The Islanders - A Fairy Story

Once upon a time, on an island called Britain, at the western end of the Atlantic Ocean, there lived a nation called The British.

Now the British were a very tolerant nation. They invited everyone in the world to come and live on their little piece of land. It didn't matter who you were and what religion you practiced, you were allowed to live freely in the green and pleasant surroundings of the British cities and countryside.

Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Rastafarians and many others settled on the island. They integrated with the local population but maintained their ancient cultures and as a result, the British left them alone to get on with their lives and practice their beliefs.

However, a group of people called Islamic Fundamentalists took advantage of this tolerant nation and started, over a period of thirty years, to settle on the island. After a while, they started to preach hatred and intolerance towards other inhabitants of the land, in particular the Jews.

For many years, a number of Jewish leaders bitterly complained to their members of Parliament and to the Government about the racist hatred that was emanating from the mouths and pens of the Islamic preachers, but these words fell on deaf ears. The Jewish leaders warned the tolerant British ministers that hosting such persons would cause damage to the fabric of British society, but tragically, the said individuals ignored the warnings and treated them with ambivalence.

On July 7th 2005, after decades of indoctrination from the fundamentalist Islamic preachers, some of the Islamic islanders decided to attack their hosts and succeeded in blowing themselves up, alongside their fellow countrymen - an action that was nearly repeated exactly two weeks later.

Having woken up the sleeping British giants and their democratically elected Prime Minister was not a wise move. He made it very clear that, henceforth, all fundamentalist preachers would no longer be welcome on the island and that those who were born therein would be jailed if they continued to incite their countrymen to kill. Additionally, any personages who decided to come from abroad to cause mischief would henceforth be barred from entering the island.

Sadly, in this fairy tale, the islanders didn't live happily ever after and they never will until they start paying attention to a nation who recognises the dangers of racism all too well.