When I came to Brighton in 1988, the first people I became friends with (and remain good friends with) were Deshinder and Raminder Gill - and later their extended family (Deshi's dad said I should call him Papa G.) They are Sikhs and being around them, rubbing against them, growing older with them has always allowed me to see the world differently, and I hope them us. So when the news reported yesterday that 35 Sikhs from Afghanistan (one of them dead) were found in a shipping container at Tilbury Docks my heart jumped. Of course its just one heartbreaking story about an underworld of migration but the idea that we live in such a world that makes this necessary fills me with profound sadness. On the same day, rockets hit a Ukraine refugee convoy, recently shells hit Palestinian schools and pockets of violence and refugee camps exist all over the world. What is it about the human races' inability to live with its fellow man. Goodness, even last night the UKIP MEP, Janice Atkinson, an elected member of the European Parliament, was urged to offer a grovelling apology after referring to a loyal party supporter, who is originally from Thailand, as a "ting tong" - not a nice term at all but a derogatory, racist, look down her nose at another human being. I guess there are people who think derogatory things about me - even at my University I used to have to endure 'jock jokes', and I guess its worldwide, Ferguson in the USA has such a problem right now. You would think we could have come further than this in the twenty-first century - sigh, its time to post some sublime music:
