The Fanatical Holidaymaker

The Fanatical Holidaymaker.


On holiday with family in Bournemouth. After a wet and windy promenade on the beach front we retired to a luncheon of traditional battered cod 'n chips. Followed by an even more traditional, save of a different origin, ritual Zuhr Salaat.


Forgetting the virtues of Salaat for a man constantly in search of meaning, I want to focus on what I did after.
I spied the craven images of man and beast hanging on my hotel room wall. Of course on any other occasion they would have been just plain pictures, even to me.


But at that time, I covered them with cloth so that their forms would not be visible. And I thought, does that action make me a fanatic in the eyes of this World?


For most people I would be just that. Even though I did not seek to influence their own public perceptions of imagery, but in fact because I had to alter what they had sought to impose on me.


Cameron attacks Multiculturalism.
Cameron's attack on the failure of multiculturalism obviously leads on to questions of what he had hoped to gain from it. But for most British Politicians the question was not of gain, but because Multiculturalism naturally lead on from their traditionally tolerant disposition. This because today's World is shrinking and thence the pre-eminence of immigration. A traditional British disposition that at the turn of the 20th Century saw them play host to Karl Marx amongst others.


Traditions that made us Great.
Interesting then that Cameron should give voice to his values in a country that has no such tradition. That at the turn of the 20th Century saw the rise of fasicism. Are Cameron's values then not at odds with traditional British values? 


And like Blair, before him, is he not just playing poodle to Merkel's economic power, and ignoring our traditions. Then Cameron's and Blair's values that determine our policy are shown to be what they are, plainly feelings of inadequacy in the face of superior industrialization or markets. Playing poodle and undermining all that is Great about Britain is no way to up your game, no matter how you swing it.


Maybe he's appealing to our changing values?
Cameron may well argue and be justified in arguing that British values have changed, but then he should not seek to pull the wool over our eyes by appealing wrong-headedly to British traditions. Incredibly, if he were to argue that the now British values are based on a suspicion of immigration, then he would have to admit that the cause of the rise of such suspicion comes not from an indigenous population but from second and third generation immigrants themselves.


Maybe his position is plain and simply anti-Muslim?
And then if Cameron would fain admit to that position, then he is left solely with an anti-Muslim sentiment. He's not alone in that, but it can hardly be called traditional. After all Muslims were not public enemy number 1 twenty to thirty years ago.


So what's changed?
Well let's see, could it be something to do with oil being found in the Arabian peninsula. Well that's suits the timeline to a tee. And then with the World's economy booming on high because of cheap oil, is it a wonder that the Powers that be adopt a duplicitous, non-traditional and base foreign exploitative policy.


Muslims are people and when cornered, react as all people do!
No, put it that way then it's no wonder. It's no wonder then that there is free game on Muslims Worldwide. And it's no wonder that Muslims feel alienated and react aggressively, finding identity in a non-existent, non-traditional and even non-Islamic, but branded as such by bulls on both sides on the fence, ideology.


Back to the true fanatics.
I have met fanatics, and actually thinking about it not one of them was Muslim. My own definition of fanaticism would be the inability to step into another's shoes to see their arguments and reasons. Of course you cannot step into someone else's shoes if you cannot appreciate a common humanity between the two of you.


I know I can do that.
I know that all of the Muslims that I know can do that.


But that does not mean we have to adopt the precepts or values that public opinion, as dictated by the media savants, want us to adopt.
However, because we can appreciate them from the standpoint of their logic, it means that we are not fanatics.


Maybe at worst reactionaries to a failed foreign policies.


But the same cannot be said of the Camerons of this World, who cannot and will not step into our shoes. Because if they did, then with a clarity they would see the callousness of their words and the destruction that they might bring.


They are the true fanatics.
The only other difference is I chose to holiday in Bournemouth, and he chose Germany.


END.






Your Brother,


Shafi


(I had intended to talk more on MultiCulturalism, the imposition of values etc... I did no justice to those theme and hope to revisit them as soon as my pen rests upon my paper again.)






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