But then perhaps I should know better than to click on a Mail Online story on Google News.
It concerns the story of a 15 year old schoolgirl who was shot (when aged 14) by the Taliban in Pakistan. Malala Yousufzai campaigned for womens’ rights and access to education and is being treated for her injuries in a hospital near Birmingham.
Malala has pleaded that a college in her home country not be named after her, lest it would provoke attacks by the Taliban on students.
Her father Ziauddin who is here with the rest of his family has been appointed Pakistan’s educational attaché to the UK, a position paid for by the Pakistan government.
The Mail story and comments are here
Of course the comments will be added and reacted to throughout the day but at the time of writing I can only say that I find some (a minority thankfully) of them dispiriting in the extreme. People who are voicing support for the girl and her family are being given negative responses.
There are a helluva lot of white middle class people in this country who would act with similar ignorant violence as the Taliban given the chance methinks.
Filed under: Current Events, Politics Tagged: | Malala Yousufzai, taliban
When it was first suggested she came here for treatment the comments filled with ‘Why here?’ comments. ‘Why should we pay,’ was the gist. The DM reader hates to pay, hates tax, hates unemployed, disabled, or anyone who gets state aid – except themselves obviously.
Mercy is an unknown quantity, unless they receive it.
However it is fun to wind them up. I got 2000 or more red arrows for a comment once. I must have been right!
Rab,
When did the Mail become such a rag? Was it not oneof those old broadsheet newspapers years ago? Why would anyone not feel anything but empathy and admiration for this young girl? Only selfish hearltess barstewards would begrudge the cost of her medical treatment. This links to some interesting photos in the DM of Acrrington Lancashire, I thought that were many depressed areas of Scotland but i’m not sure if anything compares to this, even in its heyday, it must have been a depressing place to live.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256796/Rows-boarded-terraced-houses-Accrington-brought-life-10m-revamp.html?ICO=most_read_module
Tam the Mail Online is reputed to be the most read web newspaper on the planet. To be fair some articles are interesting enough but often they are written with a certain agenda. Interesting that the very newspaper with OCD about house prices should be purporting to care about homelessness.
Actually the way the story you link to is presented is to appeal to the tutting classes. ‘There’s not really a housing crisis – look at all these unoccupied homes – people are just too fussy’ is about the size of it. Benefit claimants, immigration, danger of falling house prices and the EU are its stock in trade. It feeds middle England/Britain with paranoia and middle England/Britain has a voracious appetite for it.
Even in the 1930s, the paper supported Oswald Mosley and the British fascists with one (in)famous headline declaring “Hurrah for the Blackshirts!”
Many folk read it without realising the prism it provides them for looking at the world.
I was pleased to learn yesterday that the brave young girl referred to in the story has left hospital and although she’ll need further operative care, it seems that she’s well on the way to recovery.