The blog with no name

When I saw the video of Mohammed Sidique Khan, telling me I had been attacked because I supported this Government and it’s policies in the Middle East I shouted back at the TV ‘I didn’t’. I marched against the war, I voted against this Government after the invasion of Iraq. I fundamentally didn’t support it. And you know what, I can see why they are angry and so can thousands of others. The ‘them and us’ in this battle of wills needs to be between moderate peace loving citizens and the extremist violent ones. We need to embrace the majority of Muslims, tell them we are on their side, we understand their frustrations and fight the injustices together.

The above paragraph come from the blog Am I still me? by Holly who was on that Piccadilly Line train on that fateful 7th July 2005. The reason why I quote it here is because it says very clearly what I believe in too. But I'm not that articulate.
I think it should not be the Clash of Civilizations that some people (too many) want it to be. But if there is a battle on is between rationality and irrationality.
Any suicide bomber overflows with irrationality but so does George W Bush and whoever is doing nuclear testing in North Korea.

Unfortunately our politicians and most of the media don't help. I know that Jack Straw was not trying to impose anything on anyone really but what he said could easily be manipulated by all sides which it has been. The Sun managed to say that the veil is a threat. As an experienced politician he should have known better so my question is not so much about what he said but why he said it.

I'm tired of all those people that have suddenly become committed feminists and worry about how the veil simbolises male oppression, infringement of human rights and so on.
To be honest I'm for instance more concerned about women not being able to access education, that's oppression. (Accidentally I knew two Iraqi women who used to wear what I think is called a khimar but one had a degree from Oxford, the other was studying medicine at the Imperial College.) I think the most important thing is that oppression or not, change should always come from within, you don't impose values, yes, not even democracy, to people. If Muslim women feel oppressed they have to do what women in the western world did not so long ago (Swiss women have only been able to vote in 1971): fight against it. It is a long fight but it must be their own.
Invading Iraq has, for instance, worsen the situation for women in that country, while they had equality at least on paper under Saddam Hussein, now they have become second class citizens and their heads are getting covered again. And the more we meddle in the Middle East the more we silence those men and women that have been working to improve human rights in those countries. And then we feel threatened by a veil.

A bank that wins the Nobel prize. I remember hearing about this bank a few years back.

Mr Mjoes said Mr Yunus had shown himself to be a leader who had managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people.

He and the bank were being honoured "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below", Mr Mjoes said.

He said the bank's work in creating opportunities for large numbers of people to get out of poverty created the conditions for sustainable peace.

"Development such as this is useful in human rights and democracy," said Mr Mjoes.

BBC Article

It makes sense to me. I know that such schemes are common in other Asian countries and tend to loan money just to women as they are considered to be more responsible than men. They do not appear to be the perfect solution as in most cases the people that have loaned money can have an income that is barely enough to survive but it is still an improvement from the abject poverty they were living in before.