The Middle East

by Ali Kassim

David Miliband’s recent commentary on Syria as the International Rescue Committee’s President and Chief executive in which he stated:  ‘Syria may be lost, but we must stand by its victims’ is nothing but a despicable, audacious and cheap attempt by him to make a travesty of the Syrian issue.

He further adds: ‘The great powers won't halt the war, but they can help those affected’. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the aforementioned statements are akin to rubbing salt on one’s wounds and is an insincere, deplorable and insulting attempt to give legal amnesty to the perpetrators and supporters of the Middle East destruction.

Does it not occur to Mr Miliband that the above statements are similar to saying ‘it’s okay, I will destroy and burn down your house, steal your wealth, kill your family, but in return will provide charitable handouts to the wounded remaining members of your family in the aftermath’. What is one compelled to think after such statements?

Are the so- called ‘global powers’ beyond reach or culpability? What is the UN and other ‘peace loving’ countries doing to stop these atrocities committed (funnily enough only in those countries where a majority of its population are Muslims and who have a wealth of treasure to offer as booty).

Whilst I concede, David does go on to try and find a solution to ‘saving the nation’, his approach is weak, hypocritical, high handed and absurd. In this context, it was a great victory for the entire Labour Party and the British nation that he did not succeed in Labour’s leadership contest.  Such irresponsible statements only carry the potential for fuelling inter-faith and multi-cultural hatred.

Is Immigration a Good Thing?

by Maria Mouzouropoulos (13 years old)

As many of you are aware of the current dispute about the UK's immigration policies, I analysed and researched some statistics, to see what migrants really contribute to our society. This graph above shows the net number of immigrants who come to the UK, after a handful leave and others maintain their new lifestyle.The graph suggests that the numbers have fluctuated throughout the past several years, but the general trend of non-British citizens is increasing. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, most of them come for work. Before I explain further, the party UKIP want to limit immigration, and leave the European union, but is this the best option for our economy?

 The national institution of economic research study showed that 13 percent of our society today have come here as immigrants, and only 1 percent of those immigrants are reliant on benefits. Although that 1 percent is around 63,000- who are presumably unemployed; they too are just as likely to be asylum seekers or incapable of finding work. Yes, they may be claiming benefits but to what extend can we say no, no more benefits for you?  I suspect a lot of these immigrants didn't choose to be ending up claiming benefits, but just imagine if we said no to every immigrant who was relying on them. Consider The asylum seekers, those who were once living in poverty, finally having the opportunity to hope for a new life here in the UK, or people who can't work because they didn't have an education as an adolescent. Consequently, they will be homeless, starving and as a result the UK reputation will plummet and reach its terminal velocity.

Still not convinced about letting immigrants claim our benefits? Let me question this; would you rather have homeless, beggars, even children on the streets of London, or alternately some hopeful immigrants, relying on the benefits to help them find work, that create our economy for more than just the British citizens. Imagine how awful our reputation would look if we didn't have a variety of different cultures in our economy; this is a huge chunk that would be illuminated if you vote UKIP.

So now we've established that if we didn't allow immigrants to claim benefits, there would be thousands more beggars than we've ever recorded, and that if we didn't allow anyone access to live in the UK, there would be no cultures and no variety of different people in our society. I have also heard a series of times that they would take our jobs, but what in the right mind gives you this conclusion, when a BBC news investigation was carried out to prove that vast quantities of these harmless immigrants charge far less for jobs, and do more of the occupations that no British citizen is willing to do. Not to mention, a lot of these immigrants return home once they've earned a substantial amount to convert into their countries currency, which would be far more to support themselves and their families than what they would earn in their country,too.

So, if you want an even bigger deficit of jobs,a unsubstantial, limited, British society with no different cultures or nationalities-which are said to be a huge aspect of bringing our economy together, then vote UKIP!

 If not, then you should think about voting for Respect!

Drug addiction in society and the role of stakeholders

By Ali Kassim

In today’s tough economic climate where austerity is paramount and where budgets for various public services are constantly being scrutinized in a bid to maximise their effectiveness, it is also imperative for government departments to adopt a concerted and holistic approach in tackling any issues at hand.

Apropos of drug addiction and associated crime in society, the government needs to look at the root causes of the aforementioned, examine if current interventions are effective and if not, devise policy to revamp existing systems.

A one size fits all policy cannot fix the complex problem of drug addiction and associated crime. When people are sent to prison, some inmates do well with the structure afforded there; however, others do not do as well as anticipated upon release into the community and their offending continues. This means there is a cycle of some people keep going in and out of prison via the same judicial system. This then begs the question, are our laws effective?

The courts need to properly consider offending history and the commitment of a person to recovery before sentences are awarded. If the case is that the judge believes that a person would do better by treatment in the community, then a stricter and more regimented approach needs to be deployed to ensure appropriate interventions are given and utilised in the community in tandem with the regular substitute prescription drugs to empower people to get off their illicit drug use.

All tools to re-integrate people into the mainstream should be employed with no room for complacency. Their progress should be monitored strictly and without fear of being labelled as ‘heavy handed’. This is because such interventions are needed at times, of course, depending on individual cases and associated criminal activities.

If the aforementioned does not work, then there should be no cowing down to pressure from quarters that are not in favour of over subscribing prisons, but effectiveness of a modality should be looked at when it comes to rehabilitation. Having said that, prisons should be more recovery focussed too and a lot more needs to be done than just prescribing.

If drug addiction is to be tackled, the government needs to look at the police budget, time, and associated costs of the court systems as well as other government expenditure when tackling these issues. It might be an idea to take decisions on rehabilitation after considering holistic total costs to individuals and society rather than isolated government department budgets when taking decisions on expenditure.

Understanding the dynamics of Pakistan

by Ali Kassim

The UK prides itself on having a principled foreign policy that respects nations and their sovereignty and commits itself to not allowing the soil of this country to be used to wreak havoc overseas or colluding with any other person or country in meting out the same.

Then why is it that the previous Labour government as well as our incumbent Tory government is supporting or at least remaining silent over the issue of drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan. These attacks are killing innocent women and children and destroying the lives of a hundreds of thousands of human beings.

This brutal mass murder committed by the United States is against the UN ruling over respecting countries’ sovereignty and by the act of remaining silent and not supporting the moderate peace loving Muslims’ who oppose terrorist attacks and who are in favour of a composite dialogue to forge inter-faith harmony, the UK is playing into the hands of the extremist vested interests whose agenda is not Islam or anything but mere terrorism.

It is the need of the hour to revisit our foreign policy and not be swayed by selective media coverage of the minority fringes who are committing acts of violence in the name of Islam.

Hailing from Pakistan, I can safely assert, that 95 % of Pakistanis are peace loving, support the premise of live and let live and are peace loving moderate Muslims. In fact, they, more than anyone else, despise the so called ‘righteous’ who commit these acts of violence in the name of Islam, as this causes a dis-service to our peaceful religion in which we cannot even take our own life (commit suicide), let alone murder someone else.

Pakistan is a complex foreign policy landscape which carefully needs to be managed, namely by firstly promoting the UK as being the true friend of Pakistan, understanding the dilemmas the Pakistanis’ are facing not only when it comes to tackling insurgency and militants, but also the corrupt rulers who are destroying the country by only self serving. Assistance in educational development, Economic cooperation and high level diplomatic visits are needed from the UK to Pakistan to show the public the true friendship both countries enjoy. Hearts need to be won by taking a principled stance and rather than supporting a few select corrupt governments, who do not define ‘friendship’, the focus needs to shift to the country and its public.

The UK should also keep in mind that America has used and abused Pakistan many times and it should not follow suit by blindly supporting imperialism.