W hen a disaster or a war happens, very large estimates
of the number of dead quickly emerge in the media. These tend to be propagated by two groups — those seeking money to deal with the problem, and those wanting to blame somebody for it. Thus, on 11 September 2001, some early estimates spoke of up to 40,000 dead, and even the more serious ones referred to 5,000. The actual figure was about 2,800. In Iraq a report in the Lancet, using an extraordinary method of extrapolation from a tiny sample, came up with the figure of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians; yet it seems that the true figure, though bad enough, is a small fraction of that. Now we have the effects of Katrina. As soon as I read last week’s press figure of 10,000 dead, I did not believe it. The disaster is a terrible one, but I found it hard to imagine how so many could have been unable to find refuge. If one questions the figure, however, one is said to be unfeeling. I realise I am running that risk. Now, though we still do not know the final toll, numerous reports suggest far fewer than 10,000. This process of overestimation matters, because the round, high figure is the one that tends to stick in people’s minds, and so it colours history’s approach. I bet that, in later years, people will say that 10,000 people died in Katrina, 5,000 in the Twin Towers, 100,000 civilians in Iraq, though they didn’t. P.S. Many people also mistake the word ‘casualties’, thinking it means dead.
Who are all these Muslim ‘advisers’ to government? Ahmad Thomson comes from the Association of Muslim Lawyers and advises No. 10 Downing Street. He says that Tony Blair’s role in the war in Iraq is part of a ‘Zionist plan’, and he has written a book about how Freemasons and Jews control the Western world and how the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust is a ‘big lie’. Over at the Foreign Office, its Muslim adviser, Mockbul Ali, recommends that the government should resist demands to exclude Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi from visiting Britain. Al-Qaradawi says that suicide bombing in Palestine and Iraq is a religious ‘duty’. But, says Mr Ali, he is ‘a highly respected Muslim scholar’ (that phrase is always deployed on these occasions) and his exclusion would have a ‘negative impact’ on British Muslims; besides, most sources of complaint against al-Qaradawi are Jewish and therefore, he implies, tainted. Now the most prominent adviser of the lot, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, tells Mr Blair that he must abolish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is ‘offensive to Muslims’ and replace it with Genocide Day, so that attention can be paid to the ‘genocide’ of Muslims in Palestine and elsewhere. One feature of the Holocaust was that the population of European Jews was reduced to a tiny fraction. The Muslim population in Palestine has actually risen during the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, so those Israeli genociders must be pretty inefficient. Actually, Holocaust Memorial Day was a bad idea, precisely because it encourages this sort of political and religious grievance grandstanding. Now, unfortunately, one must support its continuation. It is natural for Muslims to want their sufferings remembered, but to refuse, as Sir Iqbal does, to attend Holocaust Memorial Day services, to take offence at the commemoration itself, is to send a much darker message. Does Sir Iqbal agree with Ahmad Thomson’s theory of the ‘big lie’?
There has been much comment on the fate of Lord Watson of Invergowrie, the Labour peer and member of the Scottish Parliament who was convicted for drunkenly setting fire to the curtains in the Prestonfield Park Hotel near Edinburgh. He produced the matches for the attack from his sporran. Lord Watson was under personal strain, it is suggested. No one mentioned that Lord Watson was the author of the Bill that banned hunting in Scotland. The relationship between mental disturbance and an obsession with animal welfare is underexplored, and interesting. Hitler is the most important example in modern history, Lord Watson a lively footnote. Hunting in England and Scotland, though now banned in both, has started its new season, and already the two laws’ confusions are apparent. Hedgehogs being culled in the Hebrides in order to protect rare birds may not now be killed by dogs. Dogs may be used only to flush out to guns. Therefore hedgehogs are solemnly chased out of cover and shot. There can be no possible welfare advantage. In England the law is even stricter, forbidding more than two ‘dogs’ to flush out quarry. To circumvent this, many hunts have noticed the ‘loophole’ that a full pack may still be used to flush it out for a hawk, and so 30 or more hunts have acquired hawks, sometimes eagles, of their own. Now the Hawk Board says that it is worried that the practice will be cruel to hawks and, perversely, is sending back the cheques of hunting people seeking to learn the necessary falconry skills. The Board’s real worry is that the government will now try to ban hawking as well. Wouldn’t it be more sensible for ministers to look again at the discretion the Act gives them to vary the rules in the interests of animal welfare, and allow a full pack, as in Scotland, to do the flushing, hawk or no hawk? Or would Labour MPs prefer another 200 hours of parliamentary time to while away the next five years in the House of Commons?
Prince Charles has been saying how important it is for everyone to have a ‘time of silence’ in order to attend to ‘the whole rhythm and pattern of nature’. As a boy, he said, when staying with the Queen Mother in Caithness, they would stand on the cliff and sing to seals: ‘We’d sing “Over the Sea to Skye” and it was very interesting. These heads would bob up and they’d start coming closer.’ I had no idea this was a royal habit, but I can vouch for its effectiveness. My wife and I have often done it, using the very same tune. The knack is not to worry about musicality or words but to produce a nasal, bagpipey version which experts call a musette. This skirl seems to carry through the sound of the waves and attract the seals, who approach you with their pitying eyes. The Prince is right that all this is very soothing for the human beings involved, but ‘a time of silence’ it is not.
Iwas just about to write a piece in favour of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, praising its ability to survive through all the health-and-safety restrictions of our age. But now I read that it is to change its name, disowning its inventor, to make itself more relevant to young people, so I won’t.
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