Revolutionary Rants

There was a young man on BBC New 24 this morning who made a very, very interesting point. Although he completely condemned violence - such as last Thursday’s bombings in London - he also said the war in Iraq made young Muslims angry because thousands were killed there and only the British and American deaths got much coverage, whilst (however awful their deaths remain, and however terrible for their families) the deaths of some 60 people in Britain is top news for days and days. It is a strange double standard…

A case in point last night was the extensive coverage of the bombers - including a low, low piece of journalism on ITV which revealed the chip shop owned by one bombers family - and about third from top headline was a brief examination of a bombing in Iraq killing some 26 people (who were mostly children) which featured harrowing photos of grieving parents discovering bodies.

Now, just like the young man interview on BBC New 24, I think the violence of 7/7/05 was awful and evil, just as I did September 11th or any other murder, but it is true we in the West are mainly interested in our own. I, too, felt strangely more involved in the London bombings last week, because I knew the places, because the people were, to some extent, ‘like me’; but why is this so prevalent in our society and media?

Thousands die in Africa every month, but we don’t force change on our governments, we go to concerts once every decade and feel damn good about ourselves for doing it. Hundreds die each month in a conflict which we began in Iraq, but where is their two minutes silence?

Only the other day we saw the consequences of turning a blind eye - on the 10th anniversary of the slaughter of 8,000 in the Balkan conflict. Those people’s revenge is returning to the country where ethnic cleansing took place on their families, whilst we in the West like to invade fairly unconnected country’s because we don’t like their leaders to revenge our dead…

It is the ‘me me me’ culture once again, but now our self-absorption gives fanatics the reason to kill, and that gives us the right to kill them back, apparently.