CAUSES AND LESSONS FROM THE BRITISH RIOTS

Appeared in
The Island

Monday August 15, 2011.

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=32444

By Hameed Abdul Karim

Riot policeman stand guard in Tottenham, north London, late Saturday, Aug. 6, 2011, after two patrol cars were attacked by members of a community where a young man was shot dead by police on Thursday took to the streets to demand "justice." Officers had been attempting to carry out an arrest under the Trident operational command unit, which deals with gun crime in the black community, according to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. (AP)
Long years ago I talked with a British educationist and asked him why it cost so much for a foreign student in the UK and so little to a British citizen and whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to increase fees for them and correspondingly reduce the fees for a foreign student. What he told me had remained in my head ever since. He said if the government were to do that there would be a revolution in England.

Well, it looks like that’s exactly what happening in England right now. No it’s not a revolution but certainly the resentment has now hit the streets and it’s such a shame to see the quaint old buildings go up in flames. But on the other hand Imagine how a youth would feel when he hears his helpless father bemoaning the cuts in social spending and how much more it’s going to cost him to put food on the table and to educate his children.

REJOINDER TO DAILY MIRROR EDITORIAL

UNPUBLISHED 


Rejoinder to Daily Mirror Editorial

Hameed Abdul Karim

Your description of Israel being an egalitarian state in your editorial (D.M. Tuesday 2 August 2011) is misplaced and misleading, because all along Israel has been more of a racist state than apartheid South Africa was according to the much respected Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 

From the moment of its creation Israel has tried its very best in so many cruel ways to expel Christians and Muslims from their ancestral homes the same way the European Nazis wanted to get rid of the Ashkenazi Jews living among them. The Nazis wanted to create a Europe free of Jews and following in their footsteps the Jews want to create an Israel free of Arabs. To achieve their objective, the Israeli Jews first wiped historical Palestine off the map of the world with the help of the U.S. and Europe often called the ‘international community’.  When the Nazis went about their crimes to ‘purify’ Europe they were called fascists. Why then are the Zionists called ‘egalitarian’ instead of being called fascists? 

A RESPONSE TO ARCHBISHOP OSWALD GOMIS

Sunday 30 July 2011

A Response to Archbishop Oswald Gomis

Hameed Abdul Karim

It was rather distressing to read Archbishop Emeritus Oswald Gomis’s remarks about ‘militant Islam causing worldwide chaos and at times making slaves of their female followers to their men folk’. (Lakbimanews Sunday July 17, 2011)

The learned Archbishop must ask the question why Islam has become militant before passing judgment on the faith and its followers. For one thing he must realise the cause of militancy in Islam especially in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Xinjiang Province, Chechnya and Mindanao is especially because these places are occupied by foreign forces. I am sure, the good man that he is, he will acknowledge that when Sri Lanka was under colonial occupation, Sri Lankans too were militant as were the Indians like Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi apart from many others. Gandhi’s militancy was of a different kind though, but it still led to bloodshed. And the British did not fail to call them names like ‘militants’ or ‘terrorists’. The arrogant imperialist and supreme racist, Winston Churchill used to call Gandhi a ‘half naked fakir’. No Hindu or Muslim attributed Churchill’s arrogance and bigotry to his Anglican faith, though he had said many despicable things about Islam.  

OSLO TERROR, MEDIA HYPE AND WESTERN HYPOCRISY

 Saturday 30 July, 2011

Oslo Terror, Media Hype and Western Hypocrisy

Hameed Abdul Karim

Muslims the world over became apprehensive when the bombing in Oslo took to the TV screens in all its horror. And they had every reason to be so because all the international media, including Al-Jazeera, thought it proper to point the finger at what they said could be ‘Muslim extremists groups’ who were responsible for the atrocity with Al-Qaeda being the chief suspect. To add to the variety Russia Today (RT) broke the news that a hitherto unknown ‘Islamic terror group’ calling itself the ‘Al-Ansar Something’ had called in to say they were the ones responsible for the attack. Within a flash all TV networks latched on to the lead with all the familiar sound-bites associated with Islam and Muslims  and in no time a new ‘Islamic terrorist group’ had taken centre stage on the world scene. Muslims squirmed in shame and embarrassment as they reconciled themselves to yet another act of terror the extremists had carried out in their name and the name of their faith.