Monday 25 July 2016

In Pictures: Brighton

I spent a few days in Brighton last week and fell in love with it's emphasis on equality and general kindness to everyone. From it's overwhelming support for the LGBTQ+ community, to the stickers on every lamppost about the homophobia and sexism that certain political parties promote *cough* UKIP *cough* and the importance of not supporting these ideologies, Brighton impressed me as a vibrant seaside town with adorable independent cafés and stores - deffo worth a visit!

Tuesday 5 July 2016

#____LivesMatter

This week I have began to see the hashtag "Muslim Lives Matter" floating around on various social media platforms. Now, this is a something that has caused controversy, with some people feeling like it undermines the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Aside from that however, I feel what we can't ignore is that in this beautiful and culture rich world, we are reliant on hashtag's to remind people that it's not just white Christians that are important.

In the past 10 days alone there have been 4 terror attacks in predominantly Muslim countries and here in the West we have barely bat an eyelid. The first attack was in Turkey's capital city of Istanbul, killing around 41 people. I was actually in Turkey at the time and it was heartbreaking to hear about the how local people were suffering as the impacts of this, and past acts of terrorism, continue to spread across the country; consequently having a huge affect on the tourism industry. Aside from this, I was deeply saddened by the minimal reaction it received from those back at home. The Paris attacks last year were met by a sea of French flags as Facebook pictures, copious amounts of tweets and Instagram posts expressing their condolences - however my news feed looked as though no-one was even aware of the news. The apathetic response to the devastating events in contrast to the passionate and extensive coverage (rightly so) of the Paris attacks, for example, was in comparable. This presents the ever prominent point that the media just don't seem to care as much if the victims are from the East. 

Baghdad, Dhaka and Madinah have also all been at the peril of evil attacks this week - the death toll of over 200 in Baghdad virtually ignored by the UK media, the minute reaction it received in terms of the its extremity is inadmissible.

It is so important that we remember and continue to express our recognition that these lives matter just as much as those that are nearer to us in terms of geographical location (or language or culture). Why is it okay that hundreds of people are dying and we aren't talking about the fact that Muslims are the very people being killed by so called Islamic groups?