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TIMES POSTCARD
It’s tough these days being British
By Rajpal Abeynayake
African poverty is a scar on the conscience of the world, said Tony Blair. Quickly following on the heels of that was this other comment by a UK news analyst that it’s Britain that’s a scar on the conscience of the world.
Britain a scar on our conscience? That’s because our conscience won’t allow these poor mixed up British to just be. Their rock stars are feverishly rocking to raise funds, but their Prime Minister is all mixed up not knowing whether he is to laugh or to cry.

That’s not to use language that’s idiomatic either
It’s just to state reality.
First day, he is delighted that London has got a chance to stage the Olympic games. Next day he is down, because the Londoners have been bombed. The third day, he does not really know whether to laugh or to cry because Blair says they have achieved landmark success at Gleneagles, and managed to salvage Africa.

Little wonder then that the Queen said in a speech commemorating the war dead that British troops have a sense of humour. She who usually regally says “We are not amused’’, probably wants to define the line on humour. Is Her Highness’s Prime Minister laughing or crying or not knowing which of these emotions to display??

Certainly we are not making fun of the average Britisher’s predicament of being bombed and attacked -- that would be ghoulish. But we are just feeling bad about the British Prime Minister’s predicament. He makes a parliamentary speech, in parliamentary language, and then the anchors cut to the speech of another man who they describe as his ‘best friend and ally.’

A cowboy emerges on screen. He screeches “give into the terrorists -- not on my watch.’’ And then he poses awkwardly, as if he is training for a re-make of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

In the meantime, the Rolex wearing dancers who were watching Madonna gyrate and luxuriate on stage - - while uttering profanities to boot -- retire to a London pub, and there they talk of Posh Spice, whose wealth is estimated to surpass that of some African Republics.

They glance at their Rolexes and repeat this joke that “we are going to stop those days of poverty in Ethiopia where a rich Ethiopian could be spotted by his Rolex.’’ (How? “He wore it around his waist.’’)

As they watch the mounted flat screen plasma TV over the barstool their Prime Minister says that “these attacks were all due to Islamic terrorism.’’
Not since Cassius Clay turned Mohammed Ali and threw all his gold medals into a gully in New York that there has been such a severe indictment of Muslims based on a misapprehension.

The Chairman of an Islamic Guild came on BBC and said that there are no Islamic terrorists -- there are only terrorists. He said so because, he wanted Britishers returning, say, from a rock-for-Africa concert to desist from attacking anyone who is purdah-clad or in a Fez cap.

But for Tony Blair words do not matter. He is going to “fight Islamic terrorism’’ as much as he is going to “eradicate poverty in Africa -- a scar on the conscience of the world.’’

A scar on the conscience of the world?? Africa is a continent of diversity, of culture - - - and also of a less materialistic attitude to life contrasted to Blair’s new labourite Britain. All this doesn’t mean that there isn’t searing poverty or a heartrending AIDS scourge in that continent. But no more does all that condemn Africa to be characterized as a scar on the conscience of the world, than one bomb makes all terrorists Islamists?

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