Six Degrees of Alienation

As Mick Jagger once sang, "Tah-ah-ah-ime is on my side, yes it i-is!" - and, no... that is not an answer to the still-ongoing quiz. No, today I have answered all my e-mails, paid my bills, read all the blogs I link to (and I had a fair bit of catching up, I have to say!) and... well, run out of shit to do. So I decided to try out an idea I had a while back, a numbered blog-crawl. The idea is, you choose any of the links you have on your blog, work out what number link that is, and visit it. You read it (if you haven't already) and then count down the exact same number on that blogs links. And so on, and so forth... the idea hopefully being that you might find some fun new places to visit. After all, I like all the blogs I list, and most of them like me... it should stand to reason that I will like a lot of what they like, etc... shouldn't it?

The one thing I decided was that I wasn't going to count banner links or any self referencing ones (ie, older posts)... just your average 'blogs I like to visit' shit. So, let's start at the very begining, as Julie Andrews once warbled... it's a fucking good place to start. Okay, that wouldn't quite have been her words but they work well for my Numero Uno link...

1) Hotrocks, home of the sporadic Mr Brewski... his first link is to the Curmudgeon, Philip Chalinor, who I also already link to... Mr C then links first to Robert Aickman - an appreciation. All very nice, but it's a dead end with no further links. Great start, McShae! Let's try from link number 2 instead...

2) Dr Maroon's Cape to Rio... link 2 to Anti-Barney, another mutual chum... link 2 to... Google News? WTF? Back to square one, and link number 3...

3) ...which is, again, Anti Barney... his link number 3 is to Kim Ayres (how incestuous is this community!?)... link 3 to The Quiet Storm and a slightly scary yet fascinating post about coping with migraines by tying zip-locked bags of ice to your head. This is more like it! Now I'm getting out and about! Link 3 from here is... "This Page Cannot Be Found". Bollocks.

4) Straight back into the arms of Kim, whose link number 4 takes us this time to Callum and Kieran and a mildly diverting post about a missing crayon that, whilst potentially in the hands of a 2-year old, retains all the panic-power of Iran going nuclear. Nice enough... 4th link from here is I Thought I Was Driving, whose post 'Failure to Blog' looked like it was written by someone totally exhausted, and had the same power on me... There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, it just didn't grab me. But then it's all horses for courses, right?

5) On to Foot Eater's gaff, The Fishwhacker Swindle?, and his number 5, another familiar link... Bogol, by the incomprehensible Arlington Hynes. His number 5? another old sidebar-pal, Dr Evil... and a perhaps unsurprising link to Dangerous Laboratories. Unfortunately from here the trail once more goes cold.

6) El Barbudo is my link number 6, and from there... well, it was always a possibility I suppose. The mutual arse-lick fest reaches a peak when I discover that his link number 6 takes me right back here to Random Drivel. I'm begining to wonder if any of us actually know anyone else outside our own corner of the blog-iverse...

7) Horses Ass Pub, landlady one Ms Andraste (who's real name shall not be revealed... snigger!). She's doing a nice line in educating us heathens in the world of fine art at the moment, but I've already been here today and seen the picture, so time to move on to her link number 7 - Dead Pan Ann. A post about buying CD's , something close to my heart! Never heard of the first band she mentions (must be losing my touch) but I will take her recommendation on the Dylan album. I like him anyway. We're going to have to disagree about The Killers though. I'm a big fan...

But I digress... from there I get to Ramblings of a Redneck Diva, who talks about a school shooting - this is news to me, the first I have heard about it. Have these things become so commonplace in the States now that no-one bothers to report them anywhere else? It does strike me as unusual when on most days, even here in Asia, I can read in the Daily Propoganda whet Dubya had for breakfast. Saying that, her post doesn't dwell on that one incident and is instead a by turns chilling and heart-wrenching look into parents nightmare scenarios. Which made my visit to her link number 7 all the more of a surprise.

Initially I was struck by the title, Scotland of the Soul, wondering just how we Jocks had managed to become so prolific at this end of blog-land. But as soon as the blog opened my eyes were instantly drawn to one thing... the "I Stand With Israel" banner in the top right corner. Screw not counting banners. Screw only clicking the 7th link. I had to check... and I got here. My views on that are a whole other post just waiting to explode... I read the comments on the Jack Lewis site with interest, especially where it notes that Israel's enemies are killing innocent Israelis. Yes, they are. But to stand with Israel when it commits the exact same crime, killing the innocents on the other side of the fence. That's fucking blind, man. Fucking warped.

When you get used to blogging to all your online mates it's often easy to forget that you're only 6 degrees of seperation from shit like this.

Somone make me a fucking banner. I want it to say "I Stand With The Innocent Victims".

...as for the blogging by numbers thing? I lost the taste for it after that...

Cheers m'dears!

Remembering the Race Riots

Today is Racial Harmony day in Singapore. This was established to commemorate the first day of an intense period of racial rioting, 42 years ago, and aims to foster inter-racial links to ensure that violence of that nature does not flare up again.

Some background - After the British pulled out of Singapore its Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, believed the island state would be unable to stand alone with its limited resources and sought to be integrated into its neighbouring country, Malaya. The Malays were concerned, as the large Chinese population in Singapore meant that the ethnic demographics of Malaya would be significantly altered. However, various political reasons persuaded the government in Kuala Lumpar that it was safer to absorb Singapore than allow it to controlled by any rival state.

The inclusion of Singapore in 1963 added the "SI" to Malaya to give us the current name, Malaysia, and PM Lee essentially found his role diminished to that of a regional governor. Unfortunately Lee's dreams of a harmonious union never really worked and tensions between the Chinese (a majority in Singapore but a minority now in Malaysia) and the Malays eventually erupted into rioting a year later.

The following is an extract from an article published yesterday and written by Charles Tan, a Singaporean who lived through the rioting (I am unsure of the original source as I have received this fourth hand through e-mail). The title of the piece is A Race To Survive:-

...I nearly became an innocent casualty in an infamous and shameful chapter of Singapore's history — the Prophet Muhammad Birthday riots, which broke out with clashes between a Malay procession and Chinese spectators and passers-by near Geylang Serai.
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Returning home from work that evening on July 21, 1964, I had to cross Geylang Road from the car park where I had alighted from the bus. As I crossed, I noticed a group of youths overturning cars, dousing them with kerosene and setting them alight. There were groups of Chinese and Malays fighting with parangs [a type of Malayan machete] and choppers. Debris was strewn around and I saw mutilated bodies lying on the road.
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I was frightened and the more scared I became, the more difficult I found it was to try to run across the road to look for refuge in someone's house. I could see flashes of parangs coming towards me. My heart beat furiously. As I got to the other side, a group of parang-wielding youths began to chase me, shouting: "Orang cina, orang cina" (Malay for Chinese person). My survival instincts took over. I ran more than fifty yards in less than 10 seconds flat, and charged into a house along Lorong 3 hoping for refuge.
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Perhaps fearing reprisals from the house's occupants, the attackers retreated. But far from being sympathetic to my plight, the occupants were furious at me for bringing the "rioting" to their doorstep. As soon as my attackers were gone from sight, I was cursed and chased away.
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As historical sources would have it, four people were killed that first day of rioting and 178 injured. For the next 11 days, a curfew was imposed and Geylang, which had a heavy concentration of Malay inhabitants, was where it was most strictly enforced. Geylang Road was covered with Black Marias (police vans) and there were road-blocks at regular intervals, manned by Gurkhas — those fearsome Nepalese mercenaries — armed with sub-machine guns and knives. It is no exaggeration to compare Geylang Road to a scene straight out of Black Hawk Down — burning cars, charred bodies and heavily-armed soldiers patrolling the street strewn with concertina wires.
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When the curfew was finally lifted on Aug 2 and I returned to work, 23 people had lost their lives, 450 had been hurt, and 2,500 arrested. Afterwards, "goodwill committees" of community leaders were set up to help restore harmony between the Malays and the Chinese, by addressing their concerns. Dare I say that we have since learned from the destructive nature of racial disharmony, and that Singaporeans today can say we are among the world's most tolerant and harmonious people?

A year later Singapore was 'kicked out' of Malaysia - more trouble than it was worth, it seems...

Tan's article is an interesting insight for me, as someone who barely knew that a place called Singapore even existed a few years back - and as someone who sometimes struggles to differentiate between lighter skinned Malays and darker skinned Chinese anyway! But I am perturbed slightly by the final statement - Dare you say it, indeed, Mr Tan?

Has any culture truly learned from destructive racial disharmony? I was working in Bradford a few years back during the riots - thankfully I was not living there so I only saw the 'before' and 'after'. Over the last 12 months we have also had racial rioting in France and Australia. And as anyone who trawls the blog-universe will know there is a lot of racial bigotry out there.

Singapore tries to avoid this by having rigid policies in place to enforce racial harmony, including setting quotas in government housing blocks to ensure that no one area becomes solidly Chinese, Malay or Indian. Yet is this not the wrong way to approach the situation? Rather than enforcing a physical closeness should we not be trying to break down the barriers that exist on a more intellectual, emotional and spiritual level?

Charles Tan, you are correct that people live in some kind of harmony in Singapore - but attitudes have still not completely changed. There are some companies who advertise vacancies as "must be fluent in Mandarin" when there is no real need, knowing this will result in a Chinese employee. And it is not just the older generation that harbours grudges, as evidenced by the youths that were recently taken to court for their racist blogging. Inter-racial relationships are also still heavily frowned upon, even to the extent that walking down the street with someone of the opposite sex who is not of your ethnic background - be they partner, friend or simply work colleague - can elicit glares.

Remember July 21st in Singapore. Remember all the racial violence that happens the world over. But never make the mistake of thinking that the attitudes that caused the violence have been consigned to history's dustbin - that would be a fatal error.

Cheers m'dears!

A Condemnation...

This is just a quickie to register my disgust at the fucking morons who have been making the headlines recently. There is a rivalry between Scotland and England, and a history of antagonism between the two, and as a Scot I suppose I am biased in these affairs. But nothing - nothing at all - excuses the behaviour of the utter cunt who punched a 7 year old boy for wearing an England top in a Scots park. A fully grown (I use that phrase as an indicator of size, not mentality) man walking up to a wee lad and telling him "This is Scotland, not fucking England" before punching him to the ground? Whoever you are you are a cunt of the highest degree and if I ever found you out I'd be there with a fucking tyre iron in a flash...

Add that to twat number 2 who dragged a man out of his car for wearing an England top and beat the shit out of him. The fact that he was disabled (as the papers keep pointing out) is irrelevant - it simply should not have happened. The victim has been quick to point out that it was an unusual incident and he spent that evening (black-eye and all) in the bar watching England play Sweden with his Scots pals. Apparently they were supporting Sweden, but he himself happily states that this is "just friendly banter"... unlike the guy he'd encountered only hours earlier.

This all comes hot on the heels of Scotland being praised for the way it has (on the whole) welcomed the growing immigrant population who are moving over, especially the Poles. It really fucking distresses me to see a couple of wankers drag the rest of the nation through the mud...

...but hold your horses, Tony Blair. Blaming the Tartan Army is not right. They are an organisation with proper membership and have a sterling reputation the world over. To lump all Scots fans in with these two bastards does a disservice, but especially the Tartan Army when there is no proof that either perpetrator is a member.

And a message to the Sun newspaper... do you really think you help the situation whan you state that it's a good thing that on average the Scots die younger than the English? Typical tabloid press, fanning the fucking flames!

Cheers m'dears!

IgnoramUS

Across the globe certain nationalities are the focus of derision and scorn, the butt of jokes, regularly accused of all manner of ills. Any one from the UK will know that us Brits like to characterise the Germans as a bunch of anal-retentive fatties who get up early in the morning to put their towels over the sun loungers, which as anyone really knows is a horrendous generalisation. But then again, as everyone also knows, generalisations are often rooted somewhat in the truth (and I've holidayed with enough Germans to know it!).

Despite all that, however, none of us can really claim any kind of 'victory'. You see, despite many nations having an 'idiot-neighbour-country', or an 'irritating-country-we-once-had-a-war-with', there has always been a special reserve in the disgust of the global population for one particular breed. The native English speaker. Aussies? Bad enough in their own country, but abroad? A degenerate bunch of racist piss-heads with barely a braincell between them. South Africans? Arrogant elitist pricks who think they own the place - wherever they are. And the Brits? Violent drunks who just want to shag any young local bird / stud they can lay their hands on. The Irish usually get away with it, simply because they're not British, as do the Kiwis ("at least they're not Aussies") and Canadians, who are often at pains to point out that they are NOT from the US.

Ah yes. Americans. The final and most reviled of the English speaking peoples. I make no apology for that statement, based as it is on complete truth. America is largely hated across the world and not just in those countries labelled as 'evil' by the current administration. Okay, international policy plays a part in the country's perception, but that's not all. Americans travelling abroad are generating a negative image of their country with insensitive and over-bearing attitudes and mannerisms and by failing to respect local cultures. But at least the US State Department has begun to realise that...

A new guide has been comissioned to be issued with every US passport which will give Americans advice on how to behave abroad. This has been put together by non-profit organisation Business for Diplomatic Action (which is spearheading the State Dept. campaign) and contains 16 tips on etiquette which include: don't just talk - listen; discuss, but don't be didactic; don't dress too casually, and; do not foist US world view on others. BDA's head, Keith Reinhard, points out that "Surveys consistently show that Americans are viewed as arrogant, insensitive, over-materialistic and ignorant about local values". But then as I noted earlier these generalisations usually exist because, well, they are largely true... or to put that another way, if the cap fits - wear it!

So the question is, will these handy hint books actually change American attitudes, and even if they do will that change everyone else's perception? As for me I just wish someone had given one to the ignorant cunt I was arguing with on Sunday night... fucking yanks! (mutter, mutter)

Cheers m'dears!

Him again...

In the very first week of my blogging life I wrote this. If you can't be arsed clicking the link then be content to know that it refers to a guy called David Irving (on the left) who at the time had been arrested in Austria for the heinous crime of... Holocaust denial.

The gist of the post was "the man's a fucking ignorant cunt but no-one should be put away for having an opinion". And I stand by that today. After all, that would be simply behaving just like the architects of the atrocities he mentions.

And now, three months later, he has been convicted.


Tell me just one thing. Where the fuck do we get off preaching about freedom of speech when we allow shit like this to happen? How is this man the devil incarnate when publishing a racist cartoon that solidifies the paranoia of the west by painting all Muslims as suicide bombers is viewed as an acceptable expression of Western Freedom?

I don't like his opinions on the Holocaust. He's wrong, no two ways about it. But so is his conviction.

Cheers m'dears!

Deja vu?

So... another day, another Aussie gets sentenced to death for smuggling drugs. Capital punishment - what a deterrent, eh?

Woah... back up, Binty! Been down this road before, methinks! Let's not do another anti-death-penalty rant, everyone is well aware of how you feel.

Okay - let's look at Australians instead then. Now, I have some mates who are fair dinkum and all that, so I don't want to paint an entire country in the colours of a few stupid cunts. But, for fucks sake!

Exhibit A: the rioting against immigrants (hmmm - forgetting ones own lineage, it seems).
Exhibit B: the double-standard of uproar at Nguyens hanging in Singapore whilst ignoring other Capital Punishments the world over.
Exhibit C: both Nguyen and the Bali 9 thinking for even one second that smuggling heroin through or into a country where the death penalty is in force might be a sensible idea.

"I even beg them not to take the terrible risks that these young people have done... How on earth any young Australian can be so stupid as to take the risk is completely beyond me." (John Howard, Aussie PM)..... don't know about you but I always knew that Neighbours and Home and Away rotted your brain!

So what now for the dead-men-walking? I wonder how long it will be before the people who didn't give a shit about them back home (they are, after all, not 'white') start crying foul over the neanderthal laws of a backward country? Indonesia's foreign minister Hasan Wirayuda is steeling himself for such a response by using offence as his defence, shedding an obvious light on the reason that he received no protests from Australia over the death of Bali bomber Amrozi. "...Australians were victims of the Bali bombings. But in the case of drug-trafficking, the victims... were Singaporeans or Indonesians."

So, once again - another potential addition for Exhibit B. Australia, I know you don't give a fuck what one poxy blogger thinks, but do us all a favour - drop the hypocrisy and either accept their punishment or start lobbying everywhere, including the US, to end the death penalty.

Oh...... and bloody well stop smuggling through South East Asia, you dumb cunts!

Cheers m'dears!

...even more drawn-out...

Points were raised after yesterdays post that made me feel the need to clarify my position a little.

I believe strongly in freedom of expression, to the extent that I previously wrote condemning the incarceration of a Nazi-sympathiser. I despised his opinions but he had a right to air them. I just feel that the press in the so-called 'free' world should exercise a little more discretion... just because some Arab papers are being bigotted against Judaism (or whoever else) that's not a justification for the same behaviour the other way around. Call it moral-high-ground, turning-the-other-cheek, whatever-the-fuck-you-want. It's simply a case of two wrongs never making a right.

If this was just a case of depicting a religious icon I would be ranting here about protesters being petty. It is, after all, a rule which has been only loosely observed over the centuries - note the ancient Persian paintings of Muhammad, for example. More to the point, I would be stating that their religious laws are for them to keep, not to hold us by. And most Muslims would not only understand that viewpoint but would agree with it. But that is not the scenario. Simply put, the cartoon strongly insinuates that all Muslims are suicide bombers. And this is not simply an untruth, it is deeply offensive. More than that, the cartoon plays a part in embedding the idea that Muslims are dangerous terrorists, full stop.

If this was, like the Nazi guy before, something that had cropped up in a fringe publication with a target audience that probably already holds such views we'd call them cunts and move on. And so would Muslims, in general. But it was a mainstream newspaper... they would never have written an article stating "all Muslims are suicide bombers" any more than they would write saying "the holocaust never happened". They might report that someone else said these things - that's their job. But the cartoon...what do you think the reaction would be to a cartoon strongly suggesting that the holocaust is a myth if it appeared in a mainstream publication?

Acts like this can start a chain of events, as we have seen. I deplore - condemn even - the violent reactions that have occured throughout the world, and I mourn the stupid and casual loss of life. And, yes - blame for those deaths must be aimed at those who went far too far in their response to what was, after all, just a cartoon. But that does not make publishing them any less wrong.

Cheers m'dears!

A drawn-out affair....

The saga of the cartoons.... more than enough has been said about it, but don't think for one second that that's going to stop me. Did you know, for example, that they were actually published last September - and we're only just getting the fall-out now!

I've said before that I'm not a fan of censorship, but lets face it - the Danish Press have behaved in a crass and insensitive manner. I'm not talking about all that 'not showing images of Mohammad or Allah' stuff. Most Muslims would be content just to know that anyone doing that is a sinner and will be punished when the time comes - only a handful of extremists might cry revenge. No, in this case it is not simply the image but the way in which that image is portrayed... I'm sure most of you have, like I, seen the offending articles but for those who haven't - imagine a picture of Mohammad with a bomb planted in his headgear. So, in a sweeping generalisation the Danish press suggests that Mohammad (and by default, all Muslims) are suicide bombers. That is not cutting edge satire, I'm afraid - it's nothing more than ignorance laced with bigotry.

So, this has been on the boil since September... it'll die away soon enough, right? Not if the way things are going is any indication. You see, by offending not just the fanatics but pretty much the entire religion, what could have been a flash-in-the-pan rant has become a full-on nation-spanning mass protest - with moderates just as vocal as hardliners. The backlash has already had reprocussions on Danish exports, and one Swiss company has had to take out an advert in Egyptian papers to let the populace know that they are not, in fact, Danish (there's a nice role reversal - "You whiteys all look the same to us"). And other news organisations around the world have inflamed matters by reprinting the cartoons (although the usually rabid British Press seems to be acting remarkably low-key), most notably the French.

Ah, yes... the French. See that picture at the top? That shows a sign in the aisle of a Carrefour supermarket (a French company) in Egypt. "Dear Clients", it reads. "We express solidarity with the Islamic & Egyptian community". Well, it's either very noble or, more likely, transparently self-preservationist. Except that even that has had a backlash..... back in France! That's right, consumers in France are now apparently boycotting Carrefour in response!

How far is this likely to escalate? God (or an inappropriate image of him) only knows! Whilst boycotts and flag-burning can be made light of on pages like this reports have already come in of linked deaths - and, much like the cartoons themselves, that just ain't funny!

Cheers m'dears!

ps - and I thought Blunt Cogs had potential to offend!!!

Acknowledgement - todays post was spurred on by reading SingaporeInk and its link to this article.

The Hitler Youth is alive and well.

I have sat here for two hours starting this entry over and over again. Words fail me. You see, it seems easy to rail against the small-minded bigotry of middle-aged white-supremacists because we seem so sure that they are collectively an ageing dinosaur, steadily dying out. With each generation the support for these views seems to grow thinner, and whilst we know that peace will never truly abound in our time we have hope for the future.

And then you come across Lamb and Lynx (pictured). I first saw them on a documentary a couple of years ago and I was shocked - not just by the two cute blonde haired moppets who were incongruosly spouting seperatist propoganda but also by my own naivety. I mean, where did I think the middle-aged bigots came from? For those not in the know this pair form the musical duo "Prussian Blue" (look up the term on google and you will see it's link to the gas chambers used in the holocaust), whose lyrics deal not just with the usual teen angst of fancying boys and the heart-warming odes to a loving family but also with spreading the 'truth' about keeping purity in the white race. With songs like the all-German "Weiss, Weiss, Weiss" (White, White, White) and disturbing lyrics like "Rudolph Hess, man of Peace; He wouldn't give up and he wouldn't cease; To give his loyalty to our Cause; Remember him and give a pause" these girls are the almost-acceptable face of racism.

Now thirteen years old they are entering a period of their life when they may cease repeating their parents words parrot-fashion and begin to explore their views and their ideology. What they will find is not the glorious world of white pride they sing about but something decidedly more murky, however they choose to view it. Maybe then they will come to understand that when they say that they are 'seperatists, not supremacists' the reality is that those two often amount to the same thing... why would you want to be seperate from something you didn't believe you were superior to? We can but hope that as they mature into adulthood this pair, and the countless other kids like them, will realise that this world should not be about building walls of segregation but about extending bridges of compassion.

Other posts I have written before have often been sharper-edged and littered with expletives because of the bile the subject matter engendered. But I find that I cannot get angry about these girls - not yet, anyway. Instead I am just overwhelmingly saddened by them... and sad for them.


Cheers m'dears!

Continental identity crisis

Some news organisations have been asking questions recently about whether Europe will ever manage to give up all it's national identities and create one European identity, inclusive not just of all native Europeans but also of immigrants to Europe. This is, undoubtedly, in response to the riots in France recently which have been proven to NOT be about religion (so people can stop using the word 'Jihad' every other sentence) but about social issues and the hardships endured by ethnic minorities. But the question I ask is should nations give up their identities at all?

I for one have no intention of giving up my national identity. It has played a part in defining me, but is not the be-all-and-end-all of me. Yes, I am a European. Put me in a non-European country and that will show in my different takes on situations. But I am also a Briton. Put me anywhere else in Europe and the same applies. In fact, within Britain I am also from one of the four smaller kingdoms, another differing factor. And when it boils down to it the county and town I am from can show me to be different. But it's these differences that play a part in making us all unique, and I for one celebrate them.

This does NOT make me racist or xenophobic. I love visiting other countries and experiencing other cultures, but if we are forced to lose our national identities then will we have a Europe where we are all the same? Will we lose those things that make us interesting to each other? And if citizens of this new Europe are to have only a European identity will we be forcing those immigrants who have made Europe their home to ditch their own history and culture too, thereby losing the richness their diversity can bring?

Here is the keen difference between patriotism and xenophobia - a true patriot will love his / her country, but not unconditionally. They will recognise the faults of their society and strive to rectify them. They should also embrace those from other cultures who wish to live in their land - I mean, what a compliment that is! Xenophobes, on the other hand, often blindly see their own country and way of life as 'the best in the world' and shoot down anyone who dares to question it If there is a fault in the xenophobe's country you can bet it's the fault of those 'damned immigrants'. And the last thing they would want is a 'johnny-foreigner' living next door. Where it gets confusing is that the word 'Patriot' is often claimed and proclaimed the loudest by the xenophobes.........

I am a patriot. There is much to love about the land I am from. But there is also much to despise, and I do that as a patriot too. I know my country is not 'the best in the world', but I would like it to try to be the best it can.

And finally, we should all remember that much of the progress made by human kind since year dot was inspired by the meetings of cultures, the ideas that were spawned by the coming together of people from different backgrounds and with different takes on things. Being unique is the one thing we all have going for us!

Cheers m'dears!


Wow - managed a whole post without swearing once! Fucking amazing!