Thursday 9 July 2009

Selective outrage

What looks like half the population of Cairo appear to be out on the streets protesting against Germany and demanding retribution on account of the general German failure to react with sufficient outrage when a Russian man stabbed an Egyptian woman by the name of Marwa al-Sherbini to death in court after she had successfully sued him for insulting her. The Russian, named by the German media as Alex W who had previously been fined for calling her a "terrorist" for wearing the Islamic hijab, and was in court to appeal against his conviction, Hence, unsurprisingly, Ms. al-Sheberini has been dubbed "the Hijab martyr" (Notice a pattern here?)

Oddly enough I couldn’t have been paying attention when Egypt was reacting with outrage and horror after all those German, and other European tourists were attacked, killed, injured and abducted in Egypt.

Apparently Angela Merkle is expected to make a groveling apology to the wider Muslim world not withstanding. However, that seems that groveling apologies have become a European tradition, whether warranted or not.

There is a ripe Anglo Saxon phrase I could use here, but I shall restrain the instinct and limit myself to suggesting that, as in most of these things, regrettable as Marwa's death may have been, the amount of hypocrisy and play acting involved is truly farcical.

4 comments:

mark said...

I seem to recall Gordon Brown apologising to India after Jade Goody misused the word poppadom on Big Brother.

Dr.D said...

Apologies are big stuff these days. Frankly, I think insincere apologies are a dime a dozen, but they seem to be much in demand.

I think national governments should print up batches with blanks to fill in the specific details for each situation. Then they can be mailed off quickly as needed. No need to make a big deal out of them. Just have some clerk fill in the blanks, put a stamp on it, and send it off. All neat and one, and every body is happy again.

misterfox said...

I'm waiting for the disgusting Lord Carrington to apologise for handing Zimbabwe to Mugabe.

Anonymous said...

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Lilliput