1930s Germany or 21C Britain?

Wootton Bassett is a small town near RAF Lyneham through which the bodies of soldiers killed overseas are driven on their way to the morgue at Oxford. It is now becoming a centre for ‘grief tourism’ in the UK but not only for loyal and partiotic Brits. An organisation called Islam4UK now plans to march through Wootton Bassett apparently to protest UK involvement in wars against Islam. If you are on Facebook, you can see the furore as it unravels – if you thought that the only nutjobs were on the Islamic side of the fence – think again…

There are a bunch of issues arising from this proposed march and the reaction to it. First and foremost, the outpouring of anti-immigrant emotion from opponents to the march can only serve to further any extremist cause as ‘a clear indication of the racist nature of white Britons’ – that’s how it will be portrayed anyway when 700,000 people join what can be easily portrayed as an anti-Islamic FB page. I think that if I was Facebook, I would just kill the whole page and be done with it. So far as the march is concerned, perhaps UK authorities SHOULD let it proceed: very possibly no one will turn up anyway and it will be a non-event; if rowdies on either side do turn up they should be treated equally by the law just as are hooligans from opposing footy teams – because that’s all they are…

On the moral outrage front, Neptunus Lex has an article on Iran’s response to the killing of Neda Soltan. It’s disgusting but a great example of taking the truth i.e. what really happened, and totally twisting it to suit your own purposes. Once again, we choose to take a back foot in the information battle…