MEP Elections And All That

Well, interesting stuff.

I literally only found out there'd been elections yesterday, through friends updating their FaceBook statuses with strange and upset messages such as: "living in racist Britain" and "ashamed to be British." Naturally I asked 'why?' and got the story. My connection isn't fast enough for me to check the Beeb site often (in fact, thanks to MTN Rwanda, it's actually been non-existent most of yesterday). I don't get a paper, have no radio or TV, so mostly news outside Rwanda floats under my radar.

I was very upset to hear this. I wondered whether I would have been eligible to vote and was a bit sad that the Embassy didn't send round any information about international votes. At least I would have known it was happening, even if I couldn't vote from here.

Anyway. Been having an interesting debate about it with people.

There's a petition called: Hope Not Hate - Not In My Name. The premise of which is:

Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons have won seats in the European Parliament - but they do not represent Britain.

Sign our petition and help show what Britain thinks of the BNP - we'll be handing our petition to the European Parliament on the day Griffin and Brons take their seats. Join the campaign, upload a photo of yourself holding a sign saying "Not in my name" and then share this petition with your friends. Let's send a deafening message of defiance: NOT IN OUR NAME.

We're all shocked by the election of two BNP MEPs. It was a terrible day for Britain. But we can do something about it.

On July 14th, Griffin and Brons will be in Strasbourg for the first sitting of the European Parliament. We'll be there as well - delivering our petition.

Griffin won by just 1200 votes. He won because of the failure of the major political parties. He did not win through "new" support. He did not win a breakthrough victory.

Before the election, we feared the BNP would win 5, 6 or 7 seats. When the expenses scandal broke the BNP said that they would win 12 seats. But we stopped a breakthrough.

That was down to the campaigning of people like you. Now we need to tell the world that the BNP do not speak for Britain - that the BNP are not there in our name.

Now, given the fact I never got a chance to vote on this issue, I kind of feel obliged to say something. However, quite a few people I know decided against signing the petition on the grounds that:

...there's a danger here of saying that you're only in favour of democracy if the people you like get elected. and ...as much as I do not like the policies and people of the BNP, I have to uphold their right to a voice...

Which is fine. The argument that arguing against an elected group is un-democratic... but to be honest, you can accept the 'democratic' system that elected them, but if it's a democracy, your voice also has perfect entitlement to speak out against the party elected. If you're saying you can't speak out and protest then, again, you're taking away democracy.

So, I for one would like to protest this result. Why? Well of course you don't have to accept the outcome. Hitler was democratically elected by a landslide. If you had known what he would become, would you just have sat back and gone 'ah well, it was a fair election.' You might not know exactly what the BNP will do in power, but you can certainly play the odds. They are a risk. Are they an unacceptable one?

Looks like the entire democratic process has gone to (Pol) pot.

I'd like to think that, if the BNP started to breed further racism and violence against the people of Britain, we - as moral human beings - would stand up and say 'no'. But how far do they have to go before our self-imposed duty to respect democracy is overturned by our moral desire to protect people against fear and persecution?

'Well, they were democratically elected,' is a crap excuse. They can just as easily be democratically deposed or un-elected.

One person said:

The fact is that the people of Britain have sat on their arses and done nothing about the increasingly dangerous authoritarian leanings of the current government, allowing themselves to manipulated with threats of 'terrorists' who are statistically less lethal than the contents of the average cutlery drawer and distracted by puerile TV popularity contests, so if the next lot actually turn out to be the reformed British Union of Fascists it's no more than this spineless, ignorant country deserves.

Which at first you can't help laughing along with, but then you think about that logically: what about what non-white British citizens deserve? What about what the people who DID get up and vote another way deserve? The implication being that to teach the people who voted BMP a lesson, those who didn't should suffer?

There's a very interesting analysis of the people who voted BMP.

It states:

Yet, depending on how the term "racist" is precisely defined, our survey suggests that the label applies to only around a half of BNP voters. On their own, these votes would not have been enough to give the BNP either of the seats they won last night.

Oh, only half then? That's alright *rolls eyes* - doesn't it just remind you of the 'how many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide' speech by Christine Shelly in '94? - How racist do you have to be to be a racist?

So, I know everyone will have their own opinions. Some may feel that it was 'democratic' and democracy ends with the election. Not me. So I signed the petition. At least when things turn nasty there will be a documented number of people who stood up and opposed. Even if you can't do awt about it, you can still be counted. Apathy and complacency just aren't in my nature when it comes to such things.

Aaanyway. In other news, Rujugiro, the guy who owns the whopping mansion behind my house (and the owner of UTC) is apparently returning to Rwanda rather than being extradited from the UK to South Africa.

In personal news all is pretty good. Caught up with Rose on Sunday evening for beer and brochettes. She's back from Uganda and has re-interred her mother to a burial plot. There was some arguing with her family who now think she's rich because she was able to do that. But she handled herself very well, was extremely brave and strong. They bought new cloth to wrap the bones in, then she cooked a dobi (spelling?) of rice and beans: a meal dedicated to her mother, which all of the family and friends partook of. Then they sacrificed the goat over the grave and turned it into brochettes for all the mourners and villagers who stayed the night by a fire. She came home the next morning. She looks a hundred times better than when she left - really uplifted again. The cunning woman of her village said the spirit was at rest now, curse lifted, so she's much happier.

I'm good too, but extremely tired. I woke up Friday feeling drained, looked in the mirror and saw that my throat was a mess - full-on tonsillitis! So I went to the doc. and he was rather surprised as I was bouncy, smiley, chatty. When he looked in my throat he wasn't expecting to see such a big problem.

This is the odd thing - it's all infected, looks like every other bout of tonsillitis I've ever had (bit prone to it) but there's absolutely no pain at all! Apart from feeling drained and sleeping a lot, I feel fine. I can talk, sing, swallow, no problem.

I think maybe after the whole foot fiasco my body's just gone 'nyah' - can't be bothered to feel pain anymore ;)

On antibiotics again. Think I've worked my way through every type there is now, but otherwise hunky-dory.