Profit
not Prophet
By
Dominic Horton
In
last week's edition of Lowlife I wrote about the
case of Raif Badawi, a blogger from Saudi Arabia who
was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, 1,000 lashes (50 at
a time over 20 weeks) and fined the equivalent of £175,000
for publishing dissenting comments against the repressive Saudi
state in his Free Saudi Liberals blog. The blog,
which was established to encourage debate, was shut down by the Saudi
authorities. Badawi received his first 50 lashes in public on
9th January but fortunately the Saudi authorities have twice
postponed the next round of lashes, originally citing that Badawi's
injuries were too bad and that he might not be able to withstand
another flogging at that time. But the decision to postpone the
floggings may have also have been made in the light of growing
international protests about the case.
 |
| Herp Albert, by request of Toby In-Tents |
The
Foreign Secretary discussed the Badawi case with the
Saudi Ambassador to Britain, Prince Mohammed Bin Nawaf Bin
Adbelaziz, last Thursday and a Foreign Office spokesman stated, “We
are seriously concerned by Raif Badawi’s case. The UK condemns the
use of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment in all circumstances.
The foreign secretary has raised the matter with the Saudi
ambassador, and we’ve previously raised the case at a senior level
with the Saudi authorities.”
So
I was horrified to learn that the Prime Minister David Cameron and
Prince Charles were flying to Saudi Arabia to pay their tributes to
the late King Adullah, who died on Friday. Further, the government
ordered flags on public buildings to be flown at half mast as a mark
of respect to the late Saudi King. Cameron's and the governments
reverential attitude towards the monarch is complete hipocrasy given
the Saudi's appalling record of abuses of free speech and women's
rights and Cameron and the Prince of Wales should be ashamed of
themselves; stating that attending the funeral and flying the flags
at half mast is “protocol” is no defence at all.
Ironically,
the officials at the Saudi Arabian embassy in London did not fly
their flag at half mast as they believe such an action to be an
insult to God and the Prophet Mohammed. It is an insult to the people
of this country and those that have suffered at the hands of the
Saudi regime that Cameron is flying to Saudi. The government's
attitude towards King Adullah's death is more to do with profit
not prophet - it is no co-incidence that Saudi Arabia
is the world's biggest oil exporting country.
 |
| A message to David Cameron |
Amnesty
International believe that the government is being “muzzled” over
the Raif Badawi case because of the country's commercial and defence
interests in Saudi. As the condemnation of the government's attitude
to the Saudi regime increased it was with incredulousness that I read
a story in The Guardian that the UK
Ministry of Justice (via a new commercial Arm, Just Solutions
International) has bid for a contract in Saudi Arabia and is looking
to profit from selling its know-how to the Saudi prison service, a
service that is reported to routinely infringe human rights.
Floggings, amputations and even public beheadings are common – the
Saudi's executed 87 people in 2014, most of them beheadings. The
Ministry of Justice's bid for the contract is beyond the the pale and
the ministry should spend more of it's time and resources campaigning
for the likes of Raif Badawi and for lasting reforms to the Saudi
justice system and human rights regime.
The
flags were most definitely at half mast this week at my Codger
Mansions home after my diminutive car, Helen, took a right
old bashing on Thursday while she was parked minding her own business
on the road outside my house on. I was all ready to leave the house
in the morning to attend my shared reading group when I heard a loud
bang on the road outside. I went out to investigate only to find that
Helen has been horribly assaulted and her driver's
side door had been battered and smashed. A neighbour backed his car
off his drive over the road but failed to see a vehicle that was
travelling down the hill, who hit the neighbour's car before
ricocheting into Helen and another car that was parked on the other
side of the road. Luckily none of the parties to the accident were
hurt.
A
similar incident happened a couple of years ago when there was heavy
snowfall and on that occasion there was no vehicle
parked outside the house so the car that lost control on the
difficult road surface ploughed into my front garden wall. The
driver and her passenger escaped unhurt and I was delighted
in the long run as I ended up with a new, sturdy wall to replace
the old one, which was in a crumbling state of disrepair,
not surprising as the my younger brother, the Codger
himself, had a hand in building the wall when he lived at the
property. A builder the Codger is not. The wall he built was hardly
like the walls of Jericho and it wouldn't have needed a legion of
trumpets to knock it down, Herp Albert could have done it on his own.
 |
Prince Mohammed Bin Nawaf, the Saudi Ambassador
to Britain, who looks like Paul Henry, who played Benny
in Crossroads
|
Once
the dust had settled over Helen's accident and I had made my
insurance claim and taped a plastic cover over Helen's broken window
I began to again see the accident as a beneficial thing as there has
long been a scuff down the driver's side wing and as a silver lining
I thought that this would be fixed as part of the repairs. But Pat
Debilder and Neddy Lachouffe (who works in the car trade) both p*ssed
on my chips in the Flagon & Gorses saying that they both feel
that given the damage to Helen that the insurance company will decide
to write the vehicle off and send me a cheque for what they think it
is worth. That of course will be a pain in the aris as I will then
need to buy a new car and I find buying a suitable pair of trousers
stressful enough let alone a new motor.
I
am not in the habit of discussing motor vehicles in the Flagon &
Gorses as it is a subject that bores me to tears but given the upset
of Helen's condition I popped up the pub on Thursday evening and told
the sorry tale to Dick the Hook, who was lingering about at a loose
end as his wife was in hospital having her knee replaced. We started
telling each other general motoring yarns and I mentioned that when
one of my old car's wing mirrors was smashed I taped a shaving mirror
on as a makeshift replacement. Dick said, “that's funny because I
have got a wing mirror in the bathroom that I use for shaving.”
If
there was a more equitable distribution of wealth then everyone could
afford to have mirrors that were originally intended to fulfill their
proper purpose but globally things are getting worse not better. The
Guardian reported last weekend that in 2009 the richest 1%
of the global population owned 44% of the wealth and this figure rose
to 48% in 2014 – on current trends it is predicted that by 2016 the
wealthiest 1% will own 50% of the world's wealth. By contrast in 2014
the least well off 80% owned just 5.5% of the wealth.
 |
| Paul Henry playing Benny in Crossroads |
The
richest 1% is constituted of just 80 individuals. What on earth do
they do with all of their wealth? They must get fed up of eating
Wagyu steak and drinking 1787 Chateau Lafite and slum
it occasionally with a pint of stout in the Waggon
followed by the Eastern delights of the Rhareli
Peking Chinese takeaway. Apparently the Wagyu cattle are
only given beer to drink as part of the traditional rearing process
to ensure the flavour and tenderness of the steak – given the
amount of beer he consumes the landlord of the Flagon & Gorses,
the Pirate, must be part of a bizarre cannibal cult and be preparing
himself to be served up as their Christmas dinner. I for one will not
be joining the cult in question.
The
news comes in the same week as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
reported that four out of ten families in Britain do not have a
sufficient income level to allow them to afford a basic standard of
living. The definition of basic living standards includes such things
as having a week's holiday in the UK or buying a second hand car if
the family includes children. Shockingly the definition does not
include going to the pub and having a pint. What kind of life would
it be if one could not nip up the boozer and tickle the tonsils
occasionally? A desperately miserable one of course. In addition to
lobbying about the case of Raif Badawi and the like I think Amnesty
International should campaign about the basic human right of having a
pint. We are suppose to be living in a civilised society after all.
©
Dominic Horton, January 2015.
Lowlife
is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall
Email:
lordhofr@gmail.com
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