Its some Christian Aid thing about the water privitisation that all went badly wrong leaving people without water. Who would have guessed?
"I thought I'd ask you as you've been to some dangerous places," she told me.
Not strictly true. I mean I went to South London once and really it was quite scary, and then I guess I'd been to Israel and to Jordan more recently, but that was all five star hotels and lap of luxury stuff. No real sign of danger, although the Palestinian kid at Petra was pretty pushy, but that's about it.
A little later I'm watching the news and the al qaeda Islamofascists blew up three hotels in Amman killing 57 and wounding 117.
Those killed included the father of the bride and the father of the groom at a wedding party at the Radisson SAS hotel in central Amman, which in July I spent a couple of days and nights at drinking cocktails and lounging by the pool.
So I guess on reflection that would have shaken my cocktail.
4 comments:
I know this is rather a boring thing to say, but I'm beginning to get really pigged off with the term "Islamofascist". I realise that the alternative terms out there all have their failings, but to be honest Islamofascist strikes me as the worst of a bad bunch.
This is mainly just because the very sound of it grates with me, sticking the word "fascist" on the end of Islam strikes me as a very Rik-from-the-Young-Ones way of saying "Muslims we don't like", it's the worst kind of contravention of Godwin's law. But also because the term is so utterly inaccurate: fascism being a term used to describe an extreme nationalistic, corporatist ideology, and the whole "al Qaeda phenomenon" being explicitly anti-nation and anti-corporation.
Ah, let's debate "fascism"... for me fascism isn't about nationalism - it means the belief in a totalitarian, anti-democratic state that crushes desent, oppresses sections of the community (take your pick, according to the brand) and "makes the trains run on time". Whether it draws its authority from God, genetics, Catholicism or ancient Rome is neither here nor there.: it is essentially fascist.
I'm sure that's not the dictionary definition but that's how I understand it.
I'm going to agree with Nick on this definition of the word fascist.
It is the totalitarian, anti-democratic and oppressive nature that defines fascists. Whether that be Franco's Spain or Bin Laden's dream of blowing every motherfugger who does not bow down to his view of the world to kingdom come.
On the issue of statehood, though, it's worth considering that these Islamic terrorists if you prefer believe in a worldwide Islamic state - a Caliphate - and Bin Laden has stated that the only way to establish that Caliphate is by force.
But overall, I guess, if I'm honest I don't like the phrase much either. I guess I could revert back to plain old Islamic fundamentalist terrorist.
Yes, fascism is about totalitarianism, but it's also about more than that (OK, it's a dictionary definition, but I quite like dictionaries). But as I said, most of all I don't like the word itself, it's ugly and sounds playground-ish. I'm quite happy with Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorist too.
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