I taught this post was appropriate due to the recent heated discussions taking place as a result of the blog posted on this site entitled “a right to privacy or safety” which stated –
“The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) believe the Muslim community will be deliberately targeted. UK Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis has stipulated that no passenger will be targeted because of their “gender, age, race or ethnic origin.”
Call me racist if you want, but I would certainly feel more comfortable if passengers were targeted because of these precise reasons. Let’s call a spade, a spade. Everyone knows the group of people who pose the biggest risk. This isn’t a racist or discriminatory statement. It is a fact. I applaud the UK authorities for introducing this long overdue measure. I think security officers should be left do their job instead of being constrained from carrying out their duties for fear of causing offence.”
In this period of Middle Eastern conflict how can we get a balanced or unbiased viewpoint? The answer is, unfortunately, we can’t. Yet, we can at least attempt to listen to both sides of the story.
The two links I’ve attached lead you to the English version of al-jazeera while the other leads you to skynews' world news section. Notice the difference, especially in the reports detailing the US and British forthcoming attack on Helman province.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/2010291172480446.html
http://news.sky.com/skynews/World-News
The underlying point I’m getting to is that, in class yesterday the author of the “the right to privacy or safety” blog backed up his beliefs by referencing a list of “dangerous” countries compiled by the US government. However, this is only one side of the story, imagine if Afghanistan compiled a list of “dangerous” countries. I’m sure America would be at the top as a result of the amount of Afghani civilians killed by American forces. Would such a list lead to all American’s being subject to strict screening processes whenever they enter an airport? I think not.
I think the majority of our population are guilty of unintentional ignorance by simply ignoring stations such as al jazeera. And I therefore think they cannot make a fair, balanced or acceptable call on who are the most dangerous race, country or society in the world.
Craig.
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So I am a week late reading this, but it certainly is an interesting take on the race relations debate. My only professional criticism is that you have not drawn heavily enough from existing sources (other commentators / media) to back up your views with evidence. The links you mention are fine, but you need to embed them properly.
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