Its not my fault, its the fault of…

When I was growing-up I learnt that telling the truth, coming clean was a good thing to do, especially if I’d done a wrong.  I’m not saying that I felt the benefit immediately, I often didn’t and was punished for my wrong doing.  Of course I thought this was an injustice, after all I’d fessed up, I should at least be praised for this.  Well I was young, immature and had a lot to learn of the way of life.

Needless to say I now recognize that being encouraged to tell the truth is a lesson learnt over years, decades even.  And I now understand that it has made me a better person, a more understanding person perhaps.  But I can recall many instances when I’d transgressed with the help of friends and they (often quite quickly) blamed somebody else for their actions as if they had no control over what they did.  Even as a child I found this very difficult to process but as an adult I find it incredulous that people take this route.

Right so you now know where I’m coming from on matters of truth.  Lady truth is a good thing.  She can hide her charms well when in the hands of some, but truth is generally speaking a good thing.  The consequences of truth can be difficult to deal with, but the lasting damage of denying lady truth will have disastrous effects later in life.

Those friends who were quick to blame somebody else are still often to be found at the lower end of the social ladder, with limited economic prospects, you get my drift I think.

I find the recent televised claims by Lord Ahmed to be firstly astonishing and secondly to be outrageous.  

Very shortly after sending a series of text messages whilst driving he was involved in a motor accident on the M1 which caused the death of 28 year old Martin Gombar.  Did Lord Ahmed apologize? Did he resign his position? Did he make a contribution to a motor accident charity?  Did he actually take responsibility?

No.

What he did do was go on television and blame somebody else.  Who would he blame? What would he blame? The road conditions? A passenger? A stray animal on the road? Another vehicle driver maybe?

No.

So who did he blame?… Well after 12 weeks in prison he blamed… yes that’s right the Jews!  Those well known nuisances of the open road the Jews!  This is for real by the way, I’m not joking he really did claim this.

His reasoning (yes that’s right he even reasoned his case) goes along the lines of; He’d been to Gaza, Palestine and his Jewish friends (I’m not sure he will have any Jewish friends now, if he even had any in the first place that is) who own newspapers and TV channels conspired to put him in prison.

Lord Ahmed has in the past done great things.  He was instrumental in the release of Gillian Gibbons who was held captive in Sudan by the Islamist regime.  He rightly deserves praise for his efforts in this case.  But he is symptomatic of many more mature British Muslims in that he leads an outwardly normal life, contributing to society and his community but deep down holding anti-Semitic views.

If my Muslim friends were honest they would agree, their fathers probably hold some quite odd views about who’s to blame for all manner of society’s ills.  The biggest claim (and this has been said to me with a straight face) is the twin towers terrorist attack, that’s right is was those damn Jews.  Come on now, where else would those pesky Jews bomb but New York home to about 4000 Jews, the largest Jewish population outside Israel?

So what about the truth?  Where do we find it?

Well I agonized about this posting.  I have many Muslim friends who I socialize with, do business with, have fun with.  The truth is most of my friends don’t care whether I am Muslim, Christian or Jewish, there isn’t a box that get’s ticked when new friends are made.  The fact that I happen to follow a Jewish inspired way of life makes no difference to most people of any faith.

The truth is that long term being open and truthful is a good way of life.  I follow the seven laws listed by the Talmud:

1. Prohibition of idolotry
   

2. Prohibition of murder
   

3. Prohibition of theft
   

4. Prohibition of sexual immorality
   

5. Prohibition of blasphemy
   

6. Prohibition of eating flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive

7. Establishment of courts of law

I’m not saying I get it right all the time but I try, and that’s the thing; I try, I take responsibility for what I do (good and bad) and I don’t blame somebody else, especially not when the reasoning is on such a ridiculous basis.

Happy Pesah.