Sanctimonious

“Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. So he went on Twitter instead and called Michael Gove a ‘vile reptilian evil tory scumbag’, and linked to a cartoon of Iain Duncan Smith stealing a paralysed woman’s wheelchair. And lo, he felt better and went for a £3.50 caramel macchiato with some mates from the BBC.”

Libby Purves, in The Times and The Sunday Times

Don't do as I say...

I was doing some work in my garden the other day, when my left wing neighbour popped round with his teen-aged daughter. They stopped for a chat, and during the chat I asked the daughter what she wanted to be when she was older.

She replied " I want to be Prime Minister"

I said, "Wow that's great! And what's the first thing you would do as Prime Minister?"

She replied, "I would give more money to the poor."

"Well, why wait?" I said, "help me with my garden and I'll give you £50 that you can give to a homeless man to buy himself food and drink."

She looked at me puzzled and said "Why don't you just get the homeless man to do your gardening and give the £50 straight to him?"

"Find me one that'd dig up these weeds." I replied.

My neighbours don't talk to me anymore. 

I do my gardening myself.

The Vile, Nasty Tories Are At It Again

I just saw some economic figures reported in the Guardian. I don't don't normally read the newspapers - especially not the Guardian, which is the flip side of the Daily Mail - apart from the little Times app on my phone, but this caught my attention.

The vile, nasty Tories are at it again. How dare they? I mean look at the disturbing facts below... frankly, I'm disgusted that I'm part of the Tory economic narrative...


"The pound jumped more than a cent against the dollar after the news" that the Tories won a majority. UK Plc is now that slight bit richer than it was. This is shameful. How? Why? We have no right to be!


"The Office for National Statistics said the unemployment rate fell to 5.5% in the three months to March, down from 5.6% the previous month. The drop of 35,000 in the number of unemployed people took the total to 1.82 million, a seven-year low." A seven-year low! Why that was before the worldwide recession hit us?! What on earth are we doing with this country?! All of Europe is suffering from slow growth and high unemployment, we should be too! Solidarity innit?

"The UK’s unemployment rate is the second-lowest in the EU after Germany, and compares with the highest rates of 25% in Greece and 23% in Spain." Unacceptable! How could we possibly be better off than all the countries in the EU? Why can't we be more like Greece or Spain? They have sunny weather, don't they? Ibiza is in Spain, innit?

"Employment also improved, with the number of people in work rising by 202,000 in the three months to March to more than 31 million, the highest since records began in 1971." The highest since records began. Well the records are wrong. I don't agree with the records. I'm going to spray a WWII monument because of this. 

"The UK has an employment rate of 73.5%, which is also a record,". Record? We're not here to make records in employment figures! We're here to make sure everyone has an iPhone!

"...although for men the figure is even higher at 78.4%." That's it! The Tories hate women. They only pretend that the first ever and only Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was a woman. Or that there are more women in the current cabinet than ever before. We like Blair's Babes, not Cameron's Cuties. Blair had babes, Cameron has cuties. That's how we see it.

"Some 70,000 of the extra workers were drawn from the over-65s." WTF is that all about? What are these old fogies doing in jobs? Surely they should be claiming some kind of disability benefits and picking up free bus passes and gas vouchers? This is all wrong!

"He (Carney) said many of the jobs created in recent years were taken by younger workers who were less productive than those with more experience." Younger people have less experience? What a preposterous idea! Young people rock. And rap. Same thing, innit?


"Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that total wage growth climbed back to 1.9% in March after a dip in February, while regular wages, which exclude bonuses, hit 2.2%. Since inflation dropped to about zero at the beginning of this year, real wages have soared." We don't like 'soared'. That doesn't sound good. We're not meant to soar. Soaring is for the birds.

Labour & The Left

This is contributed by Peter Risdon. He tells it so much better than I could ever do.

We'd be in real trouble without an effective opposition and regular changes of government, so even though I'm glad about this result, I'm worried about Labour. Boundary changes and, perhaps, some reform of the BBC will work against them, and even though the large number of new SNP MPs will, necessarily, include some car crashes I can't see Labour sweeping back in Scotland soon.

The party that was born in an industrial landscape that no longer exists, and that fell prey to a mid-twentieth century nationalisation fallacy that destroyed volume car production, prevented heavy industry from modernising so it died (Thatcher was just the undertaker) and closed the branch railway system, has only come close to re-inventing itself in a sectarian identity politics most people find repulsive, and that has led to obscenities like Rotherham.

UKIP's appeal to Old Labour voters was apparent, not least in the 'uneducated' east coast from Clacton to Hull, where they came second in 120 constituencies. They made sweeping inroads into councils without denting Tory gains. Old Labour always was a 'stop the world I want to get off' party, yearning for a past of jobs for life no less fictitious than the Express's nostalgia for the 1950s. UKIP gives that voice more effectively than Labour, today.

Worst of all for Labour, though not so obvious, were the liberal supporters who couldn't vote Labour, or who did so holding their noses. Most of them were prevented only by tribalism from voting Conservative. How long can that last? How long can a party with Lutfer Rahman-supporting UNISON as Kingmaker, that has refused to expel Livingstone, that only expelled Galloway (for Christ's sake) when he called for mutiny in the armed forces - but not before then - keep their loyalty?

Even thoughtful Labour partisans adopt tribal positions on questions like the EU, the Human Rights Act, the NHS , Welfare reform. Even when they write about Labour's need to stop hating the provinces and the self-employed trades, contempt drips through. There's still the unexamined narcissism that believes the poor are hated by the Tories, and only they can provide clean hay and warm barns - the notion people want to stand beside them rather than beneath them doesn't seem to occur. The idea that the general rise in prosperity means more and more people don't just want that, they expect it, is unimaginable to them. The idea that the people who know most clearly that there are freeloaders and scroungers are the fucking working class who live next door to them isn't anywhere near their horizons.

Backwoods Tories are, literally, dying off. Oddly, and entirely unanticipated, demographics favour the Tories. They're becoming more liberal because the illiberal ones are pegging it. Labour didn't realise that immigrants are actually natural Conservatives, ambitious, hard-working, socially conservative.

I don't want fifty years of Conservative government with UKIP emerging as the main opposition. I'd like an increasingly liberal Conservative Party kept like that because the main threat is further to the left. I'd like a party that is still too close to inherited privilege and wealth moderated by meritocratic and liberal pressure.

But unless Labour guts itself, there's a possibility - no more than that - of it becoming irrelevant. 

And what party has ever gutted itself?

Sikhism - like it was meant to be...

Here's something you didn't know...

GURU KI MASEET or Guru's Mosque, is a historical Masjid that was constructed by sixth Sikh Guru, Guru Hargobind Ji at request of local Muslims of Sri Hargobindpur, on the banks of the river Beas (one of the 5 rivers of Greater Punjab), near Gurdaspur. It is recognized as a historic site by UNESCO.

In December, 1634 Guru Hargobind Sahib fought a fierce battle against Mughal forces near the River Beas. Heavily outnumbered, the Guru was victorious. Guru Sahib decided to stay there for a while, and soon enough a settlement developed around the location, expanding into a town which became known as Sri Hargobindpur.

With the turmoil of India's partition in 1947, and the bloodied mass migration that followed, the mosque fell into a state of neglect and disrepair. A group of Nihang Singhs took up the responsibility of caring for the structure, and installed the Guru Granth Sahib Ji in the one-time Masjid.

The group of Nihang Sikh continue to help maintain the mosque, to this day.

And best of all - local Muslims STILL perform their prayers at the mosque, to this day.

THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is why Sikhism rocks.

The Facebook Cull

I've just had a massive purge of Facebook friend requests for this month, all 137 of them. Here's a little round up of my Top 10 rejects:


01. Labour/UKIP/UKUncut/Unite/SNP types: Take my advice: You really don't want to be adding me. This is for your own good. I don't take prisoners and I never lose. I'll make you hate yourself way more than you think you hate me. If you MUST, please have a box of tissues handy. This will end in tears. Yours.

02. Wealthy Left whingers, Bollinger Bolsheviks and champagne socialists, living in gated communities in leafy suburbia. I have little time for you - you're so busy ticking boxes to justify your pseudo jobs - it isn't like you have any time for me either. Congratulations for nailing a seat on the gravy train. You change nothing, you affect nothing and you mean nothing. You don't change lives - you just protect your own. Well done. Just stay out of my hair, you've done enough damage as it is.

03. People posing with guns - WTF is all that about? WTF do you need a gun for? Who do you think you are? Bruce Willis? Eff the hell off. And then, eff off again. And when you get there, eff off some more. Delete. Block.

04. People with the other guns - the shirtless and topless gym fanatics. Aren't you all Shwarzeneggeresque? Except you're not - he's the Governer of California - managing one of the largest economies in the United States of America - which he has the BRAINS for. Who the actual fuck are you? How about you try a dating website for the attention you want and not my bloody timeline? Eff the hell off. And then, eff off again. And when you get there, eff off some more. Delete. Block.

05. Blinged up sherwani-clad men who spend more money on the gold chains around their thick necks than they did on their education, posing with heavily sedated tigers. Really? I mean REALLY? It pretty much sums up your life - buy it or sedate it. You make my skin crawl. Eff the hell off. And then, eff off again. And when you get there, eff off some more. Delete. Block.

06. Imbeciles. If you don't know what the word means, you're one of them. You are the weakest link; goodbye! Eff the hell off. And then, eff off again. And when you get there, eff off some more. Delete. Block.

07. Fancy a chat? No. I do not. State your business or a shared interest and we're in business. Otherwise, eff the hell off. And then, eff off again. And when you get there, eff off some more. Delete. Block.

08. Cleavages, duck-faces and overly strained buttock-shots. Trust me, I've seen better. Wares on display haven't been my thing since I was a teenager. I don't need you on my timeline darling, despite your desperation to be noticed. Try Soho, or any seedy suburb in London. You might pull off a tenner from some drunk. Good luck. For now, eff the hell off. And then, eff off again. And when you get there, eff off some more. Delete. Block.

09. Relatives: Aren't you a curious and inquisitive lot? I rarely add anyone with less than 25 common friends, but if you're never going to make an effort to say hello when we come face to face, then what's the point? Usually it's simply because you want to keep tabs on what I am up to. How sad is your life? Don't add me if all you want to do is perv on my timeline (most of which you're not going to understand) or my pictures (most of which only serve to give you a macabre sexual thrill missing from your pathetic life). Add me because you want to get to know me better. Talk to me. I AM ONE OF YOU, FFS!

10. Randoms: We have no common friends, I have no idea who you are. Do you have a business proposition? A political affiliation? An academic connection? A serious politico-social phenomenon you want input on? Do you have a case? Hire me as an after dinner speaker? Tell me then. We'll take it from there. Other than that, eff the hell off. And then, eff off again. And when you get there, eff off some more.


So therapeutic, this culling thing.

I Love You

Insomniac nights in the turbulent delirium of my dreams
My inebriated mind teases me with the drunken idea that is you
You hurt me and you soothe me; you kill me and you revive me
Sweet, the agony of your absense; bitter, the nearness of your soul
A scream no one can hear; a whisper, that rings loud and clear
My songs of you are my solitude and my decadence
You're my extravagance, my guilty pleasure, my secret heaven
I love you, I love you, I could repeat, over and over again
And yet go to my grave, knowing I never said it enough

© Khyberman MMXV

Chicken Khyberman

This will serve 4 people.

You'll need:

A chicken. Don't get a big chicken, the bigger they are, the drier they taste. With bone, go for one under 700 grammes - if you're going boneless, then about 500 grammes of boneless chicken thigh chopped into bite-sized pieces will do - chicken breast doesn't absorb flavours that much, it dries out and tastes like sawdust. Breasts are overrated. Thighs are where it's at.

An onion. A fairly big one, say the size of your fist. Or get two little ones. I prefer using pink ones, but red or white ones will do.

A fistful of coriander leaves. Don't be lazy, get rid of the stems.

Picture a cabbage the size of a softball - just under 4 inches in diameter. A 32B. You need HALF of that.

Fresh tomatoes. You'll need around 3 of them if they're as big as tennis balls, maybe 4 or 5, if smaller.

Ginger. Say about the same volume as a golf ball.

Garlic. Three or four cloves should do it. Please don't use garlic paste. Please.

Green chillies. Get two of them. Chuck in a couple of red ones as well.

Cooking oil, 2 or 3 table spoons will do - use whatever you want - olive oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil - whatever. Even ghee, if you have a death wish.

Button mushrooms - 4 or 5 of them will do. This is an optional extra.

Spices: High piled teaspoons of red chilli powder, turmeric powder, Garam Masala, a pinch of cumin seeds, 2 or 3 black cardamoms, salt, a few cloves, and if you're an advanced currier, some anardana powder as well.

You'll need a non-stick wok with a lid, to cook it all in.


How it's done:

• Chop the onions, cabbage, garlic, and ginger into little slivers - no thicker than toothpicks.
• Chop up the tomatoes into little chunks, say as big as a key on your keyboard. Do not de-seed. You need it all.
• De-seed the chillies - you don't need that much fire - and cut them into inch-long pieces in case you want to pick them out while eating.
• Chop the mushrooms (did I say they're optional?) into thin slices.

And then...

• Heat the oil in the non-stick wok, and chuck in the onions. As soon as they
  
  collapse and soften a bit, showing signs of browning, throw in everything else (yep, the spices and salt too). Yes, everything except the chicken. Cover it, and let it all cook on medium heat for about 7 to 10 minutes.
• When the mixture in the wok is sufficiently mushy and soft, and the smell is making you hungry, add the chicken. Stir until all the chicken is covered in the gloop you've just created.
• Put the lid back on, reduce the heat to low, pour yourself a glass of wine and chill for about 20-25 minutes. Do get up a couple of times to stir it around a bit. Add the mushrooms 15 minutes in.
• If you feel it's drying up too much, throw in a dollop of yoghurt and mix. You could instead, use a little tap water, some tomato juice, or even a splash of the wine you're having...
• That's it really. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves, and serve with naan, or bread, or rice.

We're Doomed

Okay, so let me get this right: A man is locked in a cage, doused in petrol and set alight. The cage is then crushed with bulldozers, and a graphic video of it is posted online and shared far and wide like some kind of voyeuristic violence porn.

In response, most of the world's media and online forums are ablaze (pun not intended, sorry) with whether the act violates Islam or not. Thing is, I'm not sure it violates ANY religion. "The Devil can cite the scriptures for his purpose", William Shakespeare said. He was right, the Devil often does.

What this barbaric act does violate is sanity, it violates sense, it violates humanity, it violates everything humans and civilisations stand for. And yes, it violates the very God in whose name it's done. You've either got God wrong, or you've got the wrong God.

We've been lead to believe we're successful as a species because we're smart. It's the opposite actually: We're doomed as a species because we're dumb.

French and British Multiculturalism and why Britain's Future may be a Silent One

*GUEST BLOG POST*

This post first appeared on Adam Penny's new blog, which you can find here.

The difference between the way that France and Britain have responded to the questions raised over the murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists as a result of the, admittedly vulgar, cartoons directed at the prophet Muhammad, is that France's media has taken the view that because a murder has been committed trying to curtail Charlie Hebdo's freedom of expression by insulting anyone it chooses (and it has been shown that it has drawn no less derogatory cartoons about other faiths or ideas), that the response has been 'someone has tried to force us to stop this, which means that we must keep doing it'. In contrast, in the UK press the attitude has been very different, with the BBC preventing its journalists from showing the offending cartoons, because of a wish not to offend the Muslim community. The reaction has been similar in the rest of the UK Press.

One reaction from some Muslims has been that they are offensive, so they must be banned. On the other hand, the reaction of some Muslims has been that it's a cartoon, however vulgar, and does nothing to actually tarnish the prophet Muhammad's reputation, thus ignore it. However, the approach taken by the BBC has been, well, it's offensive to some Muslims so it should be banned.

There are multiple flaws in this logic. Firstly, banning it because some Muslims may be offended fails to deal with Muslims as individuals. It doesn't allow for the opinion of the Muslims that are willing to just ignore it as something of no consequence. Some Muslims are angry about it, so you mustn't be allowed to say or do anything that could be considered offensive.

In another area, golliwogs are largely considered off limits because there is a view that they are offensive to black people. That all starts to fall down when Chaka Artwell, who is black, comes along and insists on wearing a golliwog around his neck for a BBC interview because 'this was a popular little guy when he was young' and 'white, middle-class liberal types' had decided his doll was racist and offensive. The BBC didn't interview him because his way of expressing himself didn't fit a presumption of how a black man or woman would react to a golliwog.


The concerning thing is where this goes. What if atheists become a 'community', with more extreme elements taking objection to any utterance that forwards the idea that there might be a God, even if more easy-going atheists might not have any issue? Are we then to take the view that some atheists may be offended by anything to do with religion so we should prevent any religious utterances in the media in order not to offend atheists?

This is why responding to anything offensive by demanding a ban is fundamentally flawed. You have to allow for it to be said, even if you don't like it, or the end result will be that nobody can say anything.

And Thus Dies Liberty, With Obsequious Cowering

I am one of those that did the #JeSuisCharlie thing on Twitter and Facebook, as did millions. Millions of cowards, that is. This is a guest post by Frank Fisher, which I have reproduced with permission from @Holbornlolz

If you must #JeSuisCharlie, then #JeSuisCharlie like this....

For the UK media, the terrorists have already won

There is a unanimity in the media today, a striking consistency across the papers and airwaves. Everywhere there is talk of supporting free speech, and everywhere there is its surrender. Our Fourth Estate is in full flight from reality, as it was during the original MoToons crisis of 2005. Like then, all the talk is of backing those who provoke and question, using cartoons and satire, but just as then, this is lip service only. Where are the deeds that back free speech? Where are the Charlie Hebdo cartoons on front pages? Nowhere.

Across continental Europe bold newspapers  feature mocking portraits of Mohammed, spiked illustrations defiling the psychotics of ISIS – here in the UK the Axis of Weasel holds full sway; the covers are all deeply, deeply significant for what they do not show. Absence is today’s theme.

Yet everywhere pontificating columnists are pompously telling each other, and us, that they are defending free speech, that it is essential to democracy. Politicans too, who every day find a new victim to denounce for speechcrimes against the people, are today telling us we must cherish the free speech that they long ago stole from us.

I find myself recoiling not just in anger at these clowns, but in instinctive disgust too. Ours is the press of the madhouse, this consistency of delusion is a mass hysteria, denial on a national scale. Fear – physical fear,  and fear of offending against political correctness  -  has led our *entire* media to a blanket self-censorship, while their ridiculous arrogance and delusion has woven a shield of denial that allows them to stitch their mouths firmly shut while mumbling that they are free.

A few show flickers of sanity through the miasma of madness; Dan Hodges, always the first to demand obeisance before the twin gods of “tolerance” and “diversity” is here first to indicate what those cruel gods inflict on their followers, when admitting his own personal cowardice in refusing to tweet a MoToon in solidarity. David Aaronovitch, Blairite of old, demands an end to timidity in defending free expression, from the pitifully timid pages of the Times. Once the Thunderer, now the Whisperer.

This matters. Twelve people are dead in Paris in part because of the failure of Western media to rigidly and universally defend free speech in 2005 and onwards. The obvious reluctance to back our principles in deed showed thuggish Islamic censors that the West would mutter about free speech, but would bottle it in a fight. This was most wretchedly displayed here in the UK, where our press eagerly gagged itself at the behest of the Blair government, demanding “responsible” and “restrained” free speech, urged on by the odious advocate of self-censorship Shami Chakrabarti, and former satirists Private Eye. Mass desertion in the face of enemy fire left those few brave souls of Charlie Hebdo and Jyllands-Posten to march towards the guns alone – with the consequence we have seen today.

It is, however, worse than that. Terrorism is a rare beast. It doesn’t frighten me much. It’s unlikely to touch me, or mine. The abandonment of free speech in the UK does frighten me. Not only because the example of angry Muslims winning their censorship battle has given carte blanche to every furious group, from feminists to scousers, to demand silence. But because it says “we will not fight to defend our way of life”. That, as every student of history knows, is an open invitation to war. Appeasement shows a bold enemy that you have no stomach for a fight, that you present an easy target, a fast and effortless victory. I’m not frightened of terrorism, but I am of civil war. Our media/ political class’s abandonment of solid liberal values that we once thought inviolate is putting our country at risk. Here, they have surrendered without a shot being fired.

Killing - because YOUR God wants it

Say what you like about American wackos spraying bullets around school campuses - given that you can get an assault rifle from Walmart, the recent incident in Peshawar is different. This is endorsed by a political movement, bolstered by a deeply felt religious opinion that there is a God that sanctions the savage butchering of children in his (yeah, this God is definitely a 'He') glory.

This isn't just about Islam though, so don't any of you accuse me of the so called 'Islamophobia' or racism.

I've lived through times when bus-loads of Hindu (and Sikh) wedding parties were machine-gunned by Sikhs, times when Sikhs blew up a plane full of people who had nothing to do with anything, times when a mosque was turned into rubble by a horde of Hindutva adherents with their bare hands and rudimentary tools, times when thousands of Sikhs were brutally murdered in the streets of Delhi, just for being Sikh, times when Ahmaddiya Muslims were savagely butchered in their own mosques - by other Muslims, times when Sunnis savaged Shias and vice versa, times when Hutus machete-ed Tutsis, times when one faction of Christians bombed the other, times when Buddhist monks went on a killing rampage, times when a group of fanatics flew planes into buildings containing thousands of completely innocent people, times when early morning London commuters were blown up, despite their religious affiliation, times when religious institutions - pretending to be all about love, equality, and inclusion, refused to allow marriages among people of different faiths, times when hundreds of people died because someone wrote a book, or made a cartoon... I could go on forever.

Of course, most people will come up with, 'but religion is meant to be peaceful'. Really? The more your set of beliefs claims to be the 'right path' and the 'ONLY path' it creates adversaries. The more you stress 'you gotta look the part' as opposed to 'act the part', you are complicit in the propagation of this meme whether you like it or not. Some of the nicest, kindest and most generous people I know are non-hijabi Muslims, non-amritdhari Sikhs and un-baptised Catholics..

If there is a God, I'll bet it's a sorely disappointed one and we're the worst things he (she?) has ever created. If there isn't one, then we're as stupid as the person who feels it necessary to strap himself up with bombs, blow himself to bits, just so he can finally get laid.

I think institutionalised religion insults God more than it praises God. The all-knowing, all-controlling, all-powerful, all-seeing and all-powerful God, we all claim to love, and adore and sing hymns and psalms and shlokas and verses about is what WE need to be.

We're not. We never can be. Evil is a lot simpler. Especially evil in God's name.

Dorian Grey

This actually happened.

I was at this skills & training event in east London, and a former work colleague I hadn't seen for 7 or 8 years recognised me. The only thing about her I remembered, was that she was an English graduate from Kingston University.

"Hey Banti! Great to see you after all this time! How have you been?"

"I've been great! How have you been?"

"I've been good too, I see the years have been kind to you, how come you look younger than I remember you?"

Great line, flattery always works - especially with an ego like mine - but it's not a line everyone uses, so I thought, 'Hmm brainy', and I went with, "Oh, you should see the portrait in my attic."

It went down like a lead balloon. She didn't get it. Neither did her entourage. 

Turns out, you can get a degree in English with just 'Of Mice And Men' and 'To Kill A Mockingbird' these days... Gove and now his successor have such an uphill battle on their hands...

Inheritance Tax

So you work all your life to save up some money to give to those you love and care about. And that according to the Left is wrong? What the actual F is inheritance tax all about, bearing in mind these savings have accumulated AFTER all manner of taxes have been extracted from them?.

I hate how the Lefty vultures cast their beady eyes over the remains of the dead. It's like prying off rings and gold teeth off corpses.

Why I Hate Malala

I blogged about Malala Yosefzai before, recognising the importance of her story. This has nothing to do with Islam on its own - Islam may be the perfect excuse, but Malala's story has relevance to ALL societies and communities in the developing world, for sadly, there is a LOT of developing that STILL needs to be done.

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid is a Lahore-based Financial Journalist and Cultural Critic.  He can be reached via Twitter @khuldune. This article was first published in Viewpoint Online. I have reproduced this article with Kunwar’s permission.

Over the past few weeks, what with the Nobel hoopla and all, everyone has had something to say or write about Malala Yousafzai.

Malala Yousafzai.

The politicians propagated their own agenda, liberal fascists whined about their cause and journalists used the issue to put forward their personal agendas through the debate surrounding the teenager.

Some writers wrote satires that were taken seriously, others wrote serious pieces that weren't taken seriously and then there were the white man’s burden, brown man’s burden and burdens that came in other colours, being discussed in articles that tried to complicate a debate that has been pretty simple all along.

Now, as I write this piece, what I intend to do is give you a completely straightforward perspective, one that you will not find in any other article written about Malala.

I have no issue being dubbed a misogynist, fundamentalist, jihadist or a conspiracy theory leech, for I have no qualms in admitting that I undoubtedly am all of those things. And so I shall tell you why I hate Malala sans any inkling of pretention: the absolutely honest and truthful perspective of a true Pakistani.

How much a Pakistani hates someone depends on how easy it is to hate them.  And few individuals are easier to hate than Malala Yousafzai.
Here’s a girl, not old enough to have an ID card, taking on Pakistan’s biggest enemy without an iota of fear.

She takes a bullet to her head not fighting for a jingoistic agenda, but for something as universally celebrated as education.  For her commendable bravery she gets global acclaim, speaks in front of a global audience at the UN, meets the American president and is pretty much the only positive coming out of this country in recent times.

It seems to be more a tale of inspiration than a recipe for hatred.

So, let’s flip the coin.

Here’s a girl, not old enough to have an ID card, siding with Pakistan’s biggest enemy to defame the nation without an iota of shame.  She pretends to take a bullet to her head helping the West propagate their jingoistic agenda under the garb of something as universally celebrated as education.

For her commendable theatrics she gets global acclaim, gets the chance to speak in front of a global audience at the UN, meets the American president and gets to act like the only positive thing coming out of this country in recent times.

Which side of the coin is easier to believe?

Easier, not in terms of being more logical or making more sense, which argument out of the two is easier to digest for an average Pakistani like me?
Do you think it’s easy for me to accept flag bearers of my religion as my enemy?  Do you believe that it’s easy for me to accept the fact that a 16-year-old girl fearlessly took a stand against the biggest threat facing this country while men like me were busy being apologetic on the behalf of the “freedom fighters”?

Do you honestly believe that it’s easy for me to accept that a young girl from our neck of the woods, with all the societal handicaps that one can think of, can single-handedly orchestrate a global rude awakening? The thought rips the bigoted, discriminatory and misogynistic ideals that I’ve grown up with, into tiny little shreds.

How can I accept Malala to be a hero, when her speeches do not have any Islamic or nationalistic agenda?  How can I consider her to be my future leader when nothing she says or does imbues a false sense of superiority in me as a Muslim or a Pakistani?  How can I accept that a young girl was able to highlight who our actual enemies are, when grown up men in our parliaments are still hell bent on befriending them?

How can I rejoice at Malala’s global achievement when I’ve been taught all my life that a girl’s place is in the kitchen?  I just can’t.

The religion I follow is inherently misogynistic.  The society I live in is quintessentially patriarchal.  And I’m supposed to manifest ideals of gender equality and women empowerment out of the blue?

Why do you think we consider it a million times easier to call Aafia Siddiqui the daughter of Pakistan than Malala Yousafzai?  With Aafia there’s a sense of victimhood, with jihad as the cherry on top.  That’s what we’d like in our daughters: fragility, vulnerability and the perpetual dependence on one of the male guardians in her life.

And so please answer this: who is easier for me to consider this nation’s daughter, one who I can ostensibly protect from the conspiring agenda of non-believers or one that is seen hobnobbing with the nonbelievers?

Give me the name of one female who we have taken seriously as our global representative? Benazir Bhutto? But she was always Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s daughter, wasn’t she? How do we trace the illustrious male DNA to justify Malala’s accomplishments?

Do you still not see why instead of going through the hassle of an ideological metamorphosis and purging myself of the ideals I’ve spent all my life with, it’s a million times more convenient to just buy the conspiracy theories? I hate Malala because it’s by far the most convenient choice.

I hate Malala because then I don’t have to look at myself in the mirror.

I hate Malala because then I can keep my head buried in the sand.

I hate Malala because then marrying my daughter off would be my sole responsibility towards her.

I hate Malala because then I don’t have to regret all those times my mother fed me with her own hands while my sister was busy washing the dishes.

I hate Malala because it helps me sleep peacefully, with my sense of superiority very much intact.

You kip if you want to...

I'm no political pundit, but...

My medium-term predictions for UKIP:

By 2020, despite electoral success (or failure, which by my calculations is less than 13 MPs - you know, like 2% of Parliament) in the 2015 general election, UKIP will be overrun by Red Kippers (Left leaning, pretending to be right leaning; so herrings really, not kippers) and nimbys who haven't travelled more than 20 miles from home. Blue will drain from the purple in less than the course of a single parliament - regardless of who wins in 2015. UKIP's fatal flaw is that libertarianism can't work alongside protectionism and that evolution ALWAYS wins. You either bend, or you break. Or shatter.

Despite many Kippers getting off on the idea; UKIP won't hold the balance of power in 2015. Not because they're right about the EU, or the belief that they'll be forced to marry someone of their own gender, or the fact they're cheesed off that people with no connections, no contacts, no family or community support structures can get a job in the UK, based purely on their work ethic, but because they don't have a coherent narrative, a poor grasp of basic mathematics and economics and that most people prefer the devil you know than the one you don't. And that ANY increase in the UK voter base in the future will be politically astute, internationally-minded, modernistic, young people. Everything UKIP ain't.

Much of the noise UKIP makes is part blue, and now overwhelmingly, part red (so THAT'S how they get purple), and whichever way you look at it, it reeks of populism, high on emotion - like the YES campaign in Scotland - which doesn't translate very well ballotboxwise. That David Cameron won't be around forever will not hurt the Tories in any significant way; I couldn't say the same for Nigel Farage and UKIP. I doubt anyone can.

In countries with fairly homogenous populations - such as much of the west - apart from minor blips lasting no longer than a decade or so, politics will ALWAYS settle into a binary, two party system - one FOR high taxation and spending, and one AGAINST. It's a lot like two rowboats side by side and you have one foot in both. And then, as one boat moves ahead of the other, you make a choice. Jump on one of them, or lose a pelvis.

Bottomline? Post 2015, UKIP will turn into a Nationalist-Socialist Party, hurting disaffected Labour voters more than any other party.

My long-term predictions for UKIP:

There won't be a long term.

My Last Words Before Scotland Votes...

I don't see any difference between the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish or the English; the fact that some people do, tells me all I need to know about their bigoted minds. In the same vein, I am unhappy with all that see themselves as a minority or in some way special because of arbitrary geographical boundaries; the fluke of chance that they were born into a certain culture, skin colour, and influence of rabid 'commoonity leaders' purporting to be messengers and torch-bearers for an imagined deity and defenders of a misguided faith.

The world is fucked up because of them. Think about what you stand for - people, or just your people?

Pass The Ice Bucket

I learnt a valuable lesson today. I am so ashamed of the person I have become. 

Recently, I poured three litres of tap-water, combined with a kilogram of ice - both of which cost me less than 50p - over my head, and created a video of it to post on Facebook. (See video below, or here on Facebook)

This, I have been lead to believe, is a direct insult to all those poor souls who have internet access, but no water to drink, cook and bathe in. My heart sinks at the thought of those aforementioned poor souls logging on to Facebook, downloading fairly high-resolution videos of people in London (where it rains pretty much every day) and seeing all that water go to waste. I could have done so much better - I could have couriered the three litres of London rain-water to some village in India or sub-Saharan Africa. I am truly a terrible person.

I should tell my kids to stop raising their hand in class if they know the answer - in case the dumb kids feel bad; I should stop making satirical comments and posts on Facebook, Twitter and my blog, because those who don't get it might feel inadequate; I should not post pictures of cupcakes - while millions can't afford one square meal a day; or post updates of me criticizing politicians - while millions can't even vote; or post pictures of me hanging out with friends - while millions suffer from loneliness and heart-break; or posts about what a wonderful poem my child wrote - while millions aren't able to send their kids to school; or write posts about how my new shoes hurt - while millions go bare feet all their lives; or post pictures of me walking, running or playing something - while there are millions of people unable to do the same...

I should just close my Facebook account and stop living. In fact, I should just quit everything and live like a hermit.

Or I could tell all the privilege-guilt-ridden people to do one. A cold shower is known to be effective against many kinds of frustrations and feigned moral merde. 

Some of you could use one. Really.

On turning 45

Been there, laments my soul
Done that, protests my body
Seen it all, declare my eyes
And yet their claims ring hollow;
For I lurch into another year
Admonishing my flailing faculties 
You're only halfway there
If you stop doing, you start dying
And you ain't seen nothing yet
And many t-shirts remain unsold

The Silly Season - Again

Sooo... here's what's going down. While people are taking sides in a conflict where one side fires thousands of rockets and doesn't hit a thing, knowing fully well that it is the retaliation that will receive eventual worldwide coverage, while D-lister celebrities line up to say something, anything, just to stay fashionable and relevant, while both right wingers and left wingers froth at the mouth in attempts to denounce each other, while politicians scurry around for the ethnic minority vote, not because of its volume, but for its perceived visibility, while strong champions of liberal thought, erroneously post links to sites they're getting their kicks off of, while the Union-funded campaign for the leader of the opposition pulls yet another gaff, making him sound like he meant the opposition against the Allies - (us mainly and this is funny because it's true), there's something far more serious afoot:

ISIS in on the rampage in Iraq & Syria, decapitating, crucifying, executing en-mass, marking minority (non-Muslim, non-Sunni) homes reminiscent of the way Nazis did ethnic and racial cleansing and, yes - extermination, killing far more people in a day than any other conflict we have ever known in modern times.

And what are most people in the West doing? They're listening to Russell Brand, talking about things he knows nothing about, not that Hannity knows any better anyway - so it's one Neanderthal against another really, and squinting at labels in supermarkets to ascertain the origin of the dates they're about to buy, to see if they're not kosher... Ironic doesn't even begin to describe it.

Well done you educated idiots of the first world. Well bloody done.

What You Mean

I sit here, surrounded by nowhere, and no one
By teeming but silent life; exactly where it needs to be
Smiling flowers, that know of their season on earth
Flamboyant butterflies, aware of their transient beauty
And fleeting moments of a warm English summer breeze 
This never does last.

Enveloped by silence; no traffic, no sirens, no words
And yet deafened by the raging thoughts in my head
The incessant beating of my heart; wanton, careless
I breathe you, feel you, conjure you, dream you
You say nothing, but somehow, I hear you still
This cannot last.

It's inexplicable, what you have come to mean to me
It's like the shade of the tree under which I write this
Like the ground under me; hard and uncomfortable
Like the seeds and bugs falling from it's branches into my lap
But yet there is a comfort I can't describe, or escape
This will not last.

This single blade of grass; I ponder its destiny
Of rain, sunshine, rain, and the mower's scythe
It's like me in many ways - it's also like you
Weathering the weather, keeping up appearances
Staying where we're sown, doing as we're told.
Does it have to last?

The rules will never change, or bend, or be accommodating
Our prisons are not forced on us; we build them ourselves
There's a bigger world I know, that you never would
There's a bigger world you know, that I never would
My way is better than your way, your way is better than mine
Neither is going to last.

I think about my grave often, and what I'll take with me

It won't be my accumulations, or favours I've earned
It won't be laments of those that need to be seen lamenting
It won't be the love I give; zero cost bears zero value
It'll be the love I get; my worth is not my own to ascertain
It's the only thing, that might last.

Lunch Break On A Park Bench

Begrudge me not, my moments of solitude
As I soothe my internal torment with whispers from nature
The sun rises, wisps of clouds dance across an azure sky
The breeze blows, over all that is good, all that is bad
All changes in the blink of an eye, relentless, unforgiving
And I cannot fathom why the frenzied pace is lost on me.

That you'd be there to share my melancholy
To hearten a spirit so weary of its cares
Just to be, to feel, to know, to revel
In the Heathrow skies riven with flight trails
Of people seeking solace in distant shores
While, we get it here, inside us, and around us.

Compassion Fatigue

This is reproduced (with permission, of course) in its entirety from a blog post by Louise Mensch, former Conservative MP for Corby. Louise is also on Twitter.



The night before the three Israeli teens were found dead, I had a particularly vivid nightmare. I have no doubt it was caused by seeing too many shots and videos of Isis barbarity; crucifixions, amputations, Muslim men lined up like cattle to be shot in a ditch by other Muslims.

I do not remember most of the dream, apart from the sequence that woke me up. Two children, around seven, were blindfolded and an ISIS terrorist was preparing to kill them. In my dream I screamed out for mercy, saying they were just children, and flung myself towards them and then I woke up, heart pounding, drenched in sweat.

Later in the same day, on Twitter, the UN posted a picture of a Syrian child reaching up for a hug. Assad and Putin are starving these children to death, operating mass torture factories. We didn’t act and now it’s too late. ISIS filled the gap left by Obama. And they spread. Evil against evil.

In Nigeria, Boko Haram kidnapped 90 more girls. These are Christian women who will be forced at gunpoint to pretend to convert to Islam, then raped for the rest of their lives to men to whom they are sold.

In the Sudan, Meriam Ibrahim, Christian, wife of one American and mother of two more, was released from Sudanese custody after the US embassy apologised – yes, apologised – for issuing her a visa. The Sudan is currently detaining her two American children and Obama is doing nothing.

When later that same day I heard the teenagers were found dead, I could not imagine the horror of their mothers, or fathom that Hamas – who at one stage wanted to be thought legitimate – would blatantly say nothing to admit guilt in kidnapping them and shooting them. How scared they must have been.

And my dream came back to me very vividly. How I had screamed out to the man begging him for mercy. I wanted to beg a sorrowing and vengeful Israel for mercy. Please, go after the killers but only them. Please, do not storm into the West Bank and engage in collective punishment. Because then somebody else’s boys might die. I said as much on Twitter and was immediately accused of being anti-Israeli, a typical European and an Arabist.

Israel went in and blew up the houses of the suspected kidnappers. These kidnappers have not been caught or tried, but their house was blown up. A child was injured. Another teen, Yusuf was his name – Joseph, in Western parlance, a Hebrew name – aged 18 was shot in the chest in a refugee camp in Jenin. IDF forces say he threw a grenade at them. Palestinians claim he was a passer by. One thing is for sure, neither the injured child nor the dead teen played any role in murdering the three Israeli boys. But they were the ones who were hurt. If Israel invades Gaza, civilians, probably young children too, will die. That is a fact.

But to say as much is to be anti-Israeli? No; no. And to say to the Muslim world, your silence is disgusting on ISIS, your funding of Syrian terror is disgusting; you fat bastards in your radical mosques in Bradford and elsewhere, radicalising English boys and sending them off to die while you sit at home doing sod all but get fat. Fatness is a part of it. Fatness, slovenliness, warmongering from testosterone free fuckers who would no more endanger themselves than go for a jog in the morning or get a real job. Is that Islamophobia? God no, no it is not. Who is killing more Muslims than anybody else? Is it Obama’s drones or Israeli rockets? No, it’s OTHER BLOODY MUSLIMS – ISIS are the biggest Islamophobes in the whole world.

And so when I say to Israel for the love of G-d, go after those who took your boys and no more, and am greeted by a cry of traitor, I feel like putting my head in my hands.

I think it’s time for some straight talk.

Israel, I don’t care if you are tired of the word ‘restraint’. You need to show some. Because you are losing the West. You have no idea how badly you are losing the west. Yes, Hamas are terrorists. Yes, subhuman pigs slaughtered the Fogel children, and Palestinians just as subhuman celebrated that. By all means, go after them. But if you cannot go in precisely, do not go in at all. When the IRA bombed London we did not strike Dublin. We went after individuals. Israel, I say to you with my hand on my heart; the Gaza rocket strikes have killed NO ISRAELIS. They don’t WORK. They are the weak efforts of losers. you need to understand that the West does not think it is proportionate to reply to NO DEATH with DEATH. Would I stand for rockets, would I stand for my children with PTSD because of constant rocket fire, no I would not. But my answer would be just as the earlier operations in #BringBackOurBoys – go in and capture Hamas leaders and politicians. Take the individuals. Jail them. They are terrorists. Try them. In a court. Do not reply to NO DEATH with DEATH. Hamas strikes do not kill Israelis but Israeli strikes do kill Palestinian civilians. And the rest of the world believes this imbalance is wrong.

‘Screw you, why the hell should you care what we think?” Well, you should care because with every settlement you build you are losing American public opinion. And that means that American Jews VOTE DEMOCRAT. And that means you get Barack Obama as your President and John Kerry as Secretary of State. That means you get Syria. And ISIS. That means you weaken Israel. Materially. In terms.

Israel is the victim of amazing hatred, the hatred that posts swastikas on Facebook pages to celebrate the death of those three kidnapped boys. And Israel was right – absolutely right – to build that giant wall. No Israeli buses or cafés have blown up since. The rockets do nor work. Israelis are safe.

But dearest Israel, you have no right to be in the settlements. Nobody thinks you have a right to be in the settlements. The 2012 film the Gatekeepers, featuring the last six heads of the Shin Bet, showed Israeli intelligence forces did not want the settlements. There will be no peace and no security until the settlements come down. You must dismantle the settlements unless you wish to live in this sick and deadly farce until the end of time.

And Palestine. You must stop your vicious attacks, your celebration of dead Israeli babies taken from their cots and decapitated, of the four year old Fogel boy who was reading his book in his bed when they slit his throat. You come across as inhuman, subhuman hate-mongers when you do that. You MUST RECOGNISE THE STATE OF ISRAEL and give up this right to return crap. The land belonged to the Jews before it belonged to you. It is theirs. They are not going anywhere. You should take the occupied territories and build on them and live in a two-state solution with peace.

And Muslims need to stop looking at Israel whose crimes are so few in comparison to those of Assad, of Putin, of ISIS, of Saddam – of the Saudi secret police who burned those girls alive for being improperly veiled. Jerusalem is the least of the enemies of the Ummah. The sick Iraqi cycle of Sunni in power, oppress Shia, Shia in power, oppress Sunni – Islam now is fighting as Christianity did in the 1500s, with all the accompanying tortures and burnings at the stake. They are crucifying other Muslims in Iraq. They are gassing Muslim children in Syria. They are stoning Muslim rape victims and lashing them. They are stoning mothers for adultery. They are hanging Iranian gay Muslim men. I know one thing, I know that Allah – that HaShem, that God – is fucking pissed off with the lot of us.

And here’s the thing. Feel free to ignore all this and write comments saying how awful I am and have no idea. But I will tell you something. The appetite of the ordinary Western voter to lift a finger – even to help in Syria as Muslim children starve – it has totally evaporated. The thought of Israel invading Gaza in some sick act of collective punishment leaves American and British voters cold. Nobody gives a flying fuck any more. The average Westerner is saying to themselves “these are a bunch of savages and who cares if they kill each other.” Iraq will get no help. Afghans will get none. Syrians will get none. We hear no cries of outrage from the Muslim world. We see no moves from Israel to move to a just peace and get out of territory that does not belong to Israel, the settlements. We see no willingness to compromise and nothing more than a bloody merry go round of torture and death by ass-hole adults who will throw children and families to the wind because they will never, ever back down.

And so we just don’t care.

And by “we” I mean almost all voters. Not me – I care, I care incredibly. I wanted targeted air strikes against Assad. Now instead we have ISIS crucifying Muslims and Syrian kids starving.

The Torah says, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord” – that means, it is mine to take; it is not yours to take. Te Qu’ran begins “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.” Say it and believe it. What is He? What is He? Is Allah the Merciful pleased as you shoot teenage boys in the head for being Jews, or Muslims in a ditch because they follow a different sect to you?

The Middle East is the cradle of civilization. If it carries on like this, it will also be its grave.

And you will all – Israelis, Palestinians, and Arabs and Persians – you will all be on your own.