Thursday 18 June 2009

Busy and bewildered

I know I haven't posted for a while - life continues to be somewhat HECTIC. I hope to get time to write about some interesting 'cross-cultural' experiences and about some recent English-Desi reading. But whooa...never mind that, the stories in my last post have taken off and how.

On 8 June I woke up to news which left me bewildered and feeling the opposite of the elation I felt almost exactly six months ago one morning (Obama's election). The European elections on 5 June had resulted in the north of England returning 2 fascist MEPs, including the leader of that odious party which would have me and my children 'repatriated' and which would constrain rights according to 'race' (how can they be a legal party?). It was ironic that nearly 1 million British people who has just commemorated the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II had now voted in these xenophobic thugs.

A blip maybe. After all, in the EU elections' alternative voting system, that party only won seats due to achieving a larger share percentage of the vote, rather than significantly increasing its actual votes. But then this week I read the depressing story of about 100 Romanian residents in Belfast, Northern Ireland, being hounded out of their houses by mobs including some chanting nazi slogans and giving nazi salutes. The residents included a pregnant woman, children and babies. What is going on? A good attempt is being made over Pickled Politics at picking apart the manifesto of the BNP, with a list of practical questions posed to them.

And I haven't even had a chance to write about the election next Monday of Speaker of the House, following the resignation of Michael Martin. One of the candidates is one Parmjit Dhanda, Labour MP for Gloucester since being elected in 2001....

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