A Curious Girl: The BBC and double standards

I find this BBC article slightly worrying. Take a look.
Later note: For the sake of the BBC's honour, I'd like to point out that they changed that headline, thus displaying their prudence in paying attention to blogs! Good on you, BBC.
Perhaps it's just the inverted commas around the word rights. Granted, a right to nuclear power is about as nonsensical as a right to chocolate ice cream. It may be nice, and it may be somewhat cruel to be denied it, but you don't have a right to it.

On the other hand, I have long suspected even the BBC, who I confess I trust a lot, of biased journalism. Which is funny because the rebel in me wants to cheer every time the word 'anti-American' and 'BBC' are used in the same sentence. No offence to any Americans intended, except you, George W. Bush, if you happen to be reading this.

It's just that I'm frequently disturbed by the apparent double-standard when it comes to nuclear industry and nuclear weapons. For example, who would you trust with nuclear weapons? Would it be a nation who launched an unprovoked war in 2003 and continue to make threats to other nations? Or a nation that has been at peace since 1988?

I continue to feel that the person I'd least trust with Weapons of Mass Destruction is George W. Bush.

So is this actually a form of prejudice against the 'darkies' and their way of life? Why are they not to be trusted with something that we, nice civilised English-speaking nations, consider our 'right'? (and yes, France is an English-speaking nation, although they'd deny it of course...) I worry that we don't treat countries like Iran fairly, not so much because of their history of even their government, or even some of their more suspicious policies, but because they're different. Because now, as many commuters confessed in the wake of the London bombings, we associate Asians with terrorism. I wonder if Northern Irish people ever had similar problems? (Contrary to popular belief, London did suffer terrorism before 7th July.)

I don't know. On September 11th 2001 I remember a slight twinge of unease as I wondered whether our grief and sorrow for America was partly for the fact that rich white people can get killed by terrorism too. Granted, it was an extremely disturbing and terrible thing to happen, but terrible things happen everyday. There were massacres in Rwanda, for example. In Israel and Iraq terrorism seems to be almost daily. Do we have minutes of silence? We also seem to dwell upon moments of history - romanticised, and safe because they're dead: World Wars I and II and the Holocaust, for instance, where even the survivors have been helped and don't need massive appeals - we can endlessly romanticise them. We can read poems and sing songs and send children away on trips to try on fake gas masks and look at Anderson shelters. We can look incredibly sombre on Holocaust memorial day, while Hitler is safely dead and gone... But we don't have to do anything about it. Go to Auschwitz, don't join Amnesty International. Remember long-dead relatives and brave soldiers who sacrificed so much, but don't remember that every 3 seconds someone dies as a result of extreme poverty. The living are messy and hard to organise. The living don't follow any sensible rules. It would be so much easier if the Asians were the bad guys and the nice English-speaking non-Asian people were the good guys.

Perhaps I am being unfair. A Tory of my acquaintance once challenged anyone anti-war not to be cheered by the sight of Saddam Hussein's statue toppling. I agree, it's impossible. I'd like to kick dictator butt all the time, but preferably without slaughtering hundreds of civilians... oh, and some of our own soldiers... to do so. I admit I want to have my cake and eat it too. Yet what do we have the United Nations for if not to protect the world from injustice? I find it concerning that so much trust is placed in a nation that deliberately disobeyed the mandates of such an authority. I find it concerning that we are a nation that deliberately disobeyed the UN. And despite a deep desire to kick Saddam Hussein's butt, the idea of doing so on the basis that he has 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' and lots of terrorists ready to strike, is not only dishonest but deeply hypocritical.

So if we're so concerned about nuclear weapons, this is the first thing I think we should do - disarm. For one thing, it'll save taxpayers' money (I'll take my refund in cash, Mr. Blair).

Random word for today: proliferation

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