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.
Friday, 15 February 2008
Monday, 11 February 2008
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.
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.
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