The Week That Was: At Home and Abroad

This is a picture of Aishah Azmi, the teaching assistant who has recently lost her case for unfair dismisal for refusing to remove her veil while teaching. She now has plans to appeal her case to the European Court, claiming that she has been discriminated against because of her religion.

This has opened a whole new debate in the UK as to where exactly is the line that seperates religion from politics. Ms. Amzi's father was, until recently, a headmaster at the Muslim school attatched to the Markazi mosque in West Yorkshire. This mosque was attended by at least two of the suicide bombers that carried out the 7/7 attacks in London.

This is Islam as a poliltical movement. Islam is a religion that makes no differentiation between the political and religious lives of it's followers. That is why, in Islamic states, the people are governed by Sharia law which is admisistered by clerics.

The issue of debate is how far should religion be tolerated, in a multi-cultural society, when the religion seeks to overturn the laws of the state in order to promote it's own political agenda? Islamic fundamentalists are promoting their political agendas by testing the limits of tolerance and claiming that, whenever they are confronted, they are being persecuted for their faith. This is rich...where is the Islamic society that allows any other religion the freedoms that Muslims enjoy throughout the West? The fact is that, in the West, we are tolerant...perhaps to a fault. But there is a limit..and the debate that is now going on in British politics, and the society in general will, I hope, define it.

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Meanwhile, in Iraq, the not so tolerant Sunni and Shia militias are continuing their bloody and hate-filled battles and are also keeping their muder squads and suicide bombers very busy indeed. So many people are dying that, since the UN reported that the number of casualties was much higher than official estimates, the government of Mr. Malaki has now sealed all casualty reports.

The recent situation in the city of Amara, since the handover of military authority to the Iraqi forces by the British, illustrates the inability of Mr. Maliki's so-called government to govern anything or anyplace outside the walled-in Green Zone of Baghdad in which it hides. The militias just strolled in to Amara, routed the Iraqi forces (at least the ones who were not already part of the militias), killed hundreds, and took over. The country as a whole is really controlled by the private armies of the clerics and warlords, who are battling amongst themselves for the spoils that they will claim once the allies pull-out (which may sooner rather that later).

Like Vietnam, once the allies begin to leave, the real military and political powers will emerge to claim their booty. The oil fields of Iraq are the prize and, unless the allies are willing to stay and fight for decades, they will eventually become the property of the leaders of the provincial militias.

And these two chaps, whose individual and collective credibilities are at all time lows, are begining to face the fact that they can no longer rely on simply scaring the voters into following their blundering policies. They are both having to contend with generals who are publicly questioning their "strategies" as to not only conducting the war, but winning it. They have both realized that simply saying "stay the course till victory" does not in itself constitute a "strategy". So now the public, and politicians of their own and opposing parties, are begining
to question their competence and leadership. About time..I say.