The BBC victims of Al Qaeda.

“Monica” in the comments to a post below directed me to this link to LGF and the post below it.

The value of LGF, the thing that keeps me coming back there, is that it tells you stuff you don’t hear on the mainstream media. The worst part of it is that some (certainly not all) of the commenters lack human sympathy and are undiscriminatingly hostile to Islam.

The facts are these: on Monday a BBC cameraman, Simon Cumbers, was murdered in Riyadh by Al-Qaeda. Another reporter with him at the time, Frank Gardner, was severely injured in the attack and may die.

(I have just seen that while I was writing this post, Kerry Buttram was independently writing another on this topic.)

This story raises several issues so close to the heart of what this blog is about that they cannot be ignored. I am sorry that lack of time obliges me to list them in a less organised way than the seriousness of the subject merits.

When Frank Gardner was shot, he called out to the bystanders, “Help me, I’m a Muslim.” It seems they did not help. Some say this is because there is a law in Saudi Arabia forbidding bystanders to come to someone’s aid before paramedics arrive. Others say that the crowd were sympathetic to the killing of a foreigner, whatever his religion. Still others say that the crowd may have been afraid of reprisals from Al-Qaeda.

There is some doubt as to whether Gardner actually is a Muslim. [INSERTED LATER: The Australian, quoted by Tim Blair in an update to the link below, says that he was not.] Some say that claiming to be Muslim is a survival trick well known to reporters. In either case it reflects ill on Saudi society that such a strategy is thought necessary.

The BBC did not report the words “Help me, I’m a Muslim!” and has not commented on Mr Gardner’s religion.

If he is not actually a Muslim – i.e. it was a desperate ruse – I don’t blame him for trying it in extremis, and I see the BBC’s point in keeping quiet. It might endanger other reporters to have it publicly known that this deception is practised. However the point is moot, as the Arab media have certainly reported his words widely.

If he is a Muslim, it is still a difficult matter to know whether the BBC ought to have mentioned it. Do we really want to get into obliging people to disclose their religion before writing in public? When some green activist made a list of all the prominent “neo-cons” who were Jews it was considered distasteful, and would have been so even had the list been accurate. On the other hand, as Tim Blair points out, the BBC has made enough of George W Bush’s religion and Tony Blair’s. Sometimes religion is undeniably part of the story.

Frank Gardner’s reporting seems typical of the BBC. He is certainly knowledgeable about the Middle East. If his stance is affected beyond normal BBC sympathies by his possible Muslim religion, it is not apparent to me. In this report he is sympathetic to oppressed Moroccan women – I approve. In this one he calls the late Sheikh Yassin a “spiritual leader” and says that “What I have found from my personal experience is that people in the US state department tend to have a very good understanding of the problems of the Middle East and why al-Qaeda is so popular and they tend to steer a relatively middle course” – I disapprove. I do not know anything significant about the opinions of the cameraman, Simon Cumbers.

On March 13th, in the aftermath of the Madrid train bombings, there was a bitterly controversial post (controversial among both Biased BBC posters and commenters) by Patrick Crozier on this blog in which he said he said, “I want these people to feel pain” (specifically referring to those who excused terrorism on the Channel 4 coverage of the train bombings, but by extension to the moral equivalence tendency in the media generally), it was the only way they would wake up. In an exchange of emails and later a phone call I asked him if he meant it literally. He said no, but he defended the general sentiment that only personal experience of its evil would ever stop some minds sympathising with terrorism

I find two thoughts inescapable. One is that I don’t want anyone to feel that sort of pain, ever. (To be fair I don’t suppose Patrick does either, outside of rhetoric said in anger.) I would not wish it even on our actual enemies, Al Qaeda, though I am happy to see them dead or captured in the course of defeating them. Far less do I wish harm on unarmed reporters and cameramen doing their job. This whole blog is about the BBC in part because it is, or was, or could be an institution of our civilisation worth being (metaphorically)fought for.

The other inescapable thought is that the BBC did suddenly rediscover the word ‘terrorist’ when it was their own people being killed.

Going back a few days, when the acting Israeli ambassador to Britain Zvi Rav-Ner used the word “terrorist” the BBC paraphrased it as “militants”. They did not say they had done so; in effect putting words he did not say into the Israeli ambassador’s mouth.

In contrast, in “Manhunt after attack on BBC crew” the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sherard Cowper-Coles, is quoted thus:

Sherard Cowper-Coles said the area had seen “a number of clashes” between security forces and terrorists.

Not only were this ambassador’s words not edited, the terrorists have even escaped outside the quote marks. This is correct. The attack on Simon Cumber and Frank Gardner was terrorist murder and attempted murder. And the other victims of Al Qaeda, be they Americans, Israelis or Iraqis; be they Christians, Jews, atheists, Sunni or Shia Muslims; or whatever nationality or religion you care to name, are also victims of terrorism, not “militancy”. The indiscriminate nature of the killing is what makes it terrorism. That is one more reason, along with common humanity, to hope that Frank Gardner makes a full recovery and that the murderers of Simon Cumbers are caught and punished.