The following was reported by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in to-day’s Independent newspaper:
“This weekend I was on a Tube next to two red-eyed, exhausted Africans with those huge zipped-up plastic bags. I surmised they were poor exiles from their homelands, selling cheap things on streets, as they do now all round Europe, because they have to, to keep themselves and their families alive. What they go through, how they are despised. I felt my mood fall into despair for them. And then this old white couple started chatting to them, just naturally, without excessive curiousity. By the time we reached Hammersmith the men were grinning. Then one got up and gave the couple a wooden giraffe: ‘For Christmas; bit late, I know. God bless you.’ The whole carriage, for 10 minutes, was infused with warmth.”Yasmin went on to tell of a book entitled “Random Acts of Kindness” (by Danny Wallace) which her daughter had received as a present, and how her daughter finds the book a delight.
Yasmin (who generally writes a good lead article every Monday) is an Ismai'ili Shia Muslim who is well established in Britain and has much to say about fairness and the lack of it.
To-day, she also commented on a recent YouGov (
http://www.yougov.com/) poll that indicated that 63% felt good about their lives, but only 7% thought that the past year had been good for our country. They detest, she said, the change in the country.
So a good hug will start to change everything, perhaps?
