The Children of the Holocaust

The most famous child of the Holocaust is Anne Frank but around 1.2 million Jewish children died during this period. The children who were killed were Romani Gypsies, Polish, German children who were disabled and Jewish. These children were either killed when they arrived at the camps, killed immediately after birth, killed when they were born in the camps and those over the age of 12 were used for medical experiments. Other children died of starvation or from illnesses they caught from living in unhygienic conditions in the camps.

There is very little recorded of the children's experiences of the Holocaust but some have been reported and tell about how these children struggled from losing their families, having to move to strange places they had never lived in before and having to adapt to new cultures. The children who lived in hiding like Anne Frank had to do couldn't play with toys or move for hours on end because neighbours might have become suspicious. They lived in constant fear.

As a child myself, I know how hard it would have been for them to not be able to play with toys or to remain still. Jewish children had to adopt new religions to hide the fact that they were Jews. They couldn't make a single mistake by saying a word or making a movement that would have marked them out as Jews. Ethnic Cleansing still goes on around the world despite the Holocaust. We need the acceptance of diversity in our world.

Tunisia needs the Rule of Law

 In the words of the Tunisians themselves, a blogger there called Wled El Banlieue commented, "After 23 years of a single political voice in Tunisia, we're now discovering plurality. Let's learn democracy."

The Tunisian president, Ben Ali,  who was  in power since 1987 fled the country due to so much rioting. People hated him because he took away people's freedom of speech, movement and imposed a police state and he was very corrupt. It is astonishing how much Ben Ali himself and his family owned that should have belonged to the state.

This is why I think the rebuilding of Tunisia's economy and social fabric should be done according to  the principles of the Rule of Law.  The Rule of Law states that no one should be above the law. The Government needs to have only the authority that the public allows it to have. This is a golden opportunity for Tunisia to rebuild their society. Unemployment stands at 14%. The protest started when an umeployed graduate called Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself and died because he was making a living from selling fruit and vegetables on the streets and the police stopped him from doing so. He had no other way of getting an income and chose to kill himself instead. This was a drastic act of desperation which shows the huge gap that exists in Tunisia between the rich and the poor.

The Rule of Law is an excellent tool for equalising the gap between rich and poor in countries which are embracing democracy. There is always a danger if somebody is in power for too long like Ben Ali was.
I don’t think that somebody should be allowed to be a president for more that 8-10 years because then that person's power would become too much for them and they might think they are the equivalent to God and use their power wrongly. This happens in school when one person becomes very popular for a long time and then controls what everyone else does and wears.

In Memory of Christina Taylor Green Aged 9, Arizona

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/09/christina-taylor-green-symbolic-life
 
A beautiful 9 year old who was killed for no reason in Arizona on 8 January 2011 thereby ending her dream of going into politics to unite all the political parties in America.

O Lord, hear my prayer.

And let my cry come unto Thee.
May the Almighty and merciful Lord graciously hear us.
And may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.

Multiculturalism isn't just about food

Asian men in Derby have been arrested for drugging and exploiting young girls between the ages of twelve and eighteen years.The men would find their victims at train stations, council estates and even walking home from school. The men would be nice to their victims at first, they would do this by giving them expensive gifts and taking them out. This practice by Asian men in the North has been the subject of an investigation by The Times. What is worrying is the attitude of these Asian men towards White girls.

Sometimes, we have to appreciate that multiculturalism also includes bad things about people. When people say the word 'multicultural' I bet the first thing that comes to your mind is foreign foods. I am half Asian and people are always asking me whether I eat curry. Food seems to be the test of multiculturalism. However, it is not only food that immigrants have introduced into this country. They have brought in some wonderful Global aspects like their religion, clothing, ways of life and, on the bad side, prejudices.

If this country really does want to be multicultural we need to recognise the bad and the good. For example: I have seen English people wearing saris which is good because we are accepting an Indian tradition. The bad example is this story about the Asian men. Sometimes in this country we are too scared of saying some things for fear of being labelled as 'racists'. Keith Vaz MP has said that cultural sensitivites must not stand in the way of investigating why Asian men are preying on White girls.

Today Jack Straw has said that 'some Pakistani men see White girls as easy meat' and is being accused of stereotyping people. People like Jack Straw need to be listened to because the evidence in what he says is the trial of the 13 Asian men that has just finished and the realisation that this is a big social problem. Also, Jack Straw didn't say that ALL Pakistani men are bad. Let's make way for a good discussion which recognises social problems that are particular to some groups of people without labelling it as 'racist'.