Yesterday the world has witnessed one of the biggest wedding ceremonies after a long time. It
was estimated about 2 billion people viewed the event through their television sets around the
world; the wedding between the future King of the UK, Prince William and Kate Middleton. It’s
no exaggeration to say that almost every corner of Britain was engulfed by Prince William-Kate
wedding ecstasy. Everyone seemed happy. Great Britain became ‘real’ great. Some argued it was
truly one of those once in a lifetime opportunities.
Almost 2,000 people were invited to the big/main event, at Westminster Abbey. Our country,
Tanzania, was represented by our ambassador to London. He was one of dignitaries who came
into the fold via commonwealth links.
A few people couldn’t be that ‘lucky’. The two most recently Great Britain PMs, Tony Blair and
Gordon Brown of Labour party were not invited while Baroness Margret Thatcher and Sir John
Major, the former PMs via Conservative party were-because ‘they are not Knights of the Garter’.
Fair enough.
Then there was an ‘omission’ of the Syrian ambassador’s name to London, Dr Sami Khiyami. At
first, his name was on the list of those ‘lucky’ but he was later ‘summoned’ to the Foreign Office
and he was told, ‘he can no longer attend the Royal wedding’ due to his government’s excessive
use of force against demonstrators. They (Britain) termed it ‘unacceptable’.
Despite being a slap on the wrist, I would say, that was ‘okay’ course of action to express the
feeling(s), based on the fact that the UK government is perceived to be one of the ‘frontiers’
of democracy, rule of law and human rights in the world. It should be remembered that, these
Syrian demonstrators are peaceful demonstrators. They have asked for ‘basic changes’ after
being ‘humiliated’ for a long, long time. The level of nepotism is highest in the country. The
political power is held by a small elite.
But there’s a paradox that entangles the whole issue here! Despite the use of overwhelming force
against peaceful demonstrators, the name of the Crown Prince of Bahrain was on the list. Of
course, he pulled out at the weekend so not to overshadow the event.
The question that many would like to have an answer to it is what’s the difference between Syria
and Bahrain? In both cases innocent people are being killed brutally and remorselessly, so why
one rule to Syria and another one to the like of Bahrain?
We all want to live in a peaceful world to cherish the ‘beauty’ of this world and use the
potential God has given us to betterment our lives.
so called ‘superpowers’ stop what I call ‘double standard’. It’ has been a chronic disease
among ‘superpowers’.
a.k.a:Jua Kali
