US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has met [mostly desi] Muslim leaders in north-west England in a trip during which protesters expressed anger that an architect of the Iraq war was on their home turf… Dr Rice had been due to visit a mosque in Blackburn until its governors withdrew their invitation out of fear the occasion would be hijacked by demonstrators…
Cartoons lampooned the visit with The Independent carrying one showing a sign at a Blackburn Indian restaurant: “We regret we do not serve Rice.” [Link]
why are you all so angry?
i see skies bwue…
I’ve got the REAL story right here! This should clear up all the misperceptions….
http://www.unconfirmedsources.com/?itemid=1606
on another note, where can i read more about this?
Given the generally poor performance of Muslim students in the UK, the high-rate of Muslim cousin marriage leading to higher rates of birth defects, their higher rates of incarceration –
Surely, the above reference to cousin marriage and hence the illegitimacy of the cousin loving protestors was made in jest.
KXB:
Didn’t you more or less say their opinions are worthless?
@52 chakman,
never knew rice and straw were cousins :).
KXB,
Agreed, and this is a point I’ve made myself numerous times here on SM.
However, I don’t see what any of this has to do with the protesters in Blackburn. They weren’t violent and don’t necessarily have anything do with British-based jihadis or more extreme groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir or Al-Gharaaba.
These people were not necessarily affiliated in any way to those groups who protested against the Mohammad cartoons in London a few months ago and who were demanding — some would say threatening — violent retribution.
Something that KXB appears to not be factoring into the eqution is the fact that the US and the UK are very close political and military allies, and that one of the major reasons why the UK became involved in the Iraq war was due to the alliance with the United States. So I would say that, if British citizens disagree with certain decisions by the American government, then in this particular case they would be totally justified in voicing their political opinions when faced with an American foreign official who is perceived to espouse the aforementioned political/military decisions.
It’s not the removal of Saddam Hussein they object to, but the fact that they regard the original justification of the war as being under false premises, along with the continued occupation of Iraq which they feel is now unwarranted, plus the high number of Iraqi civilian casualties and the various abuses that have taken place.
Jai (and to anyone living in GB),
A little offtopic,
1) How many Iraqis live in Britain ? 2) What is their attitude about the present situation?
Regards
Gaurav,
I have no idea about the exact numbers; there is a small minority here, but not very many, certainly compared to the South Asian population in the UK.
It’s probably going to vary according to the individual and how they (and their parents, in the case of 2nd-Generation British Iraqis) felt about Saddam Hussein when they decided to migrate here.
Blackburn is 250 miles away from London
This usage is synecdoche.