A life without meaning is no life at all

Bridgend is a sleepy little place in South Wales, I've passed through it once many many moons ago, it struck me like the rest of the small towns in Wales a place without any real purpose. This small town is now the centre of what is one of the UK's largest suicide patterns with 16 apparent suicides amongst young people in the last year alone.

The latest victims are two cousins who were found dead within hours of each other, Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, died in hospital after "harming himself" and Kelly Stephenson, 20, was found hanged while on holiday in Kent. The Police are not linking the current deaths to the pattern in Bridgend at the moment, but I think there is something more sinister at work here.

Suicide is a problem in Western societies and although the national statistics office will draw a fancy graph to show the rates falling over the last few years, it does not hide the problems young people face growing up in Britain today. To be young and "free" is not easy, it after all means you have nothing holding you back to becoming what you want to become. If you want fame, fortune or just that pretty blonde girl that lives next door all you have to do as Nixon once wrote is "Seize the moment". The problem with this little sunny paradise Western society creates for it's young, is that what if you are unable to get what you want despite all your trying then what?

The worst thing you can be is a loser, a geek, a bum or whatever the hip young call it these days it's worse than being dead for sure. The materialistic image conscious society in which we live makes it impossible for today's young to be anonymous and just go through life. You are either in with the crowd or you are on the sidelines watching. The kind of pressures put on the youth can quite easily lead to a sense of being worthless and not fitting in, I mean people get an ulcer worrying over a spot on their face.

Even if you somehow manage to cope with the ridicule of not fitting in you could be subjected to something only secular British society could conjure up, The Happy Slap. Something that is used as entertainment and involves slapping a random passer by or some poor kid from your school and videoing it on your mobile phone. Said video is then posted onto the internet for the humiliation to be watched by millions of people. This "craze" has gone as far as leading to deaths of innocent people.

A life without purpose is a life never fulfilled, a life never fulfilled is a life not worth living I wonder how many times thoughts like these must cross the minds of normal people on the street everyday especially when life is not looking good. Having no direction in life but to satisfy your latest desire wether that be for clothes, women, cars or Man Utd's quest for the title draws a fine line between sanity and despair. I still remember an old work colleague virtually in tears on a Friday afternoon because her house mates were away for the weekend, and she would be "home alone" for two whole days. It is this kind of simple example that highlights the hidden misery secular values produce, when a persons solitude isn't seen as an opportunity for self reflection but a condemnation of social status, no one want's to be a Johnny No Mates do they.

Even for those who do get what they want life is still miserable, just look at Britney she's now the kind of fruit cake even Mr. Kippling would be proud of. For someone who had it all fame, a wholesome squeaky clean American life and a moralistic stance on issues such as pre-martial sex it has all gone horribly wrong. Life's tough at the top, mainly because once you're at the top you quickly realise there is nothing there.

It is no surprise then that the Prozac generation of the 80's and 90's are now moving onto to harder drugs to hide away their misery. Drug abuse and especially that of Cocaine is on the rise in the UK from students to City workers and Celebs they all seem to be snorting the stuff, anything to mask the misery of life. For other more simpler folk they would rather just get "off their face" on a Friday night and sleep with a woman / man they barely know and tell their mates of the conquest the morning after.

If to this you add all the other woes of living with secularism such as debt, gambling, alcoholism , relationship problems , and the likes is it little wonder that some people will try to take the easy way out?.

After all "Suicide Is Painless" - as the theme tune to 80's TV show M.A.S.H. said.

New aged liberal intolerance

Just like Kryptonite to Superman, there are some things British society just can't stand. In the last week one of these seems to be Islam - and I say this having considered the gravity of that statement very carefully.

Ever since the comments from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowen Williams, regarding the possible use of some aspects of Sharia law for Muslims in the areas of marriage and the like, there has been a frenzy of anti-muslim sentiments. These have been expressed by the media (both written and visual) and by the average person on the street. The very idea of Muslims using Islam to solve their own problems has been lost in the noise about how supposedly backward Sharia is, conjuring up scenes of hand chopping and public floggings in the streets of Britain.

Someone could argue that it's just a matter of the wider society not understanding what Dr. Williams said and that this combined with a lack of knowledge of Islam will produce a reaction such as the one we have seen. Others will argue that it is just the anti-Islamic media using this to their advantage. As is typical of the world today no one will see the woods for the trees, appearing on Channel 4's evening news program, Trevor Phillips (the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality) and a man who was at one time charged with brining communities together commented (and I paraphrase here) "We need to get this in context, we are not talking about stonings in the streets".

This comment is key to the whole issue, there are some aspects of Islam that Mr. Phillips and wider society will not tolerate. The very fact he made the above statement creates a negative image of the Sharia, not in the form Dr. Williams spoke of but in a more general
sense.

Sharia and Islam is the taboo of the 21st Century the world fears, Talibanisation of scoieties where mullah's with big beards hold the reigns of power. A notion of someone using anything other than what the West says is the way to live as a basis of judgement is seen as an act of treason against the rise of global values. It is no longer a matter of waiting for the next terror attack to slander the name of Islam - it is open season on Islam and the Muslims.

The climate in the UK at the moment is conducive of criticising Islam in any manner that is thought plausible. This is what lies at the heart of the media frenzy.

It hasn't always been like this is not to say that Islam was never attacked in the past. I still remember the day after the Oklahoma bombings in the US. One of the leading tabloids had a photo of a blood drenched baby being carried by a firefighter, the headline quite simply read: "In the Name of Allah". The fact that Timothy McVeigh was not Muslim and he did the bombings in the name of something else was totally lost. However, back then an excuse was needed to attack Islam, some kind of attack, bombing etc. used to denigrate a religion - now no such excuses are needed.

So what has changed between then and now? Indeed between two years ago and now?

The climate is now conducive to demonise Islam at every given opportunity. The Muslim community has been vilified and dehumanized to the extent that no one thinks twice about saying a bad word about Islam. Remember it is no longer about the terrorists, the killers or murderers. The message is no longer distance yourself from violence (which we all do), it is more about distancing yourself from Islam full stop.

Some of the Muslim reaction has done just this, by not being able to withstand the media attack some have come out and said that what Rowen Williams has said is incorrect and that Muslims live in Britain and therefore don't need Sharia. To these people it is the only position they know how to take - a defensive one. Nonetheless, these are the very people that use Sharia in their lives. No one would imagine or even accept that a British style marriage ceremony can replace the Islamic Nikkah or the same for divorce. It is also these very people who take advantage of halal mortgages for their financial transactions. So why the contradiction? Simply because they are unable to fully comprehend what is happening, there is a sense of hiding away and letting the latest media frenzy blowing over before coming out of the closet again.

This kind of approach shows what kind of inferiority complex constant questions can have on a community nationwide. There is never a thought of questioning the questioner. The alternative to the Sharia that has been so harshly attacked is Liberalism - the champion of the western elite and quite possibly the destroyer of civility, if not civilisation in the Western world. Something is very clear with this attack on Islam, Sharia, Political Islam, Mullahs, Niqabs and so forth have more to do with the Muslim world than they do with the UK. The idea of changing Islam and removing those aspects of Islam that seems to get everyone hot under the collar is not one to create harmonious communities in the UK, it is more about creating an acceptable face of Islam that can then be taken to the Muslim world. The acceptance of a "modified" version of Islam in the West will give it an intellectual credibility that will make it irresistible to the memorized intelligentsia of the Muslim world. The very core ideas of Islam will be debated in public, they will be tried judged and changed without consultation of the Muslims.

One thing is for sure British society is becoming increasingly intolerant of the Muslim community this together with the other social ills of youth crime and the yob culture are more detrimental to Muslims and Non-Muslims than a Muslim getting his divorce in a Sharia court will ever be.

Democracy more about Power than the People

Democracy by some is seen as the one stop fix for all the ills of the developing world. It is in the poorest regions of the world which have been exploited for years by mis-management that the "free" choice of the people is pushed the most, by the media and the political elite of the developed world.

In the modern world a counties intellect and acceptance into the mainstream of the "global village" is measured on how democratic it is (so we are told), in reality many other factors play a role but that's a discussion for another time. Economic benefits are offered and based on democratic reforms in a particular nation.

The average man in Africa or South East Asia is convinced by the shining lights of "choosing" their political leader and thus they think their destiny. This is the Brand Democracy that the world is exposed to , it's about choice , freedom and a method to exert your will. As the mantra for democracy goes "Power for the people by the people" and so on. In the modern age of 24/7 wall to wall media coverage of even the remotest part of the world, Brand Democracy is pumped out around the globe.

Brand Democracy creates the perception that it's very core is about the people from the richest person right down to the poorest in a society, everyman and woman has a fair and equal choice. However upon closer examination of the implementation of democratic principles and ideas in the real world shows that democracy is more about power than it is the people.

Before I go onto quantify the above statement it is important to understand the reasons for the existence of a political system in layman's terms at least. From my simplistic understanding of the world I would say a political system in essence is their to manage the affairs of it's subjects in a manner which fulfills their basic needs of life, the ruler being ultimately accountable for doing this. The system providing the mechanisms to hold the ruler to his obligations of leadership and ultimately having the power to remove him.

Now to examine Brand Democracy in the modern world. Two very recent examples of exactly the kind of places where Brand Democracy's advocates say that it can perform it's magic shows it falling well short of it's hype.

The first is Pakistan. A country where politics is the life blood of the people, where news events are followed like celebrities are in the Western world, an ideal place to sell Brand Democracy. With elections looming (or they were) the pro-democracy parties were in full flow spouting the mantra of free and fair elections and even food, clothing and shelter, telling the powerless they would have power etc.

The death of the leading candidate for Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto following an attack on the car in which she was travelling, lead to wide spread rioting and disorder. Left without a leader the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) engaged in a selection process for their next Chairman. The result of which is more akin to a monarchy than any semblance of free choice, even though the process is an internal party matter the fact that the late Benazir stipulated who should rule the party after her is not the marketing spiel of Brand Democracy, yet Benazir was seen as the champion of the brand in Pakistan.

The choice of Chairperson for the PPP according to the will of Benazir was Asif Ali Zidari her husband who has passed on the position to his son Bilawal Bhutto Zidari, who is only 19 years old and has no previous experience. The fact that he has spent most of his life outside of Pakistan and seems unable to speak Urdu just makes the choice all the more puzzling. That is before you take into account what really lies at the heart of a 'democratic' struggle , Power. The Bhutto's don't want to give up their reigns of power something which has dogged the politics of Pakistan for decades. So democracy in Pakistan is about power and not the people, Nawaz Sharif, Musharraf and Benazir (and now the new leadership) have something in common their relentless pursuit to get and stay in power.

The second example is that of Kenya. I am not as clued up on the politics of Kenya as that of Pakistan but if you take it as any other African country you can assume it will have it's fair share of power hungry politicians. Kenya has just held elections and I watched the results unfold on Al-Jazzera with one party accusing the other of rigging the votes. The official announcement of the results was delayed after the election commissioner left the platform claiming the results were a little confusing. What transpired after verged on the farcical, members of the opposition party the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) stormed in claiming they had evidence of vote rigging and that the election commissioner himself had changed the results of the election. The election commissioner then announced the results from a locked room with a few journalists there to take the news to the media. The winner Mwai Kibaki of the ruling party left the opposition leader Raila Odinga accusing him of flooding the election commission with his cronies. What followed was the inevitable rioting of the opposition supporters (a carbon copy of Pakistan) scores of people dead, and for what the power of rule.

Democracy is not about serving the people , it's about securing your interests whether you be an individual like Kibaki, a family like the Bhuttos or a nation like America and Britain. The spin of Brand Democracy will tell us that it's all about the choice but what it will fail to tell the people of Pakistan and Kenya is that more important then choice is the accountability of the people you select. The rulers thrust on people by vote rigging, foreign intervention, family based rule or a mixture of the three are never held accountable for their actions, and before someone says the developing world needs true democracy the farcical situation of Kenya and Pakistan can be seen in both America and Britain two bastions of democracy. For Kenya and the accusations of cronies filling the election commission read George Bushes first election where his brother Jed had to effectively bail him out of and get him into power. For Pakistan read Tony Blair and Gordon Brown doing a deal for the next leadership of their party years before being elected.

So my point, well it's simple Brand Democracy cares nothing about the people and all about the power, in the Western world the kick backs are from the likes of Haliburton etc in places like Pakistan the corrupt politicains of the world such as Zidari feed off the positions power brings to them. As for choice democracy isn't the only system in the world that allows free choice of a ruler, but it's the only that that gives the ruler free reign when selected.

The Phony Politics of Pakistan

The events of the last 36 hours in Pakistan should have shown us all something , beyond the death of Benazir Bhutto and above the billowing black smoke as Pakistan burns in rage there should have been an epiphany (a sudden insight into the reality) for the people and press Pakistan. It was a moment in History where you would hope a people would collectively stop, look and think about the situation they are in.

However the media on mass have refused to question the very status quo that has allowed Benazir to be killed in almost broad daylight in front of scores of people. Rather as is the nature of Pakistani’s there is nothing more they love than a good old conspiracy theory, so theories of who and why someone would have Benazir killed have been doing the rounds on channels such as GEO and the like.

The Musharraf government as is the case with so much of Pakistani politics have now began a PR campaign to attempt and absolve themselves of any blame for Benazir’s death, it is always about who’s fault it is in Pakistan. The PPP have of course come out and screamed foul saying they smell a cover up.

The opposition parties in attempts to score political points have appeared solemn faced and jumped on band wagon of boycotting elections which are now very unlikely to take place.

The PPP with it’s activists going on the rampage across Pakistan have done little to calm the situation. In fact Babar Awan a Senator and senior member of the PPP appearing on Geo News’ Capital Talk show said the death of Benazir wasn’t that of a “Lawaris” (a person with no family or heritage) and that it would not be forgotten and that justice would be sought immediately. Unfortunately as Benazir found out so clearly and as the burning of Pakistan demonstrates so vividly political scores in Pakistan are settled down the barrel of a gun and not through dialogue.
What does all this create? A quagmire for the people and politics of Pakistan a cycle of killings, political accusations, cover up’s and interference from foreign powers in choosing, appointing and ultimately removing political leaders.

As for the epiphany it is clear the feudal, family based, violent politics of Pakistan will never work. The attempts to please foreign powers with policies which ultimately harm the country will never work. The election (whether fair or not) of parties (and I mean all of them) and politicians who strive for their own political ends and not for the people of Pakistan will never work.

As for the legacy of Benazir and the politics of Pakistan, it will not make pretty reading for future generations. Shakespeare wrote “No legacy is so rich as honesty” , this is a measure neither Benazir nor the other politicians will ever claim to have met.

David Cameron's Ramadhan Sacrifice

I was made aware of the following article in The People where the leader of the opposition has had to give up "Conference Room H" so that Muslim members or those that work in the Houses of Parliament can pray during the month of Ramadhan.

Of course I am sure that it is not as worse a picture as the People paint it as such, and obviously no issue has been made out of it or there would be a Daily Mail campaign by now.

However, what is disappointing to hear is the reaction of the "angered secretaries in the next-door office" proclaiming:

"We work on a lot of confidential material and we don't know who will be going in there."

Surely no matter who works within the confines of the Houses of Parliament, be they Muslim or not, they have all been correctly vetted and passed in terms of security. Therefore no matter if there is a group of Tories holding clandestine secret meetings or a group of Muslims praying they should pose no more of a secutiry risk than one another! If it was good enough for a few Tories then it must be good enough for a few Muslims!

Everyone Knows Invading Iraq Was About Oil!

According to the about to be published memoirs of Alan Greenspan, the former head of the US Federal Reserve, has admitted that going into Iraq was largely about oil:

"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

Not exactly earth shattering news is it? Indeed, the response has been met by an equal shrug of the shoulders from most. Such is the apathy surrounding modern politics and the decision to invade Iraq that if a poll was conducted today whereby the ordinary person was asked the reason why there was an invasion most would probably answer with one word. Oil.

The original claims from both UK's Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, and the US President, George Bush, was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Bush in his address as the troops began their attack said:

"And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people."

Blair himself told the Houses of Commons that

"[The September Dossier] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes"

The fact that these weapons have never been found, let alone having the capabilties of reaching the UK shores within 45minutes, is itself damning but more importantly become almost accepted as an undeniable truth amongst the masses.

The added criteria that Saddam Hussein was bad man and that he need to be removed on humanitarian grounds was also emotive. Most people would agree that Saddam was a despicable individual, but it was up to the people of Iraq to remove him. Most would also agree that those that sought his removal were complicit in his ascension to the role of Iraq's leader. The fact is that there are several despotic rulers around the world, yet most are allowed to continue their reigns of terror was also not lost on the vast majority. Indeed, it only adds to the weightier claims made by Greenspan.

Despite the denials the fact that the proposed Iraqi Oil Law will allow:

• Two-thirds of Iraq's oil fields to be developed by private oil corporations.

• Place governing decisions over oil in a new body known as the Iraqi Federal Oil and Gas Council, which may include foreign oil companies

more or less means that Iraq's oil could be controlled by US and UK influences.

The sad fact is that Greenspan says nothing that we do not know already.

"Belated" Ramadhan Kareem

The updates on Moh Bloggs may have been pretty non-existent of late, but that does not stop us wishing Ramadhan Kareem/Mubarak (in true Moh Bloggs style, better late than never we guess) to our band of loyal devoted readers.

This holy month can mean so many things to so many Muslims, but what is undeniable is that Ramadhan is a fantastic opportunity for Muslims to take stock and reflect and perhaps become stronger and better Muslims in the process.

There is a hadith I once came across, which is quite apt:

The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) has said: "It (Ramadhan) is the month, whose beginning is mercy, its middle, forgiveness and its end, emancipation from the fire (of hell)"
Source: Bihar al-Anwar, Vol.: 93, Pg.: 342

Hopefully we shall have plenty of Ramadhan musings to post in the next few weeks inshallah.