Comments on: Blasts hit Mumbai trains

By: sonia

sonia — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:34:40 +0000

How awful! Disgusting. Sounds like her family were a bunch of psychopaths to say the least. Shudder.. ( and they didn’t like asylum seekers much either! - it said they wouldn’t have her marry outside her ‘caste’ or ‘tribe’..goodness)

According to the Times - “The father was also charged with the murder but fled to Pakistan, where he has gone into hiding”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2229505,00.html

Leighton - Interesting what you say there. will be reading this..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism

By: Leighton Cooke

Leighton Cooke — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 20:37:24 +0000

The human condition is a very broad church as Harold Wilson once said of the Labour Party, which is now a very small church. For me Albert Camus got it right with his concept of the absurd, which can only be transcended by compassion.

By: Josef Davies-Coates

Josef Davies-Coates — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 16:06:19 +0000

Just noticed that the article I linked to doesn’t mention Samaira Nazir’s father nor mother, though the article in today’s evening standard does. I wonder why the father didn’t get life too?

By: Josef Davies-Coates

Josef Davies-Coates — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 16:04:05 +0000

Yes, this is terrible.

Todays evening standard has a terrible story in it too, about a british asian woman who was strangled and stabbed (18 times) to death by her father, brother and cousin while her mother looked on. Sigh. This is a crazy world.

By: tom

tom — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:19:26 +0000

Leighton, while the MP’s coming out in disapproval against the Extradition Treaty is encourging for Gary McKinnon, I think that the shock and disapproval of MPs over the extradition has been sparked more by the possibility of ‘respectable’ bankers being extradited than little known hackers and suspected sympathisers with islamic charities which might possibly have a link to a terrorist organisation somewhere. What is most shocking is that the American’s expect us to extradite UK citizens without them even presenting any evidence at all. The American administration have made it clear in the “war on terror” (oxymoronical war), that having some association with someone, who has an association with someone who is a terrorist, is a crime equivalent to being a terrorist. This of course has the interesting implication that the entire staff of the cia are terrorists. So this classification of terrorist comes with the prerequiste - “If we feel like it”.

By: Leighton Cooke

Leighton Cooke — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:45:29 +0000

On the Gary McKinnon front MPs showed by a 242 majority their disapproval of the Extradition Treaty. Not a good day for Tony Blair.

By: Leighton Cooke

Leighton Cooke — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:41:53 +0000

Sounds like a good idea. The war that changed my life was the one in Bosnia as I had friends who were victims in that struggle. Some of them are now among the best activists I know.

By: sonia

sonia — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:15:24 +0000

well said.

it heartens me to hear the words of those of us who don’t give up on peace, and don’t give in to violence. it disheartens me when i hear people with safe lives who aren’t in much risk of having their lives taken apart encourage ‘legitimate’ violence. there may come a time when one has to fight for one’s life - but it’s like self-defense - …very last resort type of situation. then i hear others talk about soldiers who put on a uniform to ‘kill for their country’ and they take their uniform off, and how this fixes everything. i wonder if those people realize how the killing has changed the soldiers, made it difficult for them to deal with ‘normal life’ - just basically understanding that you can’t take life and not be changed in the process..

in any case. perhaps it would be interesting to document individual circumstances/stories ..of people for peace.

By: Leighton Cooke

Leighton Cooke — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 12:08:25 +0000

We have Rachel as an example of a terror victim who has become a peace activist. Each one of us as individuals can make the choice for peace. The sad thing is that the system overreacts every time with more security measures and limitations on our freedom. War only perpetuates war. It’s a weary cycle of delusion. I refuse to live in a climate of fear.

By: sonia

sonia — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 10:54:54 +0000

You guys are right - this is so terrible. I shudder to think.. As you say Daniel - it becomes clear how pressing it is to resolve disputes peacefully.

A lot of armchair theorists leading peaceful lives often don’t seem to get this..the thing is at the end of the day if your skin is going to be ruptured, you aren’t going to like it. you can retaliate and rupture someone’s else skin so they are in just as much pain as you, or you can all agree that having ruptured skins isn’t much fun. ..can’t beat the meat as vivian sobchak put it. the way i’ve experienced it, war either turns you into some sort of psychopath, or a peace activist. ( i’m hoping the latter is true in my case ..though sometimes i scent shades of post-traumatic stress disorder of some kind..)

I’m hoping no-one I know has been involved - but it’s hard to get news. Fingers crossed.