“Eight hours without an iPod – that’s the most inconvenient thing,” Hannah Pillinger, a 24-year-old at Manchester, said.
I’m not sure if Hannah is stoic or just slaveringly idiotic, but the Guardian has managed to find passengers who are whining about the delays that have been caused by the recent British terrorist schemes.
As my father, the lifelong airman, said, if the plane blows up, we all get home early. And: always get the cheap seats, no plane ever backed into a mountain.
raincoaster 
Should send the suspects to gutanamo if you ask me and interrogate them for a few years.
I think they shouldn’t send anyone to an illegal camp on Cuban soil, and they should allow everyone the right to a speedy trial, no matter what the crime.
As I said, do not become the monster to fight the monster. If you don’t like Nietzche, try U2.
Actually, I think they should send to Gitmo any whiner who’s bitching about having to interface with the real world for eight hours without the crutch of an iPod.
Or Beirut. Either’s okay by me.
And to expedite their trip we’ll dispense entirely with security protocols. I’m certain they won’t mind.
Oh–as long as we’re fantasizing–can we stuff aboard that plane anyone who feels that Gitmo is actually doing any bloody good at all, or that torture is a valid interrogation technique? A brief visit might do them a world of good.
Raincoaster, I spent a year at uni in West Yorkshire in a town that was over 40% British Pakistani Muslim,this was before 9/11 and I thought nothing of the kind of segregation I witnessed other than ‘narrow minded fools’.
In the uni canteen there were 3 distinct areas, the front was where all the white folk who wouldn’t speak to Asian folk sat. In the middle I would play pool with a mixed group of white folk and Asian folk, at the back all the Asian folk who refused to speak to white folk played pool and sat.
One of my best mates there was British Pakistani Muslim, I would usually hang around with him (we’ll call him ‘A’), another white lad off my course and a Britsh Indian Hindu from London (we’ll call him ‘B’). Sometimes a couple of other British Pakistani Muslims off our course would come and speak to A, I’ll never forget the first time they did and I tried to say hello and introduce myself, they wouldn’t even make eye contact, I was confused. A explained to me not to bother in future, that they didn’t speak to white people, he explained that he didn’t agree with it but knew them from a young age.
Once I went to meet A at his house with B. A’s mother confronted me with various dishes of freshly prepared authentic Asian cuisine as soon as I entered the door, A’s father came in to and shook hands with B and had a chat with B in a foreign language. I tried to introduce myself to A’s father. He would not make eye conact with me either. A later explained his father did not speak to white folk.
Now in the context of 9/11 and the July 7th bombings (surveys have shown 16% of British muslims thought that they were justified remember, even though Muslims were among the victims) it strikes me as a little more serious than ‘narrow minded’.
Some of these people actually want an Islamic revolution in the UK. I just wish they would fuck off and go live in an Islamic country if thats what they want. I wish all the white racists would fuck off and leave the UK to the majority of the population who want to behave like civilized human beings and live in peace with each other.
I share the same dream as you Raincoaster, a world without war, famine and poverty, unfortunately a huge percentage of the worlds population do not.
Don’t ask me what the solution is, I haven’t a clue.
On a lighter note one of our local employers advertised a job today that I am qualified for, wish me luck.
Good luck.
Steven, that rascists come in all colours we already knew. I’m not sure I’m interpreting your post correctly, but you appear to have interpreted an offer of hospitality (by the mother) as some kind of terrorist scheme. In this I am not certain you are correct.
It’s a shame you weren’t at the last meeting of the Shebeen Club; Zahid, who is a very good friend of mine, told us about one of his sons. The boy was hanging out with a druggy crowd, so his mother, Zahid’s ex-wife, wanted to send him to a madrassa in Afghanistan, the kind that turns out suicide bombers. He was up for this; he loved the idea of mattering, of having a crusade. Zahid argued it and won, and now the boy is a very proud Urdu-speaking DJ and anthropology and philosophy student at the University of Alberta. Apparently it’s the first generation born in a new country that bears most of the stress, for they’re pressured to be fluent in both cultures, and to keep them separate. I think your friend A is an extremely sophisticated person doing the best he can in a difficult situation. Are you related to any racists? I am. And I apologize for them, just like he did. What else can you do?
People, particularly people who are marginalized, try to find meaning through joining something larger than themselves, something that promises them they matter. It’s seductive, and it’s understandable. Whites only formed the Aryan Nations Brotherhood because they were tired of being picked on by the black guys in prison. The KKK formed basically as soon as non-whites started getting their rights recognized in court and at the polls; whites were no longer so special.
I don’t know what the solution is either, but surely rising above petty racists and showing yourself to be better than that kind of behaviour is a starting point.
Perhaps your friend was trying to convert his father by introducing him to some nice white people and showing him that they weren’t all bad?
I am reminded of a conversation between my stepmother Loretta and my co-worker, Suzie. Loretta was doing the loud, standard “put them all on the boat and send them back where they came from” routine which we have all heard a million times. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that Loretta herself is an immigrant; she was born in England. Everybody wants to pull the drawbridge up right after they get across, I tell you.
In any case, Suzie just smiled and nodded and said, “I couldn’t agree with you more.”
Suzie is Coast Salish.
No his mothers food was lovely, we have a huge history with the Indian subcontient and as a cricket nut I know a bit about their culture and their hospitaility, but some of these kids in West Yorkshire have some frightening opinions, not much different to some Northern Irish catholics about IRA terrorism, but the IRA didn’t do this suicide bombing stuff that has become all the rage. That was all about land, I understand war about land, war about religion on the other hand is a lot more frightening.
You may want to go over to the Shebeen Club blog (in the blogroll) and search for Kamikaze Manual. It’s a translation of some of the Japanese Kamikaze manual, and it gives a very compelling idea of how this appeal to something larger than the self can be a draw towards this kind of thing. If the forces of peace could write something half as compelling, I swear nobody’d ever go to war.
I also have the Afghani Jihad manual, and it, too, is an emotionally compelling document. Sometimes great art can be put to bad uses. Just another example of the pen being mightier than the sword, in that the pen sometimes controls the sword.
“The ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr.”
An Islamic Hadith
Very good. Now pass it on…