Tom And Jihad

The Tom and Jerry cartoon show was blamed in 2016, by a top Egyptian official for rising violence in the Middle East, and Iran's Supreme Leader has compared their US relations to Tom and Jerry at least twice.

Tom And Jerry ... Eternal Foes

During a conference entitled "The Media and the Culture of Violence" at Cairo University, Ambassador Salah Abdel Sadek, the head of Egypt’s State Information Service, told the audience that the Tom and Jerry cartoon, which is very popular with children across the Middle East and elsewhere such as Pakistan, sets an idea in the viewer’s mind that violence is natural.

Arab Spring Or Arab Winter

'Shabiha prisoners lay face down on the ground, hands tied behind their backs.

One-by-one, their heads were cut off. The man wielding the knife said, tauntingly, to the first: "This is for freedom." As his victim's neck opened, he went on: "This is for our martyrs. And this is for collaborating with Israel." ' ....... this is an extract from a BBC report on the capture and execution of government forces, by the rebels in Syria. The Shabiha (or ghosts) are the government paramilitary forces, and are apparently always executed by the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The West should really be careful of what they wish for, the 'Arab Spring'  was at its best fraught with dangers, and like all revolutions, at its worst will throw up the worst kind of animals .... remember the French and Russian Revolutions both threw up monstrous systems (the Guillotine and the Gulags for example), and its not hard to imagine the kind of Sunni theocracy that may end up running every state in the Arab world (apart from Iraq, which is Shia and aligned with the persians of Iran).

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) are no angels

These Sunni 'freedom' fighters, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), in Syria have already started attacking the Christians and the Alawites, and like in Egypt, will soon start the process of ethnic cleansing in non Muslim areas once we have helped them get into power. We have opened a Pandoras box in the Arab world, and much like that in the post communist Balkans, we may well live to regret what we have done.

The 'Arab Spring' is turning ever darker, and the likelihood is that the Sunni's will attempt to drive out the remnants of Christianity from the region - ethnic cleaning or genocide, call it what you will, but once the Muslims have expelled or killed every 'Non Believer' from the Middle East or 'Muslim lands', then their expansion into other areas is inevitable.

African Freedom

The BBC ran an article on whether Africa (by which they presumably meant 'sub-Saharan Africa', aka 'Black Africa', as of course the 'Arab Spring' was also in Africa), needed an 'Arab Spring' .... oddly they didn't mean the whole continent coming under the thrall of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is whats happened in Arab Africa.

No they were suddenly implying that all is not perfect in sub-Saharan Africa, which must be something of a first for the BBC's usual PC reporting of this part of the world .... but my interest was taken more by the map supplied by 'Freedom House' of which parts of Africa they call as 'free'.

Africa - Free or Not Free?

 
Because strangely this map doesn't seem to equate the results of the 'Arab Spring' with 'freedom', as both Libya and Egypt for example are still marked as 'Not free' .... which kind of answers the question as to whether an 'arab spring' in sub-Saharan Africa would be any use?

Because if the 'Freedom House' organisation still classifies the results of the 'Arab Spring', as 'Not Free', then the answer to the BBC question 'Does Africa need an Arab Spring?' is obviously 'No'.

The Freedom House reports are here:   

Freedom House report on Sub-Saharan Africa

Freedom House report on the Middle East and North Africa

Start Of The Arab Winter?

We at PC towers always wondered if the Arab Spring might turn, without any summer, into a long winter, and maybe, just maybe, we are seeing the first signs of things turning sour.

 

The Salafists Are Democrats -
Who Believe In The Civil Society!!

In Egypt, the ultraconservative Islamists, known as Salafists, have emerged from the first stage of Egypt's parliamentary election as a powerful political force.

 

Voting Rights and Wrongs

There are two essential parts to any democratic system and those are that

(a) The people can vote for whomever they want (within some limitations on parties advocating violence against other citizens), and

(b) People who exercise their vote, do so with the knowledge that they are responsible for the end results.

Tunisia is the first of the "Arab Spring" countries to vote for a new government and has just voted for the Islamist party 'Ennahda' as the biggest party in its constitutional assembly, how this turns out will become clear in the coming months. It may be a mistake that just leads to Sharia law and an Iranian style regime.

The people of Gaza voted for Hamas, and then complained that because they had democratically elected an terrorist organisation as its government, then the rest of the world should accept that this legitimised them and their policies .... wrong.


Voting For These, Is Hard For Democracies To Digest  

If Hitler, or Stalin were 'democratically' voted into office today, would this mean that we should all accept that the 'holocaust', or 'the Purges' were legitimate policy goals, or treat them as pariah states? Well most Hamas supporters believe in much the same policies towards the Jews as Hitler (who is popular in the Muslim world)  ....

As discussed earlier, having a democracy make you responsible for the standard of the government you have voted to represent you. The Tunisians are responsible for what they may end up getting by dabbling with Islamic politics, and the people of the Gaza strip have to live with the results of voting for a terrorist group as their government.

Too many of the deluded apologists for these nasty little regimes in the West forget this second responsibility when they bleat on about the democratically elected groups of the Middle East, and it might be better if responsible democracy rather than oil supplies governed US and Western policies in the Middle East.

Moral Uncertainties

Now I don't know what its like in the rest of  the world, but in the UK and increasingly in Western Europe, many of the football franchise have been bought up by foreign owners .... they then pump millions (or even billions) of pounds into the clubs in the chase for glory. The latest of this breed are the Arabs who have bought Manchester City FC, and another group who apparently have done the same to Paris St Germain (PSG) in France.

My question, isn't whether having wealthy owners, who then pump money into a club is right or wrong ... its whether its right or wrong where the money originally comes from. Up until now these oligarchs were usually from Eastern Europe or Asia, and were maybe a little bit dodgy, but if they were allowed to make their money in their own countries, who was anyone here to complain about that?

Now though, we are increasingly seeing Sheiks or Princes from Arab countries, whose wealth is arguably stolen from the citizens of those lands .... these Princes were nothing more than the leaders of tribal bands before the first world war ... and little better between the wars. So the question has to be asked, who 'gave them' the oil wealth of nations, to spend as they wished? Sadly the answer was the British and French, who failed to give these countries democracies, but just handed them out to Arabs that they 'could work with' i.e. puppet leaders.

But is it morally correct that a bunch of appointed hereditary rulers can pump a billion pounds into a Western sports franchise such as a football club? Surely, the money should be pumped into the education and welfare systems in those countries, and not frittered away on baubles and playthings?


                                 From owning this to owning this in sixty years

Well maybe that's what the inhabitants in those benighted lands think as well. The recent 'Arab Spring', which has seen pro-democracy protests across most of these lands, may not have been directly created by the wilful misuse of state funds on football clubs, but its surely more than coincidence that this unrest and complaints about the rampant corruption of these Arab states, started after the Sheiks started spending big on high profile 'vanity purchases'?

Sometimes the wheels of history are turned by the smallest of engines ......



The Thirteen MP's

Thirteen Names: John Baron, Graham Allen, Ronnie Campbell, Jeremy Corbyn, Barry Gardiner, Roger Godsiff, John McDonnell, Linda Riordan, Dennis Skinner, Mike Wood, Caroline Lucas, Mark Durkan, Margaret Ritchie ...... nothing unusual in them, so what have these thirteen names got in common?

Well, these are the thirteen Members of the British Parliament who voted against the imposition of a "No Fly Zone" over Libya, and presumably therefore to allow Gaddafi and his mercenaries / militia's to march into Benghazi and exact a terrible retribution (I don't think any right minded person would deny that the torture cells would be in full swing once Gaddafi got a firm grip).

None of these MP's is accountable to the public for their parliamentary votes, because UK Democracy isn't actually very democratic in reality, and they are only accountable once every 4/5 years or so, to a public that has short memories and tends to vote tribally. This contrasts to the US, where Congressmen and Senators are often held accountable by pressure groups e.g. the "Tea Party" or interest other groups.

Who Knows Why 13 UK MP's Voted
Against Stopping This Tyrant?



So the only way to determine what made thirteen UK MP's vote to sit back and allow Gaddafi's mercenaries a free rein in East Libya, is to look at their records as posted on a Public Website:

Conservative: John Baron (Basildon & Billericay)

Ex Army then Merchant Banker and apparently consistently 'anti-war' ..... John Baron was a member of Iain Duncan Smith's Frontbench team, but resigned in March 2003 in protest at Duncan Smith's support of the Iraq War. So although his motivations are not entirely clear, it is at least a consistent stance.

Labour: Graham Allen (Nottingham North)

Ex Warehouse Worker and Labour Party Researcher whose alleged radicalism prevented his ministerial career rising further than  Labour government whip. He was at the forefront of a successful campaign to recall Parliament to discuss Iraq in September 2002, attempting to organise an unofficial recall if the House would not formally sit. His constituency, has one of the lowest rates of educational attainment in the country, sending the fewest number of children to university of any constituency, and has high unemployment.

Labour: Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley)

Ex Coal Miner and an outspoken 'Socialist'. He has often voted against the government on issues such as the Iraq War. Campbell 'accidentally supported' the first 'National Fetish Day', due apparently to him not understanding the meaning of the word "Fetish". Campbell said in an interview, "I thought a fetish was a worry, like worrying about backing the right horse." When the government nationalised Northern Rock in 2008, Campbell declared it the 'People's Bank' and opened an account ... In May 2009, during the MPs expenses scandal, Campbell agreed to give back over £6,000 he had claimed for furnishings in his London home.

Labour: Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North)

Considered to be one of the most 'left-wing' or socialist members of the Labour Party and is in the Socialist Campaign Group. He has a weekly column in The Morning Star and is a long-time supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), for whom he is one of its three Vice-Chairs. He was fiercely opposed to the Iraq War and has spoken at many anti-war rallies in Britain and abroad. He is an elected member of the Stop the War Coalition steering committee.

Labour: Barry Gardiner (Brent North)

He worked as a senior partner in shipping insurance and arbitration for the ten years, before his election to parliament. He accused Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown of "vacillation, loss of international credibility and timorous political manoeuvres that the public cannot understand" and has been described by Andrew Roth in The Guardian as "One of the best educated and most internationally experienced MPs" .... its not clear why he has voted against stopping Gaddafi.

Labour: Roger Godsiff (Birmingham Hall Green)

He was a bank clerk for five years from 1965, before becoming  a political officer from 1970 with a banking staff 'trades union' until his election to Parliament in 1992 ... In October 2006, Godsiff was one of 12 Labour MPs to back a call for an inquiry into the Iraq War. He also rebelled against the government in November 2005 on legislation permitting the detention of terrorist suspects for 90 days without trial and his constituency has a large Muslim population and the anti Iraq war "Respect Party" were his chief opponents in the last election. Ahh, that probably explains a lot ... 

Labour: John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington)

Trades Union and Council politics until he entered Parliament in 1997. He voted against government policies such as the 2003 Iraq war, and in October 2006, McDonnell was one of 12 Labour MPs to call for an inquiry into the Iraq War. In May 2003, he praised the IRA, saying, "It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA." He later said that the, "deaths of innocent civilians in IRA attacks is a real tragedy, but it was as a result of British occupation in Ireland. Because of the bravery of the IRA and people like Bobby Sands we now have a peace process"...... enough said. There's a word for him that comes to mind ...

Labour: Linda Riordan (Halifax)

She worked as private secretary for the previous Halifax MP, and she was selected as the Labour candidate from an all-women shortlist ..... legalised sexism. No 'previous' on Iraq, but not been a MP long enough .... but is also a member of the Socialist Campaign Group and has often rebelled against the Party leadership.

Labour: Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

Full time politician and known for his 'left-wing' views -  On taking his seat, he undertook publicly to stand down from Parliament at the age of 65 (therefore in 1997), just as he would have retired had he remained as a miner; this was so that he would not be 'taking another man's job' .....four elections later he's still an MP. He is also a member of the Socialist Campaign Group and voted in 2003, against the Iraq War; he later rebelled against the party line when he voted against government policy to allow terror suspects to be detained without trial for 90 days. In March 2007, Skinner with 88 other Labour MPs also voted against government policy to renew the Trident Nuclear Missile System.

Labour: Mike Wood (Batley & Spen)

He was a probation officer and social worker from 1965 to 1997 before becoming an MP and he is a member of the left-wing Socialist Campaign Group. On 31 October 2006, Wood was one of 12 Labour MPs to calls for an inquiry into the Iraq War.

Green Party: Caroline Lucas (Brighton Pavilion)

Began her career as an activist in the anti-nuclear movement with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and has espoused pretty much every 'green' and animal welfare issue since. Worked full time for Oxfam before Parliament in 2010.

SDLP: Mark Durkan (Foyle)

Student organiser, then working for John Hume as his Westminster Assistant ... then mainstream politician .... no record of 'anti-war' voting on his Wiki listing.

SDLP: Margaret Ritchie (Down South)

Parliamentary assistant to Eddie McGrady MP from 1987 to 2003 .... then MP. Despite the SDLP's opposition to "double-jobbing", Ritchie currently retains her seat in the Assembly as well as her seat in the House of Commons .... say one thing, do another..... no record of 'anti-war' voting on her Wiki listing.