Friday, February 24, 2012

My god! -That is purely an exclamation of horror – who in their right senses would want to live in a Muslim country, which explains I suppose why the non-Muslim countries of the world are inundated with immigrants from them? Here is the latest to emerge from one of these benighted lands: In Saudi Arabia Blogger Hamza Kashgari is currently facing possible execution for expressing his personal religious views on twitter. It is extremely unlikely that Kashgari will receive a fair trial in Saudi Arabia where religious scholars have already proclaimed him guilty of blasphemy and stated he should be sentenced to death. So for a couple of tweets a man is likely to lose his life and you wonder why I am so anti-religion. It strikes me also that sites like twitter and Facebook are a honey trap for the unwary. You can say something and, unless it is recorded or starts a series of Chinese whispers,” Do you know what so-and-so said?” that is usually the end of the matter, but once it is written down or broadcast for all and sundry to pick up they can make of it what they will. Kashgari has apologised for his little tweets and how many times have we seen someone of note apologising for something they have said? Russell Crowe springs immediately to mind with his remarks on circumcision and I really see no reason why he should have apologised. He is entitled to his opinion. And as far as Kashgari is concerned he is entitled to his. It is what is known as free speech.

Some more tittle-tattle re ‘The beautiful Game,’ some of it sad. Some of it just silly, starting off with how far can one be allowed to go as far as free speech is concerned? Police arrested a man at a football match for allegedly distributing a “racist” pamphlet. There you go; he had written down his opinions and suffered the consequences when being “racist” is considered by many to be a hideous crime worthy of a Saudi Arabian death sentence. Hopefully the police were none too gentle with him for airing his bigoted views and, quite right too; we know where racism got Germany in the thirties when Hitler and his mob were allowed to air their views. But that was on a massive national scale, what do you make of this? A man was arrested after an alleged racist gesture was made at the FA Cup tie between Liverpool and Manchester United and has been released on bail. The 58-year-old man from North Wales was arrested after the match. Officers had reviewed TV footage of the Anfield match after images were posted on Twitter (Twitter again!) of a man making an alleged racist gesture. How does one make a racist gesture? What does a racist gesture consist of? Could it be the man was merely scratching his arse when he developed an itch? The mind simply boggles. For once I wish I had Twitter so that I could see this racist gesture for myself. Saturday's FA Cup match was the first time the two teams had met since a racist incident between Manchester United's French defender Patrice Evra and Liverpool striker Luis Suarez during their league encounter last year. The incident led to Uruguayan Suarez being banned for eight games by the FA who found him guilty of making racist slurs against Evra.

Before the match during which the Welshman made his racist gesture the stadium announcer warned supporters that racist and homophobic behaviour would not be tolerated. Obviously apart from being a racist he was also stone deaf or just devil may care.

Earlier, police said 17 people had been ejected from the football ground during the match. They said two had been arrested for "low-level incidents". What are low level incidents and how come they weren’t on Twitter? Merseyside Police said the majority of fans however had been well-behaved. And on that hopeful note we will leave ‘The Beautiful Game.’

Well not quite, John Terry accused of an incidence of racism with Anton Ferdinand has been stripped of the England captaincy and barred from playing eight matches. He is due to strand trial in July over allegations of racial abuse. Black players within the England squad have also been putting pressure on the Professional Footballers' Association to take a stronger stance on Terry. This is believed to have also played a part in forcing the FA to act. Meanwhile the England manager, who still evidently can’t speak a word of English, is finishing up and scuttling back to Italy. It’s a weird old world.

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