I share values, do you share values?
Okay what about dear Saudi Arabia with whom we share all these ‘values’? What about all these ‘values’ that we share? Which ones are those then? People are asking.
As Gordon Brown faced mounting criticism yesterday over the state visit of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the Foreign Office minister Kim Howells called for Britain and the Saudi monarchy to work more closely together on a basis of “shared values”…The statement by Mr Howells drew an angry reaction from the Labour backbenches. “I am astounded that a government minister can identify shared values with a regime that is world-renowned for its abuse of human rights and civil liberties,” said John McDonnell, the left-wing MP co-ordinating protests at the Saudi embassy tomorrow.
Well there’s always money. And monarchy. Will those do?
Perhaps not.
A dossier on executions, prolonged detention of peaceful critics without trial, and discrimination against women was issued yesterday by Amnesty International who said that it was “extremely concerned” at the extent and severity of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. This year, at least 124 people have been executed, the majority by beheading, said the group.
Well how about ‘faith’ then? That’s a shared value, surely.
Material urging hatred of other religions can be found in mosques across Britain, most of it linked to Saudi Arabia, according to a new investigation…Researchers uncovered propaganda calling for homosexuals to be murdered, women to be subjugated and denouncing Jews and Christians as the enemies of Islam…Many publications urged British Muslims to segregate themselves from non-Muslims and for “unbelievers” to be regarded as second class. Most of the material is produced by agencies closely linked to the Saudi regime, according to the investigation. It included virulently anti-Semitic propaganda produced by the Saudi ministry of education. Some of the literature discovered espoused the creation of a separate state for Muslims, governed by sharia law.
McDonald’s? Starbucks? Oil? Sunshine? There must be something…
Noriega. Marcos. Suharto. Saddam. et al.
He may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard, until the situation changes and then we are shocked to find that he’s a bastard.
The BBC radio interview was a disgrace. They more or less openly accepted that only a sycophantic tone would be acceptable, and went with that. The fig leaf was that they were told that the harder questions would be answered ‘later’ by dips.
Not to mention the dear Shah of Iran, installed to replace Mossadeq by the dear CIA and dear BP and dear John Foster Dulles, thus leading us directly to the steaming purulent mess we’re in now. Lousy rotten stinking bastards.
Don I think you hit the nail on the head! the only shared value I can think of is that the Saudi,s buy lots of fancy new weapons and the U.K goverment is happy to sell them those weapons! (in the vain hope that the weapons will not be used against the Saudi people)
There is a petition to Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, with deference to Equal Action for Surjit & Banaz – which needs signing. See: B&W news for more details. It is along side the unenthusiastically distressing story of Soghra – “Sentenced to Death Again. Soghra, sent to work as a maid at age 9, spent 18 years in prison. Then things got bad.” In order to sign, it says one should be British, or a British citizen. Nonetheless, I defiantly signed, despite being neither.
As an aside, Irish citizens from 2009 onwards cannot travel to Great Britain without a passport. Things are really changing for the worse.
There should be a petition set up for Soghra. She has to date not even had a good chance of living, let alone having hanging over her the prospect of a death sentence. Why do people like her have to suffer so much in this life. She must envy those who have all the luck in this life. I know that when – as a child, I was incarcerated in Goldenbridge Gulag I envied all those who had loving families and secure homes. Even though I could not comprehend either, I had within a perception of what both meant.
Looking at pictures of the sion of the House of Saud, the value I share with him is a love of false beards. His is worse than Hatshepsut’s.