Friday 15 July 2016

What a piece of work is a man.

We do tend to head straight to the obvious cause of terror every time we accuse an attack before we know the truth. It is almost understandable, such is the current climate of things. But it is absolutely unforgivable to quote and give value to a nasty, unthinking islamophobe in the moments before we know the cause of each tragedy. Or even after we've worked out the facts. 

You'll notice that we quote him less when tragedies occur outside our western bubble despite being for the same "reason" as our own interspersed attacks. That'll be because those events do not affect his presidential campaign. They do not help him fear monger. Those who are scared of Muslims do not care about Muslim countries. 

I highly doubt he actually cares about the 84 dead in last night's occurrence. I doubt he cares about French culture, how this affects French lives, French government. He won't mention that some of those who died, who were equally celebrating on Bastille day, were also Muslim. He won't mention that he doesn't actually know why the killer has done what he's done. We don't know what kind of terror he was inflicting yet.

It's important to remember that if these types of attacks are going to happen that we refrain from scapegoating innocent people. Millions of innocent people who are just as horrified by such tragedies as the next white Christian. It's important that we ignore a certain orange (white) member of our own western terrorist group. I'm shocked that in several of the articles from large tabloids that have come up on my newsfeed this morning it was deemed necessary in their live online reports to mention what Donald Trump had said on the matter. What relevance was this? I'm sure most of us can imagine what he would like to say about this incident, and most of us would prefer to steer clear of him given his absolute ignorance on the matter. He's not an expert, or a sensible ally of France, he's not yet a world leader - thank god. He's a racist, narcissistic, islamophobic, nasty piece of work who we absolutely should be turning our backs on most obviously in moments like this. Stop feeding him what he wants. Stop laughing at those horrible things he says. Ignore him, remove his power. Focus on someone else. 

Donald Trump will never have anything useful, or informative, or inspiring to say about occurrences like these. There is no point in making him a part of an important report of unfolding events. He wasn't there. He's not intelligent and worldly. He's an idiot. No one should be listening to idiots. 

Friday 8 July 2016

Mindless in the midst of it all.

It seems that British politics over the last few weeks has disassembled itself and rearranged its pieces without actually putting itself back together yet. It's like someone has taken a puzzle, albeit with bits already missing and the picture uglier than one would wish a puzzle to be, and has broken it up in their hands, thrown it up in the air and gone "ha ha ha".

Actually its quite interesting to watch this process take place. This accidental reshuffling of the entire House of Commons. It means, in a long and arduous process, that change is coming and that could be good.

As an 18 year old with a current occupation as 'waste of space' in her A Level summer holiday there is not much I can do. I have friends who are worried about it and who are very distressed at the situation, which is understandable, but there is not much they can do either. They can discuss, and form new ideas, and hypothesise, and plan for a new future, but until this all blows over we're at a loss for which pieces we need to be picking up.

I have to say I'm actually trying my best to ignore this fascinating turn of events so that I can enjoy my summer. I've waited bloody ages for this, I don't want to have to worry about the future of British politics. I'm lucky that I have parents who will discuss the situation with me. It reassures me, and informs me that not absolutely everything is going tits up. Well, it is. But that's also ok.

I'm just going to sit back and relax whilst politics tries to remain the same but actually becomes something fundamentally different. I'm going to read books, and lie in the sun, and go out with friends and have a whale of a time. And I'll be ready once I've done that, been mindless in the midst of it all, to work it all out all over again. The political world of my adult life. I'm quite excited.