When have they stated that all lives have an equal value? Sadly, I certainly don’t think that they feel this way at all and it certainly feels like an unwritten, unspoken understanding of sorts. Rwanda and African countries are a good example. Nationalism breeds this kind of ‘I only care if it’s in my backyard’ culture, where stories of British dead or (OUR BOYS) as they proclaim are always amplified with the font 24 underlined headlines.

Placing equal value on lives from all over the planet is something that I feel newspapers will forever be unable to do.

However, this is different from asking what political motivations took them to do such things. It’s totally irrelevant – in my view – that the 7/7 bombers did it because they thought the Iraq War was unjust. And we certainly don’t need to listen them to make our minds about Iraq and about the leaders involved in it.

My attitude is terrorists, politicians, citizens – we are all human. We all have the capacity to be or become all three. When I tell myself that some humans aren’t really human because of what they have done, I imply I would never be capable of such a thing. Not only do I lose a chance to understand myself as well as others, but by not understanding I am also less able to guard against turning into what I fear myself.

I know this sounds like tortured thinking to most people, and they think that a short-cut is just to tell yourself not to do anything evil. But I don’t trust short-cuts, and when taking the long route of trying to understand different ideas of justice, I feel I gain a lot along the way.

When we talk about ‘justice’ we enter into an ambigious realm. Those that we consider terrorists are freedom fighters and heroes for others. I rather look at it in another angle. If your cause is more important than human life, and you want to make a point by killing and hurting indiscriminately – be it children, women, old people and whoever happens to be there in the most horrendous and cowardly way possible – I really don’t want to hear what you have to say. May you rotten in hell.

Who are you?
Why did you do this?

I would then hope to find out that their motives were to right a genuine injustice. If that is so, then as a citizen I would want to punish the politicians who were responsible for perpetuating the injustice as well as the terrorists who created new injustices.

If their motives are something else, then we are in more trouble. Ideological violence requires an ideological battle (which is exhausting), political action to take away the freedom of those who break the law (which is draining) and building alliance to marginalise the ideology (which has to be very sensitive to avoid alienating more people). And basically it demands the best from us to combat the worst from others.

The worst thing is not knowing who and why. “Third Force” violence – when rumour and suspicion is all you have to go on – seems the most corrosive thing. And the letter suggests precisely the kind of defiance and solidarity needed in that situation. Hopefully, when we get some understanding of why it happened and who did it, the solidarity will remain and citizens will insist politicians deal with the causes of the violence intelligently, not using the unity and fear to get people involved in their conflicts.

Guys, I think we need to revise our News Math!

200 Indians only = about 2 Caucasian citizens and maybe 0.4 of a solider stationed in Iraq in terms of Interesting Terrorism Deaths.

Hey, at least we’re not Sudanese or Rwandan. I think the ratio for them is about 1000 dead to 1 white person dead.

Strange times we live in. But as a Bombayite at heart, that email cheered me up

If they claim that every life is important to make a point, then they surely are hypocritical now. But the fact is that we do place different value on life according to the connection we have with different people. Surely, bombings in India or any part of South Asia for that matter are more troubling to us, then what happens in a remote village in China. And both might mean little to the average Brit.

To be fair, here is the Mail’s article about the Mumbai blasts with video and pictures.

I feel that British media in general tend to focus on Britain and US events and less on world affairs, unless both parties are involved.

Of course I don’t see it as an attack. I wasn’t expecting heavy coverage, but not a single reference seemed taking it to extremes.

Please dont take this as an attack, just a healthy question/debate from someone discussing the matter internally, but is it really essential for rags like the mail to ‘have’ to have articles on Mumbai when they are geared toward a more national audience as it is, with the little international news of little concern to their readers, who may buy the paper to read about what concerns them locally in their backyard?

I have mentioned that I think there should absoloutely be major coverage (indeed not just of the bombings, but also the general ramifications on the people/society/culture there in general) but feeling that newspapers MUST be obliged to follow certain stories throws up all kinds of questions about what the agenda should be, who sets it, where the ‘news’ should focus, and what type of stories they should relay externally.

There are certainly many many stories that I wished that newspapers would follow-up on and explore in detail, but newspapers have their own agendas, and that’s why we have the choice to choose the ones which suit are tastes best.

Coupled with “Ride the trains at a discount” options?

As far as Mail readers are concerned, nothing happened.
They possibly really don’t know.

Otherwise, another point was made that the problems lay more with politicians, who ignore the poor mumbaikers most of the time, but make a big deal during such attacks.

Obviously a misunderstanding by you guys.Prejudice?? I think BBC said, you londoners, (i guess not all of you) are no mumbaikars, (again not all of you), and are discussing the tragedy from western point of view. BBC sounded positive about this site and thats why I ended up visiting this page. But your sarcastic tone on mumbais poverty and commenting on PMs incompetence in the same breath is bit irritating to an average Indian. Gandhi said Poverty is worst form of violence. We are happy that he is doing better than any past PMs atleast in this regard. Personally, I dont feel bad that he is not acting like the rich western cow boy shouting and screaming with all the guns blazing, eventhough many of my friends are.

Although scarcely an expert on the subject I did read a couple of books on Victorian fneral practices a few years ago and my (non authorative) view is that there were strong religious objections to cremation of any sort until the twentieth century and that it was actually illegal in any form until 1902;

http://www.srgw.demon.co.uk/CremSoc3/StatutoryLaw/CAct1902.html

The overcrowding of London cemetries and the concurrent rise in free thinking had led to a campaign for hygenic crematoria from around the 1870′s on but even after legalisation it was very much opposed by the church and most members of the public.

The main religious objection was that the body should be complete. however, the slaughter of the Great War meant that pretty much every family had a relative whose body had been torn apart and it became less and less acceptable to suggest/believe that this would mean some sort of post motem penalty. I believe the turning point was when a member of the royal family chose to be cremated.

Prior to cremation, burial practices in Victorian urban centres were hair-raising, with bodies dug up after only a few months to be replaced by newer arrivals and the disinterred remains literally stamped into the mud.

The act which legalised cremation was very proscriptive, partly because of deep seated suspicion, and the hygenic, scientific aspect was very important. I suspect that it is less that open air cremations were banned, but that they did not meet the criteria which allowed for cremation under very specific controls.

Of course, today objections would come from different reasons and my first reaction is to oppose any move to introduce them. On the other hand, I do recall at least one case of a pagan open air cremation where the law turned out to be not so clear cut. Sorry, can’t remember the details.