London standing proud

Yesterday's event outside the Houses of Parliament was bad. Simple and straightforward. Murder is never good and neither is attacking innocent people. It wasn't a large scale 'planned' attack like that in Paris so it's debatable if it was terroristic in intent or whether it was an opportunist but even still, it doesn't make it right or at all OK.

When such events happen, unless you're in the immediate area while it's happening, the only thing you can really do is keep on as normal and not panic. Countless cars drive in and through Westminster and other crowded places on any given day. Multiple knives are readily available in every household. 99.99% of these are being used as they are meant to be and we can't be afraid of doing our everyday activities in case someone decides to use an everyday tool with malicious intent. The city has 8million people and for the most part they're quite normal and nice but in every barrel of apples you'll be able to find a few that are rotten. This doesn't mean you discard the whole barrel or start panicking that every apple is going to kill you.

I happened to be at work a few miles from Westminster when the news broke and for the most part, my colleagues and I carried on with our day, slightly unsettled and keeping on top of the news and various social media, but otherwise continuing on as normal. As the hours went by, a few more facts emerged about the actual incident and numerous of my civil servant friends who work in Westminster reported their offices being on lockdown for a few hours.

The news was piecemeal and facts were few and far between - most likely by police intent to help them conduct rapid investigations. Given the information vacuum, news agencies tried to fill in gaps with conjecture and theories on motives and perpetrators. Channel 4 ended up naming someone who later turned out to be in jail and not at all involved but who fit the theory they were trying to spin. Other opportunist hate-mongers used it as a vindication of their hate.

Generally speaking, I'd say we can be better. It's perfectly human to be scared, anxious, hateful and suspicious but it's equally human to be brave, calm, loving and trusting. Let the dust settle, see what happened for what it was and recognise that while there are those who wish ill on others, most people aren't like that. I'd say London is doing an outstanding job of this and is representing itself very well as a leading global city. And long may it do so in sha allah (God willing).

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President Trump

Tomorrow, 20th January 2017, sees the handover of executive power in the USA from Barack Obama to Donald Trump and I'm still in a state of confusion about this whole election. It's been a while since my last post, during which I've been exploring alternative avenues of creative expression (Periscoped Life and Muslim Harry Potter) and dealing with a couple of personal issues but now that we're so close to the official transfer of power, despite being in the UK and not directly affected by it, I can't help but be a little nervous about the new situation.

In conventional elections, people generally vote according to the political party representative that they feel holds the best policies and when the election is over the person makes an effort to fulfil the pledges and promises they made. You vote with a rough idea of what to expect.

The bizarre situation that the Americans are in now is that Trump was voted in on a whole lot of rhetoric and numerous ridiculous policies (anyone for a Mexican-paid wall or bringing back torture?). We'd have been in a pretty dire situation if he had pursued these policies but now that he's backtracked on quite a few of them and established that he's not interested in keeping his word or integrity, we're in a position of not knowing what on earth he plans to do other than his well documented attempts at being friendly with Vladimir Putin of Russia. So far as his promise of 'draining the Washington DC swamp' of lobbyists and special interest groups goes, he seems to be going for the approach of replacing the lobbyists with the people the lobbyists were representing. The best example of this being choosing the CEO of ExxonMobil - the world's largest oil company - as Secretary of State - the country's most senior diplomat.

Those of us in other countries can take some solace in the fact that we're not directly affected, but still be anxious in the fact that we'll be indirectly affected. The USA does hold the title of world's most powerful nation and - like it or not - decisions and actions that take place there have ripple effects across the world and as the country pushes a more divided and unpredictable line, this leads to unpredictable reactions by those affected and fairly soon we'll end up with a whole lot of uncertainty and find ourselves living in an even more reactionary and even more suspicious world.

However, while the average person can't do so much about what goes on in the upper echelons of the corridors of power, we can do a lot with our own actions and choices. When all around you is uncertain and seemingly going to hell in a handcart, keeping a level head and not giving in to the lure of suspicion and fear of your fellow man at an individual level is the only way to counter the forces that seek to divide.

To quote from the Quran 13:11 "Indeed, Allah (God) will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves." This verse has multiple meanings and contexts but the essence of is that change has to come from within and with personal and individual effort, not whimsical hope for an undeserved or unearned saviour/miracle to remove what hardship the people are facing.

So rather than run scared and full of fear, keep praying and show love, affection and good judgement to those around you. Keep fighting ignorance and injustice where you see it while being careful not to indulge in those vices yourself. Maintain your own environment and help those around you maintain theirs without encroaching on the rights of others and with a little luck perhaps we'll all live to see another inauguration in four years time!


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To Brexit or not to Brexit?

The referendum announced last week by the British Prime Minister David Cameron immediately led to lines being drawn and allies being sought in the corridors of power. 23rd June is the date which means we'll have a lot more sniping and political manoeuvring as individual politicians decide which side they want to support and we'll have a lot more 'analysis' from media types who try and explain why so-and-so has decided in what way they have.

Image taken from here

If you're into this sort of thing it makes for fascinatingly great reading/listening as individual and personal ambitions override, get conflated or get confused with national responsibility. Almost like a real-life Game of Thrones except there's an even wider range of characters and plots are even more convoluted. Naturally, it's expected that politicians and business leaders will make noise over the issue but it seems like everyone and their mother will want their view heard. Just today we had some scientists who want to stay in and some who want to get out.

In many respects the arguments for and against are very similar to those we heard in the Scottish Independence referendum. Very simply Leave the Union and it's all either uncertain or a reclamation of our nation or stay in the Union and prosper as you have been or be forever bound to your foreign overlords. In the Scottish referendum the Stay campaign won and life generally continued as before except in a moment of panic the British government proposed to implement a whole raft of policies which would benefit Scotland - though as I write I'm unsure if these have been followed through. I suspect not entirely.

I expect similar for the EU referendum. Up until now David Cameron has been using the threat of Brexit to help in re-negotiating the treaty that keeps the UK in the EU. Having now concluded the negotiations he has to deliver his side of the bargain and keep the country in. So he'll make his case and the Leave campaign will make theirs and with every passing day the arguments will become more and more hyperbolic and doom-mongering and end up confusing most of the populace who will get annoyed and I think will end up voting along two lines:

• Stay in for continued economic security.
• Leave and bravely reclaim your country.

I'm not seeing these are correct claims (we saw them used in the Scottish Referendum as well). We'd probably have just as much continued economic security outside the EU and we'd still have to deal with Europe for trade and politics even if we did leave. But I think it's too much to ask for the average voter to care enough to read every single viewpoint and come up with a reasoned and balanced view. People vote for government (or at least have a government) so we don't have all have to deal with the politics of power and can free up time to be productive instead. Either way, there will be lots of spin on both sides as each attempts to persuade but it's worth remembering that since neither side actually knows what the future holds it's all a lot of bluster and bluff and people saying what they think is best - not what they know is best. I fully expect that after the vote people on different sides will point to events that happen and use them as proof their side was correct - hindsight is a wonderful thing.

So anyway, I'm calling a 65-35 vote in favour of staying in. From what little I've seen and read of the world, I'd say people care more for their perceived economic status than their perceived independence. As yet I'm undecided which one I care more about but certainly I'll be voting!

Make sure you register to vote.

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