Stand up and be Counted

On November 9th 2006 Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of this great land, asked Muslims to stand up and be counted in the fight against global terrorism. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I doubt me and her are on the same wavelength here. (Actually I doubt me and her would be on the same wavelength for anything- caravanning just ain’t my cup of tea, and don’t get me started on her hair and clothes. Is it some sort of prerequisite to becoming a politician you must not be able to look good? But that’s not the point here.) She was probably talking about those misguided “Muslims” (and those quotes aren’t typos). And whilst of course what they do and believe is to be completely condemned and totally abhorred by any sane person, anyone taking any innocent life is, global terrorism in my mind includes those heads of states that think its fine walking into a sovereign land because they feel like it- Blair, Bush, Putin this means you- and those that devise their plans- Wolfowitz, Cheney etc. Bush has cost more innocent lives in this world then any terrorist in history has and continues to do so.
But when dear old Margaret tells us to stand up and be counted what exactly does she expect us to do? The Press aren’t going to want to express normal people’s views because let’s face it, it won’t sell papers. Maybe she means by voting, but I don’t think so, cos which one of us would vote for her? Also, in school, we learnt Britain is effectively an elective dictatorship. We have elections every 4-5 years but then nothing. Hence if the government does something we don’t like between then, we the common person are virtually powerless. I know that, she knows that. Which bring me to this blog.
Me and a coupla friends were talkin about this, askin what we could actually do, when one of us had the brainwave of starting a blog. Now we ain’t going to be as arrogant and say we stand for the common Muslim, because well, what is the common Muslim? No we’re just going to express our views and if people agree, s’all good. (I speak like many are actually going to visit here.) It’s a shame this is the only place where we’ll actually get heard, rather than Margaret and her team finding us a better soapbox. We’re going to try to stand up to be counted on all issues (whilst sitting and typing- achievement I know!). Let’s hope somebody out there is doing the counting.