Immigrants

I've been meaning to make some comments about the flood of immigrants into East London for a while but never got round to it - but i have some time now, so here goes.

When i was growing up, we used to have lots of whites living here. And for the most part i only have good memories of that time - particularly of the old fella who lived next door who would bring chocs and crisps for me and my brothers from time to time (this is when we were about 6 or 7).

As the years went by, more and more desis moved in.

Then from around 2000 onwards, East London started to become the home for thousands and thousands of immigrants. Many were were coming from then war-torn parts of Europe, in particular former Yugoslavia. I'm sure Londoners will remember the sudden appearance of the "Bosnian" women (don't know why, but they're always referred to as "Bosnian" even though lots were from Albania) who would be begging on trains with a couple of kids trailing in their wake, standing outside mosques, etc. around that time (though you don't see that as much these days).

They would come to the country and be given housing and benefits, and even back then, i remember some of the resentment that was building up amongst some of the whites. I remember talking to an ex-colleague of mine saying that she'd been waiting for a council flat for years, and then suddenly these asylum seekers turn up out of nowhere and are bumped to the top of the list and were receiving straight away what others had been waiting for for years.

The "white flight" to the suburbs of London, and to Essex was well under way when about 3 years ago there was another immigrant flood, and this time the immigrants were from Sri Lanka.

The last time i checked, the borough i live in was accommodating nearly 180,000 immigrants which was the highest in the country, and twice as much as the next borough with most immigrants.

I don't hold anything against immigrants specifically, but its plain obvious that these past few years, my borough has turned into a dump, and i think a large part of that is due to the immigrants.

I don't know whether its because they don't feel a sense of belonging here and therefore don't show any care for the area, but i've seen some shocking displays of uncleanliness and unhygienic behaviour from these people.

Up till the time i was a teenager, it was an absolute rarity to see someone urinating in the streets. In the past few years, i've seen immigrants urinating in broad daylight (we're talking around 5pm in the middle of summer) on a busy road. On another occasion there was another urinating at midday on a Saturday in view of our High Street.

Other times you see them walking down the road emptying their noses in the middle of the road. And i will never forget walking down my road and seeing some Tamil lean out of the window facing the road and blow his nose out. I thought "you dirty bastard - couldn't you go to your bathroom to do that!?" I mean, how could someone be so filthy? Is this how they behave back home in their own countries?

Now, there are also some great people amongst them. The family who run the local corner shop are hard working and they're pleasant to talk to, and i have no problem with them whatsoever. Perhaps i'll even invite them over for dinner one day. But the overall impression i have of these two immigrant communities the Tamils, and especially those from Eastern Europe is an overwhelmingly negative one.

Real Madrid 0 Arsenal 1

A little known fact

I bet you guys didn't know that if you travel on the London Underground and your journey is delayed by over 15 mins you're entitled to a refund for the single fare. What you need to do is pick up one of those Customer Charter forms you find next to the ticket machines and fill the claim form inside.

Mind you, i put in a claim for a refund back in the middle of December 2005 and i only received the cheque this past week!

--
We have some great news locally which is that Sh. Haitham al-Haddad is going to be giving regular circles in East Ham, London from this coming Tuesday onwards, insha'Allah. Even he can see that East London is where its all happening. So goodbye to you oh-so-posh brothers in W. London - even the shaikhs are moving down our way now :D

Harrassment

I was listening to the Nick Ferrari show on radio a day or two after the dreadful July bombings in London and they were talking about the surge in racist attacks since the bombings.

So one guy calls in and says "Hi Nick, I'm a Hindu, and when i was getting into my car this morning a white van man pulled up outside my house and yelled 'Go back home you f***ing Paki!' and i've been really scared ever since and don't know whether to leave my home now.'"

haha! :D

btw. You have to be paki to appreciate the humour here.

Swiftly moving on, and on a more religious note i've put a link up on the left called Ibraheem's creed which hosts lots and lots of lectures in English by our beloved brother, Sh. Salim al-Amry. He has a commentary on Kitab at-Tawheed, Bulugh al-Maram, 40 hadeeth on Islamic Personality, and more. And its all in English.

How to give shahadah in 10 minutes...

Alhumdulillah, I'm overjoyed to hear that Kamal el-Makki from the US is finally scheduled (insha'Allah) to come to the UK to do his popular course "How to get a shahadah in 10 minutes."

I've heard alot of good things about this course from the brothers in the US, and i'm really looking forward to attend it.



Just one other thing: Kamal has done an excellent series of lectures named "The Fitnah" which goes over the history of the turbulent time that started just before the assassination of Uthman radiAllahu anhu. Its a well delivered set especially in light of the precious little that is available on this part of our history in the English language. Its a 6 or 7 CD set and i am told that there will be copies available for purchase at the event, insha'Allah.

More info about the event is available [here]

Outbound Flight

Last weekend i read "Outbound Flight." This is the latest Star Wars offering from - i believe - the best author in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Timothy Zahn. His two main strengths are that he writes everybody in character and his stories contain numerous plots and subplots and great twists. This is in contrast to some of the recent contributors to the SW EU - especially those who came on board for the New Jedi Order series, who are completely rubbish, and who i think have just jumped on the SW bandwagon to make a quick buck off of the name. I used to have loads of the SW novels: about 60 in total, and then i completely became disenchanted by the contributions of the EU authors, sold half my collection and haven't been buying the books for about 3 years.


This particular book is great because it details the history of two of my fave EU characters, Jorus C'baoth and Grand Admiral Thrawn (check my avatar) between SW I and SW II. The Outbound Flight project is basically an attempt to journey to a new galaxy and establish new colonies, carrying 6 Jedi Masters and 12 Jedi aboard.

I feel a bit short-changed because despite the book being around 460 pages long, the font is large and there is almost double-line spacing, so it comes to an end quite soon.

Now you might be thinking, i never knew Kashif was a nerd. But you don't know what a nerd is until you visit the Jedi Council Forums where amongst other things you can find ten page discussions on the structure of the names of the Nine Ruling Families of the Chiss Ascendancy ;)

Why marry?

Sometimes i wonder about the commitment of this government towards creating a stable society whose nucleus is a strong family. I'm thinking of marriage specifically. I wonder if the average Brit would ever want to get married. The tax breaks for married couples don't exist any more, and particularly for men, the risk of financial ruin in the event of divorce is immense. Women will usually get custody of the children, and child support costs will present a huge obstacle to him if he ever wants to start a new family, or buy a house, etc. There has been a recent development here in the UK whereby, ex-wives of successful men lay claim to a portion of his future earnings too.

So if you're an average British man, the question is, would you take the *risk* of getting married?**

Its also not infrequent to hear of divorced "practising" sisters who will go to non-Muslim courts to keep custody of their children in those cases where the shari'a has given custody to the man.

** Obviously i'm not advocating the abandonment of marriage - because it is only through marriage that intimate relations should take place.

Prophet Muhammad cartoons

Just a few comments on the row over the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad alaihis-salaatu was-salaam. Some Europeans are defending the publication of the pictures under the guise of Freedom of Speech & Expression. Well, just ask David Irving about the extent of Freedom of Expression in Europe.

The list of European countries in which it is a crime to deny the holocaust is surprisingly long:

Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Israel
Lithuania
Poland
Slovakia
Switzerland

Now, regardless of how silly it is to deny the holocaust, to make it a crime to voice that opinion flies in the face of these claims that these countries have true freedom of expression.

The other defence put forward is that these cartoons are just humourous and that the Muslim world needs to chill and understand the meaning of satire. But even this defence doesn't sound strong given that definitions of satire indicate the intent behind it is to ridicule & insult

If editors of newspapers truly believe their oft-repeated claim that Islam is a peaceful religion whose good name is being hijacked by a few extremists, why depict the Prophet Muhammad - the founder of this peaceful religion - specifically as the one who with the bomb in the turban? And the one with a scimitar in his hand and a crazed expression on his face? Surely a more suitable candidate for such pictures would have been Bin Laden or Al-Zwahiri.

And one last thing is that alot of people are saying "we make fun of Christianity, Buddhism and other religions, so why can't we also make fun of Islam?" As a Muslim, i don't like to see any other religion ridiculed, whether Christianity, Judaism or other. Is the freedom to insult other people's faith just because you can something to be proud of?