From Rwanda to Tony Blair's lip quivering intensity

I'm just reading Lt General Romeo Dallaire's book, Shake Hands with the Devil. It's about his time serving as commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda and it makes for riveting reading. The tragic conflict in Rwanda has always fascinated and bemused me, maybe because I come from a country with over two hundred ethnic groups and so often wonder what makes a man or woman or child wake up and slash his long-time neighbour to ribbons. How do you stop seeing that person as your friend, your neighbour, your colleague,your priest or indeed a member of your congreagtion and start seeing them simply as "the other"

Perhaps I'm also fascinated because I currently live in a country where many people see me as the other, and as anti-immigrant rhetoric is whipped up, I wonder if it will ever get to a point where my friends and colleagues here see me as immigrant first before anything else.....

I felt it particularly during the elections in May when the Tories put out their billboards with the noxious slogan "Are you thinking what we're thinking......it's not racist to impose limits on immigration". Thankfully the majority of the UK population wasn't, even though it meant that the slimy Tony Bliar got re elected. I used to be a fan , back home in Nigeria but over the last few years, I've lost all sympathy for him. It's his inconsistency, the lying and the spin what's done for me.

A few months ago, Michael Howard (whom I can't stand) attacked him during Prime Minister's Questions with what I think sums Blair up best. I can't remember what the debate was about, but Howard's response summarized why I fell out with Tony. He said ".....And the Prime Minister stood there and with all the lip-quivering intensity for which he has become famous...."

It's that lip quivering intensity of his that I can't stand now. Whether he's clasping the hand of a pensioner or assuring that there were WMDs in Iraq, it's all done with a lip quivering intensity that just doesn't ring true....