Hello!
I've been meaning to write another blog for a while, but I haven't really got around to it... and then today I saw that I last blogged over a month ago, and that was about something fairly minor, so I thought I really should do it now.
Richard O'Dwyer still hasn't been extradited, and I'm beginning to wonder whether it will actually happen. At the moment, my hopes are pinned on the theory that everyone has more important things to worry about than some guy who made a website, and this case will just fizzle out. This would obviously be a victory in many ways - it would be far better if our Government actually showed some backbone and said no, but as far as Richard is concerned, if he isn't extradited it will be far better for everyone, regardless of the way that it happens. After all, Gary McKinnon happened back in 2008, and he hasn't been extradited yet. I may be proved wrong, but I very much doubt it will happen in practice.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for 65-year-old businessman Christopher Tappin, who has already been extradited on charges of providing arms to the Iraqis. Apparently the arms he was providing to Iran were actually batteries that supposedly could possibly be used in missile systems. He also did not export them to Iran, but to the Netherlands, from where they could possibly have been re-exported to Iran. (I confess that I actually obtained this information from something that somebody said on a Facebook comment so it may not be completely accurate - but I think that it is likely to be, as in my experience Facebook comments are often a lot more accurate than widely sourced media sources.) Anyway, he's being held in some American jail somewhere, and our Government are doing jack all for him. I think he should just have refused to go. If I was in his position, I would chain myself to the railings outside my house, and when they came for me I would stand calmly and say, 'I have made my decision, and my decision is no. I will not be coming with you today.' (That is actually a cool line from a 2006 episode of Doctor Who, but it sums up what I would want to say.) Some people would gasp at this and be like, 'But the international Governments require you to go! Whether you agree with them or not you have to go along with them!' Yes, that's all very well and good, but if you stop and think about it - I am a human, and the Governments are comprised of humans, and the only power that they have over me has been given to them by other humans. Therefore, they actually are not any better than me, and they have no power that they have not just given themselves. I firmly believe that everyone else in the world is my equal, and that is why, as I have said in my title, no one can take away my freedom.
There is one more thing I want to discuss here, and that is the UK's stance on making us more British and giving us a more British identity. What on earth does that even mean? I am British, and I would not be any more British if the Government decided that everyone had to look, dress and talk the same as everyone else. I think that the Government are distracting people from the real issues like the NHS by ironing out problems that are not really there. I'm lucky enough to have been to a really multicultural secondary school which contained students and teachers from every background, and I am so happy to have had that experience. It made me realise that being British can in fact be summed up in a sentence, and that sentence goes as follows: We can be proud to be British because we are open-minded enough to have allowed our culture to integrate itself with lots of different cultures, and we have become a really fair and balanced society because of it. There is one thing that I agree on, and that is that not enough of our immigrants are fluent in the English language, but there are two immediate counter-arguments to that:
a) If that is such a problem (and it is), we should be encouraging courses on English as a second language, not cutting the funding for said courses.
b) Lots of British people who go to live abroad never bother to learn the language, so that is very hypocritical.
My person to love, respect and admire this time is the poet Benjamin Zephaniah. I confess to not actually having read very many of his poems, but I have always thought that from what I know of him he is a really fantastic guy, and I saw him on TV recently saying the things that I have just said about this 'British identity' rubbish, and the way he made his points was one of the main things that aspired me to write this blog.
I have recently thought of a few more things I would like to blog about, so it hopefully won't be too long until the next one.
Cheerio, everybody!
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