Getting Started!

I've started this blog to see if I couldn't do something different from the typical travel blogs by my fellow US ex-pats that are out there. Thought I'd kick things off with some photos I took of a protest in front of the Ministry of Defense in Westminster the afternoon of March 21, 2011. The demonstrators were protesting the NATO bombings of Libya. While I agree with the broad sentiment, I have a problem with the way the message was being delivered by the speakers on hand. There were two groups speaking at the same time. One was a more "Western" group and the other was a fundamentalist, Islamic group. The fundamentalist had an imam speaking, who kept repeating that David Cameron was out to kill all muslims. This of course ignores that the NATO bombing is in support of muslims fighting against another group of muslims. Not very effective. The more "Western"/secular group argued that the bombing was killing innocents and was a heavy handed response and that it was not the "West's" place to intervene. This is a slightly better argument, but it ignores the fact that the Libyan rebels happily accepted NATO intervention. In fact, they have complained about it not being enough! So the point was that Qadaffi is vile and should go but nobody should help get rid of him? Not a great point and one that does not easily translate in a noisy demonstration on a busy London street.

There were also currents of anti-colonialism sentiments. This is more on the mark but the extremist rhetoric without a rational argument backing it up just causes the message to be easily ignored as "crazy talk".

(Case in Point)

This protestor is typical of the message the fundamentalist were trying to deliver. It is a wronge, emotional, knee jerk reaction to the events in Libya. NATO's intervention is about securing Libyan oil for the West and keeping it out of the hands of a maniac like Qaddafyi, a fundamentalist Islamic government or a government that actually has the best interest of the Libyan people at the front of its agenda.

It's easy math. The Allies support the rebels. The rebels defeat Qaddafyi. The rebels are indebted to The Allies. To pay back this debt and guarantee that their new government continues to have NATO's military backing, they cut The Allies sweet, sweet oil deals. It's a form of economic colonialism. Very simple. It has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with economics.

So, it was an interesting event, but ultimately the protestors failed with their messages, which were convoluted and too full of anti-Western venom to make a positive impact on the good people of London, especially the good people working in the Ministry of Defense and the nearby Parliament.