Well as the song goes – what can I say dear after I say I am sorry. I think it is a song – if not I stand corrected. It is indeed a song – I was right! A depressing one, unfortunately. I shall include some of the lyrics, but not all. We are going back of the real world – for this entire blog.
You made me glad, I made you sad
I made you lonesome and blue
And who ever knew
Who’d ever think that I would be crying to you
What can I say, dear, after I say I’m sorry?
What can I do to prove it to you, I’m sorry?
I didn’t mean to ever be mean to you
There seems to be no solution to that dilemma, nor to those facing us in our times. This blog attempts to avoid world affairs because, to be frank, it is too depressing. Moreover I am losing any sense of entitlement and grandiosity – there is no way Alexis McBride can change the world. So why bother with it all. I was drawn into worldly matters by an email sent by Computer Guru Chris’ elation over UK election results. He has an excuse, he lives there. Decided I would look into the situation. I turned to Al Jazeera, knowing I could rely on their Opinion section. They have hired the best, allowing them freedom to express their point of view. I am proud to say this, it came as a surprise to see that Qatar is included in my top 14 countries. The Father Emir of Qatar is the understandably proud creator of Al Jazeera , and Qatar did not back down during the blockade. One condition imposed by Saudi Arabia (and other countries) was that they relinquish their online news source. No said Qatar, we shall not give up our sovereignty. They did not and Qatar Air flourished. Qatar won – no doubt about that.
Anyway, back to my statistics. Qatar is ranked number 10 – a few days above 35 viewers making 52 visits. I actually was surprised because I did have close Qatar contacts but that was about four years ago and they disappeared. While residing at the Medina Oberio Hotel (September 27-December 23) I did meet the occasional pilgrim, but it was very rare. Oops – off topic again. I barely was on topic when I went off topic.
The topic of the day is the landslide victory of the Labour Party in the UK. The July 5, 2024 edition brought an excellent article written by Saista Aziz. She is pictured wearing a hijab. It is a considered, well informed, rich in history and detail. This is how it began.
“It is the morning after the night before, and the United Kingdom has a new government. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has won the general election in a landslide, securing nearly as many seats and as massive a majority as Tony Blair did with his “New Labour” in 1997. However, Starmer’s Labour finally gaining power after 14 years of long and overwhelmingly catastrophic Tory rule is not the full story here. As ever, the small print maters and requires close examination.”
I read on, eager to see the small print.
“It is described as being a Tory wipeout. It seems, Labour owes much of its landslide victory not to the electorate’s embrace of Starmerism, but its complete rejection of the Tories.”
Soon the small print emerges.
“Despite this broken system, however, voters still sent a clear message to Labour by electing independents. In this election, Starmer’s Labour has lost a number of former strongholds to independent candidates campaigning on pro-Palestinian platforms, demanding an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the decades long occupation of Palestine. In five constituencies, voters disturbed by Starmer’s pro-Israel position on the war on Gaza, elected candidates campaigning primarily on this issue. Deposed former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, for example, comfortably won in his North Islington constituency as a pro-Palestinian independent.”
Azis seeks of a short-sighted analysis, those in the mainstream media simply saying it is a a rejection of Starmer’s Gaza policy in “Muslim majority” areas. Azia quickly defeats this superficial analysis brilliantly.
This, however, is a shortsighted analysis that implies only Muslims care about genocide. Further, it feeds into tropes about British Muslims’ alleged split loyalties, whipping up Islamophobia. The truth, of course, is simple. Many Britons, Muslim or not, want the killing to end and justice to prevail in Palestine. Moreover, they want their representatives to have the moral integrity to speak against genocide and other blatant violations of international law, even when these violations are committed by a state that is considered a key strategic ally of the UK. Moreover, many Britons acknowledge the UK’s historic complicity in the violent dispossession of Palestinians from their land, and want their government to assume a principled position on the issue to make up for past mistakes. This is why Labour’s position on Gaza led so many voters to turn their back on the party.’
This article began with verve, went on with vigor and ends with vitality.
“Fourteen years of Tory rule took a lot from British people. Our lives are now much harder. Many of us are much poorer. All our public services are on their knees. Further, as the success of the pro-Palestine independents have shown, many of us are distraught to have witnessed our government support a genocidal war against a people living under occupation, whose fate the colonial Britain helped seal.”
Aziz tells Stammer what he needs to hear.
“ He will need to show us all that he has understood the clear message the electorate has delivered, “We reject the Tories, but this does not mean we embrace your Labour Party unconditionally”
She makes it clear that the battle is not over, it has only just begun. .
“The pro-Palestine left made a significant impact on this election. But the fight is far from over. Now that the Tories are out, and Labour is in power, this non-homogenous group needs to unite further, and develop new strategies to pressure the new government to take meaningful action on issues that matter to them, starting with the war on Gaza.
“This election has shown that the days of the two-party duopoly in the UK are over. With more and more people deciding who they will vote for based on their values rather than their loyalty to a party, there is an important opportunity for the Left to increase its impact.”
The Opinion section also featured an article written by Donald Earl Collins, a Professorial Lecturer at American University in Washington, DC. He is pictured, he is black. Aziz spoke of the two-party duopoly in the UK. Collins spoke of the frightening aspects of the two-party duopoly in the USA accurately reporting that there is no such thing as choice facing the USA electorate.
“The past few months of student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, and the way they were suppressed by the authorities and maligned as “violent” and terror-adjacent even by supposedly left-leaning, progressive political leaders exposed an important truth: the United States is in desperate need of a viable, left-to-centre-left third party committed to democracy. Collin’s language strongly condemns the wretched state of US affairs.
“It’s not just the Republicans and their open embrace of fascism that is the problem any more. The response of President Joe Biden and other leading Democrats to the student protests made clear that these days even the party supposedly representing the left in America is leaning right, and has an obvious anti-democratic bent.And its approach to the war in Gaza and protests against it in the US is just one issue among many that underscores the Democratic Party’s massive leap towards the right”
Collin goes on to list other major issues showing the “Democratic Party’s massive leap toward the right” .
“Take reproductive rights. President Donald Trump’s appointment of three anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court may be the immediate cause of the Dobbs decision (2022) that overturned Roe v Wade (1973). Yet it was the failure of Democratic majorities in Congress under Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama to codify reproductive rights in the 1970s, 90s, and 2000s that paved the way for the eventual dissolution of women’s reproductive rights in this country.”
Collins speaks, with limited optimism about the left, growing and becoming more vocal.
“There has always been a left, albeit fractured, in the US and it seems that constituency is growing and becoming more vocal. From the so-called “war on terror” to the Great Recession and the emergence of Trumpism, the last couple of decades of crises have radicalised many Americans and pushed a considerable number of them to assume solidly left-wing and even far-left stances. Leave it to a pandemic, economic recessions, the mainstreaming of the far right, and the ever-present threat of mass shootings and domestic terrorism to move a sizeable minority to see American society as one in need of a radical, social justice-oriented shift.”
It is however, as Collins points out an uphill battle for the left-wing Americans.
“If these left-wing Americans – folks who unapologetically advocate for universal healthcare, universal basic income, prison and police abolition, against American-backed wars and for an aggressive climate change agenda – are to form a party that is electorally viable, they need to make some hard choices and major sacrifices.”
He provides some guidance to those left wingers. If any of you are reading this blog go online and retrieve the assistance you so desperately need. One of you might be reading this blog. After all the USA has more readers of the esteemed blog than any other country in this world. As far as I know they have access to Al Jazeera. Collins ends strongly – read on, particularly the last sentence.
“Under the two-party system, this November Americans will be forced to make a choice between allowing the US to become a right-wing semi-fascist hell hole under Trump and his MAGA Republicans, or re-electing Biden and trying their chances with a smooth-talking but hypocritical, and at its core perhaps equally right-wing, administration. Under these circumstances, building a viable third party is necessary work. The alternative is a status quo that will ultimately sound the death knell for America’s long-struggling democracy”
In another Opinion article he describes the naivety of young American students, their ignorance of the harm caused by the USA over the years.
“In my many years of teaching history, my own students have often gotten into it with me over my supposition that “Western civilisation” is a contradictory term.”
That does say it all. Western civilization is a contradictory term.
Back to my statistics coupled with an interesting fact. It is impossible to access Al Jazeera
From Bahrain. Makes no sense at all – there is a causeway that connects the two of them. The Middle East is a very strange place as will slowly be revealed on this blog. Bahrain is #8 in my top fourteen. Statistics showed 52 viewers, making 345 views. That is an amazing ratio – the highest. Those 52 Bahraini keep going back and reading me again, and again, and again. Hmmmm. Visited there recently, It was the last stop before Malaysia and was visited on December 23 – transitioning me from Medina to Kohbar.
There will be more amateur analysis of my statistics in following blogs. If you do not want to read it, don’t. See if I care. For one thing, I will not know. Hahaha
It is time for some hope and here it is. I awoke to the most amazing sunrise one could ever imagine. I sent it off to some WhatsApp folk. Received one response.
He: Subhan Allah.
I was at first confused as to its meaning. Its English translation: Glory be to Allah. Allah is free of imperfection and above all wrongdoing. “Say Allah when admiring the wonders of birth of a child, a waterfall or the wonder of the natural world.
It was the absolutely perfect response! To those that did not respond at all, goodbye. No more messages from me. To those that responded in a tardy fashion no more messages from me. In both instances it speaks of their worship of Allah (SWT). Allah is to be number one, not me but our Creator.



