Unflagging Interest

Updating a previous post, the Right Wing Death Bogan is having a fascinating mail conversation with Chris Doyle over what he said. It's worth reading in full, soundbytes and selected quotes in papers hardly ever tell the complete story :

As for all the other atrocities, in Bali and the like, these people are extremist Jihadis, One cannot hold the entirety of over 1 billion Muslims responsible for all their actions. Just because these things happen does not mean that we should not be maintaining our values. One of the main aims of these groups is to drag us into the gutter with them, to abandon legal and human rights standards, to abandon our democratic systems. Our greatest strength must be to remain countries where justice and fairness prevails.

Many changes are desirable in the Arab/Islamic world and other areas and indeed here. But we should not hold off changes on the basis that they are not happening elsewhere. We should lead by example, showing respect and understanding. Then we can take the moral high ground...

Of course there are far more serious examples of this than this story which is relatively insignificant in the scheme of things.
Chris Doyle
Director

CAABU (Council for Arab-British Understanding)

I'm not saying I agree with him, in fact, I have some serious differences of opinion. But I am saying that the story isn't as simple and clear-cut as it sounded.

One of the best things about blogs and blogging is that even a fulltime mother in Australia can do the deep research on a matter in England. And engage in "constructive dialogue" that for once isn't just a cliche, it really is constructive, and a true dialogue. This one's worth more attention than it's getting.