2007-07-06

This is good news

Surely, the car bombs in the UK were not good news.

What was, as obviously, was that through a mixture of luck, bomb-maker fumbling and police work, they didn't go off.

I think this is even better news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6275772.stm

It's been puzzling me for some time that every one says that "90-awholelot % of muslims living in (insert your country) are nice, quiet, law abiding citizens who do not agree with the riff-raff responsible for these abominable acts" - yet, the 90-odd percent are very quiet about it, unless you're lucky enough to witness one of them put in front of a television camera lens and confronted with the question by a journalist.

(To be fair, I have heard a few individuals give very solid statements to the fact that they certainly do not agree with the terrorism - but en bloc, not really.)

Which is why I salute these ads. Finally, large groups - note the plural! - publicly denounce these acts. And, even better, does so by quoting the Koran.

Go, Muslims United!

A side thought:

This comes to public knowledge through paid-for advertising. Shouldn't it be a front page story all by itself, one the newspapers were scrambling to get in exactly their newspaper, one they'd rejoyce in having written?

Is part of the problem that the press - maybe, sadly, rightly - believes that sensations sell best and that bad things are better sensations?

(OK, it's a pet topic of mine - IMHO, the press has to a rather large degree suppressed their responsability as "the 4th power" in favour of making money.)

Labels: , , ,