Bahrain, along with most of the rest of the Middle East is a two class society. A country separated by not just employment and money but by nationality and race as well. The manual workers are exclusively Pakistani and Indian with the white collar (white dish-dash) echelon all Western or Bahraini. Consequently the news that one sees in the local daily papers, while reflecting world stories has considerably more from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka than would be seen in the UK media.
The major conflict in Pakistan, following that government’s failed gamble by effectively abdicating responsibility for the Northern region and handing it over to the Taliban is widely reported. Judging from Sky news it would seem that this has not been that well covered. The proximity of forces to Islamabad, the security of nuclear weapons and influence on both Afghanistan and India seem to have passed people by who are outside the region.
Further South in Sri Lanka, while they have waited for far too long to have a concerted go at the Tamil tigers, they now appear to be slaughtering huge numbers of innocent locals who have been deliberately forced by the Tamil tigers to remain in the area as a dispersed human shield.
As if these humanitarian disasters were not enough rarely a day goes by without a dreadful story from India. To give you some idea there have been two appalling stories recently about school children. One girl died in an expensive private school from an asthma attack because no one knew what to do and even worse an 11 year old girl was punished for not doing her homework by making her stand in the sun – unsurprisingly she collapsed into a coma and subsequently died.
All in all there is much going on in the region which should make you glad you live in Europe.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
An Irregular Diary from somewhere hot and sunny
No comments:
Post a Comment