It Had To Be The NUT...

This week as I arrived at the famous Midland Hotel in the centre of Manchester, I noticed a messy table, in the otherwise immaculate foyer, which was covered with stacks of paper and empty cups. I checked in at reception and the concierge arranged for my luggage to be taken to my room. I passed the table, which was now surrounded by people, and made my way towards the elevator, only to notice the logo of the National Union of Teachers on it. 'It must be their AGM' I thought to myself, and not being very fond of the union anyway decided to forget about it. I got to my room, unpacked a few things, and had a drink from the mini bar, before switching on the television and BBC News 24.

"...The National Union of Teachers is criticising the existence of faith schools and at their Annual General Meeting in Manchester today..." blared out the television. I couldn't believe it, all this way for a holiday and the NUT had to be holding their annual conference at the Midland that very day. The television then shot to images of people giving out free copies of the Socialist Worker in the foyer in which I had just been standing, and showed clips of the conference in full flow. Despite having to drink in the same lounge as several badly dressed teachers for the next few days, some with Che t-shirts on and others wearing ones with the Hindu Aum on them, I did manage to conduct myself in a respectful manner. The NUT later vowed, at the conference, to boycott military recruitment activities in schools, claiming that the Armed Forces use 'propaganda' to glamorise war.

One leading NUT member said "...if people aren't old enough to vote, drive or drink at 16, then they shouldn't be allowed to fight for their country...". The NUT also said that they will back staff who send in 'anti-war' speakers to give pupils an alternative view, and openly stated that their aim is to deepen the military's manpower crisis and force the return of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the NUT do not have the power to stop the Armed Forces from recruiting in schools, but the stance they have taken in this instance I see to be very sad. The truth is that although 16 year olds can join the Armed Forces upon leaving school, they cannot take part in actual military operations until they reach 18. The military has given a sense of belonging and hope to many young people who may be failing at school, who know, because of school recruitment, that the Armed Forces will give them a career even if they don't get any GCSE's. What better way is there to channel the frustration and sense of rejection which many disaffected and unskilled school-leavers face, than to put them in a military setting?

If it were up to me, National Service would have been brought back along time ago. A mandatory 2 or 3 years service in a highly motivated, disciplined, and educating environment would do the same good today, as it did 50 years ago. My Grandfather, the seventh son and eighth child of 2 working-class parents, would never have seen 1950's Egypt, Algeria and Cyprus had it not been for his National Service. He would not be able to speak Sudanese Arabic nor have the cultural understanding of Arabs today had it not been for those brief 3 years when he was my age. I see so many people now, whom I'm sure you're aware, that have never been abroad and don't have any plans to do so. I see so many people now, who are claiming benefits because their parents have never taught them the value of motivation or hard-work. Crime is rising fast, we allow school age children to terrorise the streets and damage public property, we fail to bring up our children as a nation and then expect the government to find them a prison place. Why not let the military teach our children respect, loyalty and pride, and show them diversity of the world by taking them around it first hand?

To take a country which implements national service for example, Israel is a key role-model here. The streets of Tel Aviv are said to be some of the safest in the region, and the amount of law-abiding citizens aged between 16-24 there put our country to shame. The principles of respect, loyalty and pride passed down to them because of national service have ensured the Israeli youth are not the type to mug or beat one up should one past by them in the street. A reality which is normal and widely accepted in many parts of the UK after 6pm.

Many teenagers from disadvantaged areas have traditionally seen a career in the military as a way to improve their prospects, and for this reason I hope to God that teenagers take no notice of the NUT on this matter. If the National Union of Teachers could have their way, disadvantaged kids would be at home for the rest of their lives and not be given the opportunity to join the military; better prospects or not. All the NUT care about is damaging the Armed Forces as much as possible by brain-washing our children, a process which is happening while we, safe in the knowledge that our children's teachers are 'educating' them, are at work. If anything it's time to promote military recruitment in schools, Labour has already cut spending on the Armed Forces to stupidly low levels in recent years, surely the people most loyal to our Queen and country do not deserve another cowardly and unnecessary blow from the left.

My stay at the Midland last week was, I'm glad to say, a pleasant one. But I'm not surprised that if anyone was going to have an annual conference then, it had to be the NUT...

(Picture 1: The Midland Hotel Manchester.)
(Picutre 2: British troops on duty in Iraq.)

Happy Anniversary...

Hurrah Hurrah, what a week. We've seen the first day of spring and the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. So many docudramas, documentaries and news reports to choose from, from the award winning 'Battle for Haditha' to Dispatches specials, and of course to the semi-revealing efforts of John Snow. Yesterday as President Bush spoke in a speech marking the anniversary, saying that US work with Sunni Muslims in Iraq was yielding the first large-scale Arab uprising against Al-Qaeda, many held anti-war protests in several U.S cities amid continued opposition to the war. But despite all the media hype and independent reports about political stability since the invasion, the question on everyone's minds is still: Has Iraq improved? It would seem that glancing at figures related to violence in recent months that levels look to have gone down, but does it really have anything directly to do with the operations of coalition forces?

The answer is of course yes, for without the removal of people like the infamous Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda's most detested war criminal after Bin Laden himself, the Iraqi Government would find it almost impossible to sustain enough confidence in the country to be established at all. And despite what lies we might hear from those who detest the U.S and all it's allies, coalition forces are not occupying Iraq, but are there to do a job; to eradicate the insurgency in Iraq and the remnants of the Iraqi Army under Ba'ath Party rule. Once this has been done, with the help of the Iraqi Government, coalition forces can begin to withdraw. I find it harrowing whenever I hear people imply that Al-Qaeda in Iraq 'might have a point' in fighting foreign invaders, even though the majority of Al Qaeda in Iraq are in fact foreign fighters. Jordanians, Egyptians, Saudi Arabians, Algerians, the list goes on and on, but that is how the left justify themselves. The 'It's their country and we're not meant to be there' mentality perpetuated by the left, is the same ignorant twaddle which assumes that Christmas Carol services in primary schools are an affront to Islam. Despite the fact that Jesus is accepted by Muslims as a Prophet, and is mentioned in the Koran.

As I've spoken of before, these facts do not matter to the left. All they want to see is the complete secularisation of schools, the failure of coalition forces in Iraq, and the overall de-stabilisation of the establishment. If the neo-conservative Bush administration were to fail in attempting to rid the world of Al-Zawahiris and Al-Zarqawis, the left would deem it a great success. For to see such a mightily strong super-power fall at the hands of liberal adolescents shouting 'I told you so', would give them more credibility than they could ever achieved by conventional means. A tempting prospect which has been to hard to resist for those without morality or honour. Political gain to them, is more important than than the future of Iraq, or the removal of zealous mass murderers.

There is a difference between being a coward and being able to question the actions of Western forces abroad. Watching 'Battle for Haditha' on Channel 4 last week, it did not shock or surprise me to see the biased representation of American Marines killing Iraqi civilians, after all that's how awards are won. But for a few moments I did begin to question our very presence in a country which would do our reputation no good. Being a free thinker is important in this day and age, and I would remind anyone reading to always question, to always think independently. Questioning an invasion that I've always supported wasn't easy, but I see that it was healthy, for how many people against the invasion have ever dabbled on the other side of the fence for a few moments? just to see how it fits. I could see on screen the violent shooting of women, children and old men, along with the sound of shouting Americans and rapid machine-gun fire.

I knew the story was probably true, I knew that those innocent people who were shot for no reason other than to satisfy anger probably did feel pain; and I was truly sad. For me to feel anything but despair for another human being in pain or harms way would make me in-human; a stone without a conscience. For a split-second I detested every American, every Westerner, every soldier; and I hoped that one day some IED might blow those evil men to pieces. Then I remembered. I remembered the trusting jump suited American Nick Berg, the Liverpudlian Ken Bigley and others who have been subjected to horrific deaths at the hands of the insurgency. Where was the justice in that? I do not for one moment think that the lives of those really killed in Haditha were worth any less than those of Berg and Bigley, and that is how we should see all injustices, as equally bad.

It is easy to forget that we are at war every day. Even if Britain pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow, we would still be fighting against the vast network of terrorist cells which are spread across Europe. The current main battlefield in the 'War on Terror' is in Iraq and Afghanistan. But what does the left think will happen if we withdraw our troops from those countries, apart from the emergence of two more rogue states. Do they think that jihadis will stay in those countries happy that we have gone? The current situation in Iraq acts as a jihadi magnet in the region, attracting terrorists of all nationalities to fight its newest tourist attraction, Western forces. But if the forces leave for the borders of home, the jihadis will surely follow, and IED's might begin to be planted on our roads instead. War is a horrible thing, and wicked men will always use it as an excuse to do things which we simply cannot advocate. Such actions have blinded people's judgement in many past wars, but winning this war is what should be focused on the most five years after the invasion.

For the betterment of future generations, the world must be made a safer and fairer place now, and the 'War on Terror' is plays a major part in that. We in the West should be promoting Democracy and Justice to those in Iraq, for if we are not convinced that the insurgency is wrong, then why should they be?...

(Picture 1: Baghdad and the Tigris in March 2003.)

They Must Be Barking...

During the past week, thanks perhaps to the BBC's controversial new 'WHITE' series, I've felt increasingly saddened by what white, working-class Britain has become. In my younger days of political learning, when all was not certain and everything was new, I had initially understood the working classes to be the most moral and important of all voting peoples. Get them on your side, and your sure to be in office in no time; but my views on what they currently are have changed somewhat since.

Last nights episode of 'WHITE' focused on the borough of Barking in East London, where in the 2006 elections 12 BNP councillors were elected to represent a large part of the boroughs white working class, making it the second largest party there. The story focused on the views of the working classes, and of the social struggle many consider themselves to be in. Many new residents of the borough were of African and Eastern-European origin, and had (according to long-term residents) not properly integrated.

The documentary focused also on an elderly man named Monty, who originated from Poland and had set-up a shop in the borough. He had met a younger Ugandan lady in Barking, with whom he had become friends, and the two were now living together; her acting as his carer. Monty, it was later revealed, had spent 5 years in Auschwitz, were he had been left to suffer in horrific conditions before the liberation of the camps in 1945. It was apparent that the memories of those days haunted him still, in the days when segregation had resulted in the massacre of 6 million Jews.

The story then turned to the campaigning of BNP supporters in a Barking street, where leaflets and newspapers were being handed out to white, and in one case mixed race, passers by. It struck me as sad, that the core of Labour's past working-class supporters, were now turning to a party which actively promotes community segregation, and associates with holocaust deniers. I fail to understand how the election of a racist party can improve community cohesion, and I don't really think those voters do either.

The reason, I believe, the BNP have had so much success in areas such as this in recent years is because voters feel their opinions no longer matter to the party they voted in Government. The aftermath of recently increased immigration levels, and the vast cultural changes inspired by the speeches of Roy Jenkins 30 years ago, have resulted in an 'ignored child' reaction from the working-classes. A reaction, which if ignored for even longer, could get increasingly worse. The National Socialist Party of Germany focused on the concerns of the working-classes when rising to power, largely inspired by the ethos of Communist strategies; and members of the British National Party know this all to well.

I do not see the white working class people of Barking as the sort to be agreeing with ethnic-cleansing, far from it, but rather as a misguided, misrepresented generation, who often feel alone and ignored in a Britain which they are not familiar with. Similar voting patterns can be seen in areas of Northern-England, such as Oldham and Burnley, were community segregation has led to the BNP gaining seats there; even though most ethnic communities are third and fourth generation immigrants, and are by all accounts British citizens.

The truth is that Britain is successfully multi-racial, but unsuccessfully multi-cultural, and parties like the BNP have tried to blur the two together, basically saying that race and culture go hand-in-hand. That is a lie. The notion that Britain should be a vast hub of different cultures is preposterous, it can only lead to tension, but the notion that it should be a hub of different races is not so far-fetched. Just look at Britain in the days of the Empire, when India, West Africa, and the Caribbean were all considered British, as were their peoples. It is not plausible to say that Britain should ever be, or should ever have been 'all-white'. And culturally, just go to Kenya and ask for a cup of tea, or observe the way people say 'Chop-Chop' to hurry workers into action, the cultural effects Britain has had there still today is huge.

The solving of the mistake of multi-culturalism is one of the most valuable things we could do for the country. It could prevent terrorism, and the recruiting of radical Islamic groups, and could also prevent parties like the BNP gaining seats in councils. Greater integration and cohesion could result from having a culturally common ground, and racism could be routed out all together from all communities. The sense of community we used to have in Britain could once again be implemented if we were not so separated by different cultures.

The extent of segregation can even be observed today as news of an Anglican Priest who was attacked in a 'faith-hate' incident in Tower Hamlets on Wednesday is being reported by the BBC. It has been reported that Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was assaulted by two Asian youths at his church, while another looked on and jeered. An attack which I suspect was probably provoked by the desire to culturally/religiously-clense the area in question. A commonality of many communities feeling as though they must defend their insular, culturally concentrated areas from outside influence. Tower Hamlets is known to have a high population of Asian Muslims and Indians, but many white communities are also doing exactly the same. Hostilities on the grounds of race and faith have increased hugely in the past few years, coming from all sides of the fence.

Overall, the BBC's 'WHITE' series is provoking debate where before there was none. I hate to sound reactionary, or indeed say that I am so impressionable as to blog on the concerns highlighted in a BBC documentary, but the truth is most people do it all the time. Newspapers, News channels, and even fellow bloggers are affected by the products of the BBC every day; whether it's the 10 o'clock News, Eastenders or Blue Peter, all seek to provoke reactionary debate. Al-Jazeera claim to be 'setting the agenda' but I have to disagree, after all the BBC are far more well-funded.

Only time will tell what Britain will become in the next few decades, and the decisions we make now are key to the well-being of our children. We can look, with optimism, for change in the way seperate communities react to eachother, but I sincerely hope most of all that white working class Britain will not fall victim to those who might want to put people like Monty back in Auschwitz. Vote BNP? They must be barking...

(Picture 1: A butcher's window in Barking.)
(Picture 2: Holocaust survivor Monty, still young at heart.)
(Picture 3: BNP campaigners on a Barking street.)

Murphy's Law...

Terrorist attacks in Israel committed by an Arab resident of Jerusalem, the protesting of thousands of Muslims over the re-publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad, the broadcasting of the first of many programmes in the BBC's controversial new 'WHITE' series; but why is all this happening now?

Watching Steven Hawking's fascinating documentary about the universe on Monday, I was compelled by the genius of his mind. When asked if he wanted to discover anything else in his life-time, he replied by saying that he would like to find the formula to everything, yes everything. The documentary was pretty good, with dazzling effects and mind-blowing facts, the Professor covered everything from atoms to black holes. There is however one thing that Mr Hawkins did not attempt to mention the nuclear composition of. Sod's Law eh?

The truth is that Murphy's (or Sod's) Law is indeed alive and well in the universe. Two weeks ago, I received a call from the Isle of Man casting agency, saying that they needed extras for a new film that was being made and that they wanted me to go to a costume fitting. To cut a long story short I did so, and filming it turns out was this weekend. I did plan to comment on the hugely relevant events of the times, but instead have ended up sat in a highly uncomfortable 1930's tuxedo for twelve hours a day, reading Martin Amis's 'The Second Plane' between takes, while Zac Efron (of the popular film High School Musical) re-spouts his lines over and over.

And so I ask Mr Murphy (whoever he was) and of course Mr Hawking: Why does everything have to happen now? Why can't the news just be about the NHS or something until next weekend? Eh well, a lesson well learned I say, always blog about serious world events before they occur. Oh the joys of Yin and Yang...

(Picture: The great Professor Steven Hawking of Cambridge University.)

Shame on Stop The War...

Liverpool, named 2008 Capital of Culture, has always been synonymous with unions, industry, football, and of course the success of the Beatles; but a row has been sparked in recent weeks about the invitation of a Hezbollah activist to a Methodist Church in the Toxteth area of the city, by local anti-war campaigners. Ibrahim Mousawi, chief spokesman of the extremist Lebanese group, is due to speak at a 'Stop the War' rally on Tuesday evening, to talk about the invasion of Lebanon. Mousawi, who is currently banned in France and Ireland, is known to have been in charge of a 30-part 'documentary' which claimed Jews were behind a secret plot to take over the world, and is also known to have said in an interview with Australian broadcasters that '...pain is the only language the enemy understands...' when referring to the deaths of Israeli civilians. Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, has been criticised for allowing Mousawi into the UK, even though the Government has safeguards to prevent the entry of such people; David Cameron has also condemned the visit by the Hezbollah spokesman, claiming it to be a mistake.

The Stop the War Coalition was formed following the events of the September 11th, openly declaring at the time that they were opposed to any form of response by the U.S against those responsible for it. Amongst it's ranks are Communists, Islamists, and other 'do-gooders' who seem to have known in advance that there would be bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan should the countries be invaded. It is most famous for it's 'Not in My Name' posters and it's mass rallies in London; and claims to be opposed to; the American War of Independence, the American Civil War, World War I, and World War II. The group however seems to advocate armed resistance, like in movements such as those against the state of Israel, which from the start jumps out to me to be their first and most obvious ideological flaw. Though it might be too much of me to ask that they look for the trees of hypocrisy, beyond the their dense forests of bigotry.

It seems to me that such an organisation cannot ever gain the credibility it requires to bring about the changes it strives for. Being part of a pacifist movement (like those in many strands of Buddhism) does not involve the advocating of any form of violence or aggression, physical or otherwise; and most certainly does not see armed resistance as acceptable. The Stop the War Coalition is a coalition of left wing, anti-imperialists, many with individual aims and ideologies. Some are anti-capitalist, others anti-Jewish, and some members even claim 9/11 was an American conspiracy executed in order to justify it's subsequent foreign interventions. Despite what their more trivial personal quarrels may be, members of the group rely heavily on common values to get air-time and press-publicity, giving the Government and members of the public the illusion that most people in Britain are opposed to 'War' full stop.

Another problem with the group, due to the fact that it claims only to be 'Anti-War', is that there are many people on the right who also do not agree with the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, yet they are not involved at all. Nick Griffin of the ghastly BNP, Peter Hitchens an admirable journalist and critic, and many old-style Conservatives such as Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine, I can't however see any of them joining the coalition any time soon. Could it be perhaps that the Stop the War Coalition has additional agendas as well as the false claim of supporting pacifism, knowing jolly well that anyone (including Islamic militants) can aid their cause quite substantially by speaking at their wretched rallies, thus gaining even more support from people who despise the West we live in.

If the Stop the War Coalition wish to gain any ounce of credibility from the message they so persistently preach, perhaps they should study the true pacifist nature of the Buddhist monks protests in Burma last year, where their behaviour gained them world wide support. The Stop the War Coalition should hang their heads in shame for inviting such hate-fuelled racists to Britain, and Jacqui Smith for allowing it. Although the desire for the abolition of war is something which is to be admired, it is only practically existent in an ideal world. Also it should not be associated with radical political groups which claim to be something that they are not, but rather with true pacifist religious groups like Buddhists and the once existent Cathars of Medieval Europe.

The Stop the War Coalition is now so against what it sees to be a threat to it's leftist ideals, that it is now importing enemies of the West and our allies to talk in our towns and cities. God only knows where the bloody hell such deplorable people would have been put at Dunkirk, probably in the sea I suspect...

(Picture: Ibrahim Mousawi at a recent anti-war rally in Birmingham.)