Sorry, but the burka pales to insignificance....

Found this thread

Absent - I thought it was just me that resented the suggestion that I need a swear word to make me care about Syria. I found that bloody patronising. I've cared about many issues over the last 5 decades in a variety of ways - as Annie says, sometimes expressed in actions of various kinds, sometimes with money if that was appropriate. I can, at the same time, have views about burkas - it's not a competition. I certainly don't need 'clit slitting' JO8 to prod me into behaving and caring and I've foundvyhiscyhread a disgrace in a variety of ways

j08 And you are being your usual self.

thatbags I would think warring factions would be the best term. Although it's a civil war, there are more than two sides to it and, while religious differences play a part, they are far from the sole cause.

Or we could call them warring factions in Syria.

Perhaps we should call the trouble making muslims Islamists instead, pen, and keep muslim for normal people.

That is what I mean J08.

Absent - you are just being your usual pleasant self.

Oh we did empathise! Same as we are, hopefully, emphasising with the people caught up in the shootings in Nairobi. No point in starting threads. Never gets much response.

And I repeat again that the more negative items about Muslims in the press, not differentiating between the peaceful , ordinary majority and the minority extremists who aren't really Muslim but political militants hardens our responses to humanitarian aid in Muslim countries.

Was there a thread expressing shock and horror at the Muslim family death in a fire recently? Might have missed it but maybe the family was so unlike 'us' we did not empathise?

I still find it strange that the OP seems to suggest that everyone else on gransnet has stuck their heads in the sand, ignored this bloody civil war and just chatters on about inconsequential matters. It has been going on since March 2011 and over 100,000 people have died as a result. I, for one, do not need to be addressed in that tone of voice in order to take whatever action I feel is right. Or is this simply a competition about who feels most passionately?

Grannyactivist, you are so right, it doesn't matter how little we can do, what matters is we do all we can. I campaigned against apartheid from the fifties to the nineties, me , refusing to own one piece of gold, sitting outside SA embassy, writing letters to prisoners in Pretoria etc didn't change a thing , millions doing the same did .

Well said ga. The chidren's charities need more support than ever, after recent bad publicity about some CEOs' hefty salaries.

Seconded

Excellent, ga! Thank you.

Tony Campolo, one of the Christians I most admire, would often begin a speech (to a primarily Christian audience) this way: "I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."
I don't like swearing, I don't do it myself, but there really are things that are, or should be, much more shocking. But even that is beside the point here, it's what we do about the things that shock us that matter. We're not helpless in this situation. We can write letters, sign petitions, join marches; we can make a financial donation if we have the means or we can help out in a charity shop or find some other way of volunteering gifts or services. Please don't let's be distracted from actually doing something by our feelings about a thread title.

I agree absolutely with Anniebach and hebrideanlady.

jo8 I so respect your reason and right to get angry at such a horrific situation in Syria, as usual the woman and children are affected the most. When I read some of the posts on here they could break my heart. There's always someone worse off than ourselves.
To have to live through a war, see and experience terrible things and end up in a tent, or worse, is for me unimaginable. I was born at the end of WW2 so I can only imagine what Its like.
Because your heading had the F word in it that seemed to of distracted peoples attention from the subject, but you are so right, and caring to prick our consciences
I hope this goes in the right sequence because I am quite rubbish at typing

j08, justified anger is good, and your anger was most certaintly justified

The background to my starting this thread is that someone (David Cameron actually) tweeted this video. And it just came into my mind how the whole country at the moment seems to be getting in a state about something, in comparison, really unimportant, while other horrors are going on in the world.

I got angry.

And that is the simple truth of it.

Thank you grannya!

I think the point of this thread was to draw attention to the Save the Children's fundraising campaign for Syria. The Ellie Goulding song in the link has been re-released with all proceeds going to this cause. If anyone wants to skip the song and go straight to the donations page it's here: www.savethechildren.org.uk/about-us/emergencies/syria-appeal

Swear words have their place in language. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they can't be used or that the user doesn't belong on this forum.

Offensive to whom? Just because it offends you, Celebgran, doesn't mean it offends the bulk of members.

Equally Celebgran, if you object to a bit of bad language maybe you are on the wrong forum.
The language certainly does not spoil it for me.

If you want to use offensive language maybe you are on wrong forum?

Sad that a handful spoil a good forum