Post Office Closures will Have a Devastating Effect on Local Communities The recent announcements that seven local post offices will be closing in the restructuring of Post Offices throughout the Capital will have a devastating impact on local communities. Those that affect Haringey include Highgate High Street, 100 Alexandra Park Road (N10), Ferme Park Road (N4), Salisbury Road (N22), 89 Weston Park (N8), Page Green (N15) and 434 West Green Road (N15).

An Invasion of Gaming and Betting Venues in Wood Green

Well ladies and gentleman. You may have seen my last article stating that there had been an explosion of gaming and betting venues in Wood Green, but guess what, the tenth gaming and betting venue is on its way.

Hysterical Responses to the Archbishop Do Not Look At the Facts on The Ground Within 48 hours of the Archbishop making comments around religious inclusion and Shariah, there were press calls, comments and rabid responses for his resignation. This strain of fear is disproportionate and based on conjecture, myths and in some instances, xenophobia. But before I lay out these facts, there is something that I must clear up. The vast amount of Shariah Law covers financial elements, marriage and divorce and other codes for living life. It is not primarily around punishment. However, I for one as a Muslim and as a liberal to my very core, see Islam through the prism of emancipation and knowledge sharing. This means having the chance to question, to debate, to discuss and therefore Shariah is a theoretical and practical framework which must be looked through within a modern context. This therefore means ardently protecting women’s rights, respect for diversity in all of its forms (the first convert to Islam was a black man), providing the space for dissent, education for all and emancipation from debt by taking out interest in financial transactions. These are just some examples of what I regard Islam to be about. It should be a driver against poverty, against fear and xenophobia and it should be a driver against ignorance. I have to also add, that I cannot accept two legal systems as a citizen of the UK and the resulting confusion and isolation for Muslims if this were to happen would in the long term, provide a foundation to those who want to portray Muslims as the ‘other’ and therefore somehow different. We should not give them that chance.

Anyone who takes a leisurely stroll on the High Road in Wood Green, will see the explosion of gaming venues that have brought an associated anti-social element to them. The first thing I would like to say is that such gaming venues would never have been allowed in areas like Muswell Hill. There would have been objections and furious local action, yet raft after raft of gaming venues have been approved for licenses and planning permission in Wood Green.

Bosnia All Over Again? Kosovan independence is stoking up the same old fears in the Balkans and one of those fears is the threat of military action against the Kosovar Albanian population by Serbia and its proxies within the area. The current situation whilst somewhat different to Bosnia in the 1990’s, has a few key similarities. Then as now a nation wanted to declare independence and there were Serbs residing in Bosnia as they are in Kosovo, though the numbers are smaller. Also, Kosovo holds a religious significance for the Serbs when they defeated the Ottomans around 1390 and the religious significance of Bosnia as being a ‘Christian territory’ was also touted during the bloody campaign against Bosnian forces during 1992-1995. We all know how Bosnia ended, with the siege of Sarajevo, the shelling of civilians and the atrocities in the killing fields of places like Srebrenica. All were conducted in the name of the Serb nation by paramilitaries of Republika Srpska and Serbian regular forces. In the end these killings had nothing to do with religion, but with the power crazed hunger and manipulation of a nation by Slobodan Milosevic.

Kosovan independence is stoking up the same old fears in the Balkans and one of those fears is the threat of military action against the Kosovar Albanian population by Serbia and its proxies within the area. The current situation whilst somewhat different to Bosnia in the 1990’s, has a few key similarities.