Individualism, And The Dog (Satire)

Individualism,and The Dog

The liberality of the American public in bestowing pecuniary favours on the animals in a Kabul zoo betrays the preference for animals over humans in western civilisation. This satire takes a look at the western obsession with animals. 

Excerpt:

"Now for the political reason, and this is closely tied to the historical. Animals, we have noted, are all of a piece, and so are birds: a myna is a myna is a myna. Association with the dog began just before the imperial expansions – before the ‘discovery’ and destruction of the ‘Red’ Indians, for instance. By identifying with a lesser creature – the dog – the European was able to assuage his guilt at the torment of an equal – the human being in North America or Africa. By being kind to the former, he could be savage with the latter. Notice the case of the Afghans: people are individuals, and that’s a fact that Americans did not wish to take into account. Animals are uniform: they are the same in every hemisphere. Marjan could equally have been an American lion. Not so the Afghan – heaven forbid! She is Muslim, veiled, says her prayers five times a day, wears her hair long, and has never seen the inside of a Wal-Mart store."

Irene Z Khan joins Daily Star to be with mother

Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper - SriLanka/Bangladesh



Irene Z Khan joined the Daily Star to be with her mother who lives in Bangladesh. That's a laudable motive, but she could have just said that instead of pretending to be honoured by joining a third-rate newspaper in a third-world country which nobody can name.

After chief of AI, this must be quite a comedown for the lady: surely she could have landed a better gig?

I supposed years of dissembling at AI has grown into second nature: say what sounds good, never the truth.

Amnesty International - sometimes - opposes the death penalty

Amnesty International urged Bangladesh not to execute five former army officers who have been sentenced to death for the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

"However, bringing people to justice must not itself violate the human rights of the accused,” it said in a statement issued here and urged President Zillur Rahman to commute the death sentences “as a matter of urgency”.

It also asked Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Mujib’s elder daughter, to request the president to commute the sentences.


Bangladesh Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the appeals of the five jailed convicts, upholding a previous High Court order awarding death sentences to twelve former army officers.


“Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner,” the statement said.

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=327712&version=1&template_id=44&parent_id=24

Really?

So why didn't Amnesty urge the government not to hang the jihadis? Why doesn't Amnesty International urge the government not to torture jihadis?

Where jihadis are concerned, anything goes - murder, hanging, torture....

What a hypocrite!

Of course, the government flatly refused Amnesty's request: after all, a family vendetta is a family vendetta.


http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=327975&version=1&template_id=44&parent_id=24

The Basenji dogs of Bangladesh

The Basenji dog never barks; Amnesty International sometime does: sometimes it's just a Basenji.


And this was one of the occasions.


A bomb maker of an Islamist group, Boma Mizan, was arrested by security forces, on 14th May after a four-hour struggle.


He gave the signal to his wife, Sharmin, and the lady immediately set off explosives to try and blow up herself and her children. She succeeded only in blowing off her right wrist and wounding her two children, one two years old, the other a baby.


Why did she do that?


Naturally, she didn't want to be raped and tortured for information, as, without doubt, she will be. And with her gone, who would look after her children? It seemed the rational thing to do.


But where were the Basenji dogs of the west: Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the assorted chorus of our conscience?


Nowhere to be heard.


When jihadis are arrested, there is never any call from the Basenjis to follow due process, avoid the use of torture, the need for transparency….


Yet Human Rights Watch has been snapping like a Russian Samoyed over the arrest of BDR soldiers implicated in the murder and rape of army officers and their wives.


Double standards? Perish the thought: they just lose their voices from over-barking at times.