The bigger picture...

(RoaR, this post is for you who "isn't into that [creative] kinda stuff", you won't find an atom of creativity in here :) except for perhaps in the language ;))

So there I was sat on the train home from Uni reading the Manchester evening news, when I came cross the article that prompted this post. When I initially read it, it made laugh because of the pure absurdity of it. Yet after thinking about it for a little while it prompted me to “reminisce” (if that is the correct word to use in this context) about other similar stories. The nature of the story of course are “Islamic” in nature, however in this post I’m going to use it to illustrate a much bigger problem: that of not looking at the whole picture, not looking at both sides of the coin if you will, (or whatever other cliché you want to apply) before people open their mouths.

The article in question was about a comment made by MP Phil Woolas who is “under fire after warning about birth defects in marriages between Pakistani first cousins” (M.E.N. Thursday 12th of Feb). At first I just brushed it aside, but as I thought about it more and more it angered me that people hadn’t bothered to look at the whole picture before opening their vocal cavities. It wasn’t the article per se that angered me (as it is based on facts and I do agree with it somewhat) it was the opinion section of the newspaper and the journalist who had written a piece regarding the topic. Apparently 30% of all British children born with recessive disorders are of Pakistani ethnicity (Considering 3.4% of all children born in Britain are British Pakistani). So what about the other 70% of children born with recessive disorders??. And what about the hundreds of marriages between first cousins that don’t result in children with birth defects? The journalists agreed with Woolas’s comments as she believed “it encourages the real defect of extremism to be passed from generation to generation”. At first this comment angered me for obvious reasons, however then I actually pitied the author for she clearly isn’t aware of the fact that there is no “extremism gene” that passes down from generation to generation, She clearly does not know that extremism is not a family trait (in fact in the majority of cases its outside influences at play). However I do commend the author for mentioning the fact that the very monarchy of this country “keeps it in the family” as do orthodox Jews.

At this point I’d like to say for (all those smart alecs who are going to say that I myself are not looking at the whole picture), that the same problem runs on both sides. Mr Woolas’s comments have been labelled as Islamophobic (by the Muslim public affairs council), that really cracked me up, I had to laugh at that. In what way is it Islamophobic? How is that attacking Islam? (In fact it’s not even really attacking Pakistani’s either it’s a health warning…how bad can that be??) The comment is in regards to the Pakistani CULTURE not the RELIGION of Islam (the differences in culture and religion is a whole other debate although Islam does allow marriages between cousins...)

Personally I agree that marriages between first cousins can lead to birth defects, however as the statistics imply not all of them do and dare I say they are probably far and few in between. Anyway back to the point in hand why couldn’t people have just looked at the bigger picture before commenting, why are they unable to look at both sides of the argument then make an informed and well balanced opinion? And not just for “Islamic issues” but everything, in this case it is probably likely that Woolas was simply giving a health warning as opposed to “attacking” the Pakistani community, isn’t he then in fact doing us a favour? (In his own odd way…). In fact that brings to mind another annoyingly irksome trait prevalent in the world wide Muslim community…that of blowing things totally and utterly out of proportion…