspected malpractice at work.

My initial reaction upon hearing of Mr Green's arrest on the radio this morning was to laugh loudly. The British Conservative Party is a nasty den of reactionary bigots. The party is also a fanatical supporter of the racist, Zionist entity known as "Israel". Conservative Friends of Israel, for example, claims 80 per cent of Conservative MPs and provides a programme of weekly briefings, events with speakers and delegations to Israel. It also operates a “fast track” for parliamentary candidates fighting target marginal seats. So, the news that one of the leaders of this den had been arrested could only give me joy.

However, I also felt sorry for the British people, for the arrest of Mr Green marks the crossing of a dangerous new threshold on the road to a police state.

Ever since the Labour Party was elected in 1997, the British people have been steadily losing their civil liberties under various false pretexts. The extension of detention without trial first to 28 and then to 42 days, plans to extend this period further to 90 days and other plans to introduce identity cards and abolish the right to a trial with a jury are just some cases in point. And now comes the arrest of a serving Member of Parliament for receiving information from a whistleblower, highly amusing and joyous though this is.

There is also another aspect to Mr Green's arrest which casts suspicion on the intentions and integrity of the British government. According to Downing Street, Prime Minister Gordon Brown "had no prior knowledge of the arrest of Mr Green and was only informed after the event". This is either a lie or the British government is more disjointed and dysfunctional than I suspect. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who also belongs to the Conservative Party, has said he was informed in advance of the police's plan to arrest Mr Green. It is inconceivable, or incredible, that the police would give advance warning to the mayor but not to the government.

Some months ago I warned in one of my posts that if the British people did not take care to protect their civil and human rights, they may soon find these rights lost, as we Arabs have lost ours in our own countries. I said that the native Britons were especially at risk of losing their rights because of their unhealthy fondness of their police, security services and armed forces, and their tolerance of incessant attempts by the police and security establishment to erode their rights.

It would seem that this may happen sooner rather than later.

Mumbai outrage

The attack on the Indian city of Mumbai is an outrage by any definition. What purpose or justification could there be for the random shooting of civilians at a railway station, in a restaurant, in streets and in hotels? Who could possibly benefit from the indiscriminate murder of civilians – Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists and God knows who else?

No one knows yet the identity or motivation of the attackers. There is no shortage of suspects, from Al-Qaeda-inspired groups, to Kashmiri militants, to home-grown, discontented Indians. 

Perhaps we will never know, but one thing is quite predictable: British and American politicians and media will do their utmost to decouple the attacks from their own dirty deeds in occupied Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. They will regurgitate the same old jaded arguments about Islamic extremists envious of Western "civilisation".

Unfortunately for these hypocrites, the assailants have already provided us with a clue that firmly links their attacks with the craven Anglo-American foreign policies. According to eyewitness reports from the hotels that were attacked in Mumbai, the gunmen singled out British and American passport holders. Not German, French, Italian or Spanish passport holders, but British and American ones.

It doesn't take a genius to work out why.

Iraq revisited – briefly

Today the BBC reported that it had uncovered "evidence of serious overcrowding and poor living conditions in one of Iraq's prisons".

Iraq's poor human rights record under Saddam Hussein, you may recall, was one of the propaganda tools used by the British government to justify to the public its aiding and abetting of the US invasion of Iraq.

While it was criminally conspiring with the US to commit aggression against the people of Iraq, the British government used the docile, spineless domestic media, including the BBC, to spread falsehoods about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction capability.

Now this same media have reverted to their traditional sanctimonious role, with the BBC telling us that the present human rights situation in Iraq bears more than a superficial resemblance to that under Saddam Hussein.

Too late! The catastrophe has been inflicted on Iraq, possibly irreversibly. More than a million Iraqis are dead, disease is rife and societal breakdown is at an advanced stage.

Of course, the British people are not listening, preoccupied as they are with the "credit crunch" and worries about whether they can out-do last year's spending on Christmas presents. To them, the outrage against the people of Iraq committed by the suspected war criminal Tony Blair and his Labour Cabinet and Parliamentary co-conspirators is but a distant, almost-forgotten mishap.

Not for the first time, Britain has been pivotal in inflicting mortal damage on an Arab people. Most of the native Britons don't give a damn. And the Arabs? They are wallowing deep in their slumber: when not fighting and undermining one another, they're womanising, drinking, gambling, accumulating material nonsense or simply getting lost in a whirlwind of trivia and esoteric religious obscurantism.

Swan rescue

I had a rather unpleasant experience while driving to work this morning, one that triggered a whole host of thoughts in my mind.

Shortly after setting off from home, a couple of swans landed in the middle of the road, about 150 metres ahead of me. One of the swans was run over by a car that was accelerating at what seemed to be an extraordinary speed. The swan collided with the car’s front bumper, passed under its chassis and emerged from under the boot. Although the swan narrowly missed being crushed under the wheels, it was nonetheless badly injured, with one of its legs visibly crushed.

I stopped as soon as I could and called the police emergency number. I waited for the police to arrive and hoped that my parked car, half of which was on the narrow pavement and the other half on the carriage way, would slow down the traffic and shield the injured swan from the speeding cars.

I don’t know much about swans but one thing that I do know is that they have life-long mates. Indeed, the injured swan’s mate stayed with its friend in the middle of the road for several long minutes, despite the numerous cars that were impatiently circumventing them to the left and the right. It’s heart-breaking enough to witness any helpless, injured animal suffering, but to see the hurt bird and its mate standing by it in the middle of the road in spite of all the danger and the terror of the passing vehicles was heart-wrenching.

However, it certainly wasn’t heart-wrenching enough for the vast majority of motorists on that road this morning. First of all, the driver whose car had run over the swan did not stop – on the contrary, he or she sped off even faster. That driver must have known that he/she had run over the swan, and he/she must have seen it in the rear-view mirror, injured but not dead with its mate standing by it. Nonetheless, he/she did not stop. If what goes around really comes around, then maybe one day that driver will suffer a terrible accident and no one will stop to help him/her.

The second thought to come to my mind was how primitive and low human nature is. I am referring here to all the subhumans who terrified the injured swan and its mate by speeding to the left and to the right of them without a care in the world. May they all get their comeuppance some day soon. There was, however, one exception. A kind gentleman  stopped by and tried to help by calling a special swan helpline number. He stayed with me until the police arrived.

Finally, my thoughts turned inevitably to my own people. Here I was, an Arab in the midst of “humane”, “civilized” and “animal-loving” Britain, coming to the rescue of an injured swan and cursing those who couldn’t give a damn. How would people in my own country react under similar circumstances? I ask myself. 

Sadly, the answer is that they would not react at all. For the vast majority of them, it would be a non-event; it wouldn’t even register on their radar screens, so to speak. In fact, most would laugh at me for even caring! The painful truth is that, in my part of the world, compassion, whether for animals or humans, is a rare commodity indeed. Strange, you might think, for people who utter the name of "God, the Merciful, the Compassionate" dozens of times each day.

When I got home later in the evening I accidentally dialled the emergency number of the regional swan rescue centre while adding the number to my mobile phone contacts. I discovered that the swan had been euthanased – it's leg had been so badly crushed that the centre decided it would be more humane to put it down.

Time of emotions

This has been an emotional month. A close relative of mine arrived from home to begin research for a PhD. It was an event that triggered a whole host of emotions, feelings that had lain dormant, almost unbeknown to me.

First, there was the waiting at the airport, and seeing and hearing my compatriots expecting the arrival of friends and family. It brought home memories that a don't feel at liberty to describe here.

Second, there was the arrival of my relative himself. Like me some years ago, he is here temporarily, looking forward to starting and finishing his studies, and to eventually returning home, with memories of the long, lonely tedium of PhD research firmly behind him.

I wondered to myself: will his stay really be temporary or will his world, like mine, turn upside down and transform his transient stay into a blurred, semi-permanent twighlight existence in limboland?

I called my relative's mother soon after his arrival in the UK. She was still upset by his absence. She said that his temporary departure for Britain reminded her of my own temporary departure for that country many, many years earlier. The temporary departure that soon turned into purgatory.

When my relative first told me that he intended to go to Britain or the US to do research, I wanted to warn him against the idea, to ask him to think carefully about the costs and possible benefits of studying abroad. This is because, in my view, the potential benefits are vastly overrated – both those of a PhD and of studying in a foreign country. However, I could not bring myself to do so. For his own sake, I hope I don't regret it.

Summer

It's Friday afternoon and I am sitting in my lounge, looking at the dark grey clouds and the drizzle, the endless, endless drizzle. It's cold and the central heating is switched on. It's mid-summer.

Whenever I think of Britain, it is this depressing scene that comes to mind. When misfortune first brought me to this country, the picture that confronted me was similar to this one. It was cold, grey and unbelievably depressing. The only difference was that it was mid-winter, and there was some snow settled on the ground.

Indeed, whatever season it is in Britain, it looks and feels virtually the same. One can differentiate between "seasons" only by the length of daylight hours, the variation in the average temperature and the leaves on trees. Otherwise, spring, summer, autumn and winter merge seamlessly into one another almost unnoticed, bound together by a grey, sunless sky.

In the cold, dark British autumn, winter and spring, I long for summer, in some forlorn hope that "this" summer would be different and that it would bring with it some sun and wamth. But alas "this" summer is rarely different. In fact, what can pass for a real summer comes to Britain only about once in a decade.

The native Britons are, of course, quite accustomed to their dreary climate. One can surmise from the number of scantily-dressed people in the cold of winter, spring, autumn and summer that the natives are quite indifferent to the seasonlessness of their habitat. On a cold, wet summer day, while I am wrapped up in several layers of clothing, one would find British men in T-shirts and shorts and their womenfolk in tiny miniskirts and ultra-skimpy tops.

Be that as it may, "the weather" inevitably crops up in almost every British conversation, and one only has to see the gloomy, sullen faces when the British grey is particularly grey to understand that it occupies an especially central role in the British psyche. That's why in the spring and summer they flock in their millions to the Mediterranean and other warm places. Sometimes I even wonder whether Britain's depressing climate was the cause of British imperialism: the yearning for a normal habitat with proper seasons driving ruthless, mindless adventurists to steal other peoples' lands.

I no longer look forward to "summer" in Britain. Why be disappointed year after year? Why not look forward to winter instead? At least, one knows what to expect. I also feel that winter is the more appropriate season for Britain, it's long, dark, cold, wet days and nights quite fitting for a super-depressing country that has neither character nor soul.

Illusions of an English civil servant

An English civil servant asked a friend of mine recently how an Arab satellite TV channel portrays life in Britain for Arabs. My friend promised to keep an eye open for relevant programmes and to let him know the next time they meet.

Surely enough, after spotting a programme or two on life for Arabs in Britain, my friend took note and, in due course, relayed the gist of their content to his civil servant acquaintance.

According to my friend, the message of the programmes was not very flattering. In fact, the picture it painted was eerily similar to the one that I have tried to paint in this blog.

However, my friend said, the Englishman was not amused and expressed disappointment that the programmes were generally negative and paid little or no attention to “the positive aspects of life in Britain”.

I am somewhat surprised. Although the story described above took place a few weeks ago, ever since I have been wracking my brain, wondering what could the Englishmen have meant. Despite my own unflattering view of life in the British wilderness, a view that is born out of long, bitter experience, I have always tried to place myself in the native Britons' shoes, to understand how Britain looks and feels to its native inhabitants, in case I stumble upon something endearing that had hitherto escaped my attention.

In fact, I am surprised every time a native Briton says something endearing about, or indicative of an emotional tie to, Britain. For example, one thing that has always bewildered me is when Britons whom I meet while on holiday abroad say, towards the end of their holiday, "I am ready for home know." Other Britons whom I have met either on holiday or in my own country have said some truly perplexing things like "I miss home." Miss what, exactly, I ask myself?

Indeed, on a couple of occasions I plucked up the courage to ask my British interlocutors this very question. The replies did not surprise me. One couple were unable to answer the question, with one of them saying, to the best of my recollection: "I don't really know, that's a good question. I suppose I don't." On another occasion my British interlocutor hesitated while he thought of an answer and, after several minutes, said: "I miss going to the pub for a pint."

That just about sums it up. There is in fact very little to say about the British wilderness that can be described as positive. This is not a comment about the British people at an individual level but about the habitat, the country or physical entity known as Britain. However, as we all know, the physical habitat and its climate play a fundamental part in moulding attitudes, temperaments, behaviours and interactions of people at a societal level. Thus, while it would be fair to say that, on the whole, the native Britons are polite, reserved and respectful of privacy, the other side of this is their asocialness, coldness and perfidy.

So, all things considered, it's hard to know what the English civil servant had in mind when he regretted that an Arab satellite TV channel had omitted to mention anything positive about what Britain had to offer to Arabs. Perhaps if he comes across this blog he might care to enlighten me.

Arab apathy – or degeneration

Tomorrow is July, a special month for progressive pan-Arab nationalists like myself.

On 23 July 1952 a rotten era dominated by supplicant, reactionary Arab regimes that owed their entire existence to Britain and France, the sworn enemies of Arab independence and unity, seemed to be coming to an abrupt end, when the Egyptian Revolution swept aside the notorious and corrupt regime of King Farouk.

A new era of hope, progress, justice, independence and liberation appeared to have begun right across the Arab world. There were ups and downs but, on the whole, people remained energised and politically mobilised for a decade and a half. Then came the 1967 debacle and, with it, the chronic political depression and socio-political degeneration that remains with us to this day.

On the eve of this July I found myself leafletting in the centre of a British town on behalf of usurped Palestine. I handed out information explaining to the public why they have an obligation to boycott products emanating from the racist, Zionist entity, otherwise known as "Israel".

What I experienced in three hours on the afternoon of 30 June depressed me. The town in which I was handing out the leaflets is a multicultural, university town with a mixture of peoples from the Indian sub-continent, the West Indies as well as Arabs and native Britons. As in many other towns and cities in Britain, the Arabs were typically not domiciled in the UK but were largely students. By definition, they belonged to the so-called "intelligentsia" – educated, supposedly cultured members of the elites of their respective countries.

Given their privileged background, one would expect that my dear compatriots would be the ones to show the strongest interest in and support for the cause for which I was campaigning. Not so. With the exception of one very pleasant young girl, they all past me by, some making an additional effort not to look my way, in case guilt forced them to pretend that they are interested.

And who displayed the greatest interest and support for the Palestinian cause? The  native Britons, some of whom volunteered generous donations, even though I wasn't asking for donations. What a contrast to their criminal government and establishment! And what a contrast to my listless, shameless compatriots!

The twilight years

It's sad to see people who have taken early retirement, or accepted generous redundancy packages, return to work after a year or two.

Instead of endless leisure time and the opportunity to do those things they always wanted to do but never had the time to do them, they come back, tales between legs and dreams of utopia long since shattered under the weight of debt and boredom.

However, for those who reach actual retirement age and are unlucky enough to spend their twilight years in the British wilderness, an even worse fate awaits them, for no longer will they have the opportunity to fend off the inevitable avalanche of debt and escape the tedium of nothingness by creeping back to work. They will be truly lost in the wilderness and the only signposts they will see will be pointing towards poverty, boredom, decrepitude and loneliness.

This is the stark reality of living in Britain, where if you want a half-decent life you must work for as long as you can and where work serves as a means of escape from the debilitating boredom of the British wilderness. But, before you know it, you'll probably be too decrepit to do anything after retirement anyway, so, you'll be destined to spend the rest of your miserable life sitting by the fire in the lounge (assuming you can still afford the cost of gas or electricity), watching television or staring at the wall. Or you can spend most of your time in bed, waiting for the Grim Reaper to put you out of your misery.

Arabs and other foreigners reading this blog and unaccustomed to the British way of life will probably utter some nonsense such as "My children will take care of me." Dream on! For if your children were raised in this God-foresaken country they will probably do as the native British children do.

Your beloved children, dear compatriots and other foreigners, will leave home at the earliest opportunity, probably to do nothing worthy of mention. And, if you have become so decrepit that you can no longer look after yourself, they will seek to throw you into an old people's home, where you will spend your remaining years sitting in a circle with other discarded elderly people, saying nothing and doing nothing, until the Grim Reaper takes pity on you and relieves you of your misery. In the meantime, your little darlings will either try to persuade you to sell your home and give them the proceeds, or they will wait and pray for you to die so they can get the inheritance – and probably waste it on rubbish.

You might want to ask why am I writing this and what solution am I proposing?

I am writing this because it is a painful truth which, I am sure, most people know in their heart of hearts but prefer not to face up to or think about. As always, there are of course exceptions but, by definition, they are few and far between. Furthermore, this is not peculiar to Britain; however, it is more socially acceptable in Britain than in my part of the world, for instance.

And my solution? If you want to live, have and raise children and retire in Britain, there is no solution.You are more likely than not to experience the scenario I have outlined above. It's tough but it's true. However, if you try to control your destiny and escape from the British wilderness at the earliest opportunity, then you may still have a life to live.

We all make mistakes; that is not a crime, it's just human. But not to correct a mistake at the first opportunity is worse than a crime: it's plain stupid.