In your wildest dreams, do you think the BBC would have taken this jokey approach if, say, George W Bush had said something derogatory about our food? Or Tony Blair had said this about French food?
“Do you agree with President Chirac’s criticism of British food?
President Jacques Chirac is reported to have cracked jokes about British food during a meeting with German and Russian leaders.”
I had the Duke of Edinburgh in mind when Chiraq said that.
Let’s be clear, Chiraq was clearly heard to say that one cannot trust the English/British, based on their cuisine. This is clearly a xenophobic thought crime under some EU Directive. Let’s have him nicked when he turns up in Jockland next week.
We can give the Duke of Edinburgh the same DHYS soft soap treatment as dished out to Chiraq too:
Do you agree with the Duke that you’ll get slitty eyes if you stay too long in China?
Do you agree with the Duke that you’ll get a pot belly if you hang around in Hungary for too long?
Do you agree with the Duke that Indians can’t wire up a fusebox?
Do you agree with the Duke that when in traditional robes, the President of Nigeria looks like he’s ready for bed?
No mention on the BBC news of Bush’s offer to cut US farm subsidies if the EU does the same.
I wonder why the BBC did not mention this? Because, perhaps, it makes Bush look good, and will very likely show up Mr. Chirac as an arrogant French git?
They even get hilarious quotes from that thoroughly funny guy, Mark Steel.
The only thing is that the article focusses on just one religion and others are, sort of, not mentioned. Funny that, but so, well just so BBC don’t you think?
Plenty of Beeb double standards on display in this article about the destruction of the Ayodha mosque:
Former BBC India correspondent Mark Tully recalls the day Hindu fanatics pulled down the historic Babri mosque in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya.
Hindu fanatics? When would the Beeb ever describe angry Muslims as “fanatics”? Angry Muslims can shoot small children in the back on live television, and the Beeb will only ever call them “militants.” Or perhaps, “insurgents.” Certainly not “fanatics.”
Then there’s this gem:
Hindus traditionally accept there are many ways to god and, as one 20th Century Western scholar has put it, “for the dogmatic certainty that has racked the religions of semitic origin Hindus feel nothing but shocked incomprehension.”
So India with its Hindu majority should be the last place to find religious fanaticism. It should be an outstanding example of religious pluralism in a world where people of different faiths still so often find it difficult to live with each other.
So it’s all the Hindus’ fault, eh? No mention of the fact that the Hindus offered to share the site with the mosque, but the Muslims turned this offer down. They wanted all or nothing.
No mention on the BBC news of Bush’s offer to cut US farm subsidies if the EU does the same.
I wonder why the BBC did not mention this? Because, perhaps, it makes Bush look good, and will very likely show up Mr. Chirac as an arrogant French git?
Zevilyn
Quite so re Bush. And in an effort to spare Chirac the BBC1/News24 bulletins made no mention yesterday of his insulting remarks.
Today they offer a (D)HYS where most of the comments are about food – How literal!
Chirac was using food (plus his reference to BSE) as a vehicle to display his arrogant contempt for the UK.
On the (D)HYS thread this clown takes first prize for missing the point &, typically, looking first at “our” shortcomings
Oh, for goodness’ sake. There are good things and bad things about both British and French cuisine. Can’t we be a bit more grown up about this, enjoy the best bits of both, concentrate on fixing our own imperfections and just say “vive la difference”, instead of fuelling this pointless food feud?
Chris Lilley, Banbury, UK
It’s a badge of honour to be insulted by the French.
In Chiraq’s case, he’s not only Surrender Monkey in Chief but the most preposterous stuffed shirt of a politician to be found anywhere. He’s also corrupt to the core. If it wasn’t for the fact that being Monsieur Le President not only provides immunity from prosecution but even from investigation – egalitee, mon amis! – he’d be picking up the soap so carelessly dropped by his cell mate, Bubba.
He also seems unaware that if it wasn’t for we Anglos he’d be living on a diet of German sausage and that we helped clear that lovely French countryside of the Boche!
Nah, I’d be more worried if the swine had praised us.
“So it’s all the Hindus’ fault, eh? No mention of the fact that the Hindus offered to share the site with the mosque, but the Muslims turned this offer down. They wanted all or nothing.”
The day it was built Hindus were supposed to be building next to it. How do you share a site upon which a religious structure is already built anyway? I’d be interested to see your source for the “sharing” line. Got a link?
Anyone old enough to remember the storm whipped up when Nigel Lawson (then Chancellor)infered Today’s Brian Redhead was a Labour supporter would welcome voter registration.
Someone (think it’s Forbes)publishes list of leading Jouno’s party affiliations
Radio 4 has now reported that the mosque on the site of Ayodhya which was destroyed by Hindu extremists dated from the 16th century; but what was there before it? Can one lie by omission? This is what the BBC passes off as impartiality.
A shrine to Lord Ram was built on land surrounding the mosque in 1961. The Muslims who managed the mosque filed a lawsuit to get the shrine removed and the land around the mosque returned.
Quote:
Far from the bull-horn bravado of Hindu activists, Mohammad Hashim Ansari keeps his own plans for resisting the temple construction. Mr. Ansari is the original plaintiff in a suit filed in 1961, when the then-Congress-ruled government first acquired the land surrounding the Babri Mosque and allowed Hindus to place a small shrine to Lord Ram against the back wall.
His legal argument is deceptively simple: “It is our mosque, so return it to us,” he says. “There is no compromise. Either it will be negotiated in court, or it will be resolved through power. I am ready for both.”
The Hindus have offered to build a replacement for the Babri Mosque btw,in the same general site.
This offer for a replacement mosque has been rejected.
That is what I meant by an offer to share the site. A site is a plot of land, no?
The Muslims have a chance for a new mosque in the same general area as the former Babri mosque, but stubbornly insist on having the exact place where the mosque stood.
Why do the Hindus get the stick from the BBC for causing most of the problems when the Muslims are also contributing to the problem by being so stubborn?
I understand that many of the RSS folks are not nice people, so it’s probably accurate for them to be called “fanatics” by the BBC commentator. However, then, so equally should Muslims be called who riot and kill based on a **rumor** that someone, somewhere, has “desecrated” their holy book.
But the Beeb would never, ever apply the same terminology that they apply to Hindu “fanatics”, to any type of Muslims, no matter what they do.
Why doesn’t the Beeb reporter note that the Hindus have offered to build a replacement mosque at Ayodhya?
Note how the Beeb’s selective morality is on display in this issue. Normally they would take the side of the indigenes against “cultural imperialism.”
If it were a case of an old Christian church built on a Native American holy site, is there any question which side they would take?
But in the case of the Ayodhya issue, they clearly take the side of the formerly imperialist settlers building on a site sacred to the indigenous peoples.
Granted British food is famously inedible but I’d trust the UK before France any day of the week – and I think I speak for most Americans when I say that!
I am soooo grateful to my four times great grandparents Coupart for emigrating to the United States! To think – I might have been French! Ick!
Even these 4 hits are not really comparable with the usage in the Hindu examples.
With all the strife in the world and no shortage of Muslim fanatics, the BBC uses the term more frequently for Hindus and steers clear of labelling Muslims in this way.
Regarding Muslim ‘holy’ sites, I’m reminded of a BBC documentary run about 2 years ago by Dan Cruikshank. In the first he investigated various sites in Israel, and in the next he visited the Iraq museum in Baghdad. Here’s a letter sent to the BBC about his biased reporting.
Perhaps you can explain why Dan Cruickshank was able to do better journalism on this, the second of his documentaries, than on the first? Does he realize how hypocritical he showed himself to be?
In the beginning of this documentary he expresses relief at seeing the US tank guarding the Iraq museum, yet he showed the Israeli forces guarding Jewish sites in the West Bank as an ‘unholy’ occurence. Is it just because he has interest in the Iraqi artifacts, and none at all in the Jewish sites, that has has no empathy? Even though he visited Joseph’s tomb, that had been left unguarded and saw himself the subsequent desecration and destruction by the Palestinians, he made no equation.
He described the tunnel under the Western (wailing) Wall as a new excavation, done to incite Palestinians. In fact it was an archaeological re-excavation of existing tunnels dug over 2 thousand years ago – a find he should respect and uphold.
The irony of his realization that the Iraq troops had used the museum as a fortress, even though he had first believed the Iraqi curator that it was not, as against his willing acceptance of the Palestinian version of how Israel had shelled the Church of the Nativity against a ‘few’ Palestinian gunmen holed up there. No mention of how the Palestinian gunmen desecrated that site, besides purposefully using it to create a ‘world’ situation that would villify Israel, as so many of their other ‘creations’ are designed to do.
I wonder how many Jewish and Christian sites there will be left if Israel was not protecting them. Do you think it is an accident that the Dome of the Rock – the site where Mohammed is ‘supposed’ to have risen to heaven, is situated on top of Temple Mount – one of the holiest sites in the Jewish religion? Especially considering that Israel or Jerusalem was not even mentioned in the Koran. How many more ‘holy sites’ will the Muslims ‘discover’ and build on top of if Israel doesn’t protect them?
I think Dan Cruickshank should have a rethink, and do some proper investigation before he dares to make any more documentaries, and I hope you will forward my comments to him.
Michael, you are right! I just did the same thing. The Beeb’s descriptions of angry Hindus are overwhelmingly pejorative — I found lots of references to “Hindu mobs” “Hindu hardliners” as well as to “Hindu fanatics.” They are not usually given the dignity of being called “insurgents” or “militants” as is all too common in the case of practioners of the other religion.
Guess whose fault the problems of Africa are? Yep, those beastly colonial powerzzzzzzzzzzzz. Biyi Bandele, a Nigerian playwright, gives us the benefit of his view, which seems to be that Africans aren’t culpable in any way for that basket case of a continent.
Any article which requires the Yazzmonster to inject a degree of common sense into it must be written by a prime loon.
Biyi Bandele does finish on a positive note, however:
We must come together, not in a sentimental but ultimately pointless spirit of nationalist phrase-making, but to pull ourselves, together, out of this mess we’re in.
“For example, we sell biscuits made by a small bakery in Tobermoray in Mull. In return, we supply them with flour.
“It’s an alternative to the capitalist model that works.”
Yeah, it’s called barter. And it can be decidedly inconvenient. I meant try making change for a cow some time!
BTW I had no idea 18th c. Britain was so dependent on slave labor! One might add that it was agrarian rather than industrial economies that found slavery useful.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight; African nations have been independent for thirty or forty years now – more than a generation – but their problems are entirely do to the long gone colonizers – corrupt governments, insane dictators and crazy economic theories have *nothing* to do with the problem!
Maybe our resident Socialist John B. can correct me but aren’t the African countries that have adopted socialism / communism or are mainy muslim countries the ones that are worst off?
Roxana: Do they also accept “barter” for the biscuits they sell? I don’t think so. So obviously they are not using an “alternative economic model”.
What a bunch of fools. And the Beeb laps it up.
One might add that it was agrarian rather than industrial economies that found slavery useful.
One might also add that the industrialized, capitalist free North beat the living crap out of the feudal, agrarian slave-holding South during the US Civil War. So much for not being able to manage without slaves — the ones who did so lost out big time to the eee-vil capitalists!
The Beeb quotes this woman’s ignorant drivel like it was holy writ. Truly astounding.
I worked for a “worker-owned” company once, BTW. The “workers” partied through most of the day instead of working. They couldn’t be fired, especially not the old-timers who had worked there a long time and owned a lot of company stock. I wouldn’t jump at the chance to work for one of those again, let me tell you. A complete waste of time, and of course the company didn’t do well.
No soft-pedalling religious extremism here! I guess the “Hindu fanatics” would have to convert to Islam in order to be promoted to “militants” or “insurgents.”
‘Guess whose fault the problems of Africa are? Yep, those beastly colonial powerzzzzzzzzzzzz. Biyi Bandele, a Nigerian playwright, gives us the benefit of his view, which seems to be that Africans aren’t culpable in any way for that basket case of a continent.’
Pete – I had to laugh at the position taken here that colonialism has done so much damage to Africa: “Of all the nations across Africa, only Ethiopia and Liberia had escaped the yoke of colonialism.”
Yeah – those two nations have really thrived having escaped the yoke of colonialism!
They call themselves a news service, so why don’t they even mention something like this?
!!!!!!!!!!!
The European Union said a significant portion of the more than $1 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority has been pocketed by Palestinian leaders.
The EU fraud squad, known as Olaf, issued a report that said the PA sent hundreds of millions of dollars to bank accounts in Switzerland and Tunisia. Olaf, concluding a two-year investigation, said other donor funding was probably pocketed by PA officials.
They also don’t mention that OLAF is investigating two British charities, as yet not named, for fraud. In a practice known as ‘double dipping’ these clowns go hat in hand and get a pile of cash from the EU, and then with a false set of accounts, go and ask for the same thing from the World Bank or the US govt.
When the mosque was destroyed, Hindus were supposed to be building something on next door, as the original link clearly explains.
You mention “The Hindus have offered to build a replacement for the Babri Mosque btw,in the same general site.
This offer for a replacement mosque has been rejected.
That is what I meant by an offer to share the site. A site is a plot of land, no?”
The orignal plan, to build a Hindu place next door meets the same criteria of “site” as yours. So, basically the Muslims rejected building *on top of* the existing mosque. Despite assurances from the Indian government that the mosque would be safe, it was destroyed.
The issue was clearly the exact site, and the Hindu hardliners took it upon themselves to destroy the mosque. Aren’t you libertarians supposed to be about personal responsibility? I can’t see how the destruction, and the inflammatory and illegal manner in which it happened is anything other than the fault of the people who did it.
The issue of ownership is still going through the courts and the Hindus still had every opportunity of reclaiming the exact site legally. As it is, Ayodhya has simply become a pawn for hardline Hindu nationalist politicians.
The Royal Society has been rather fast and loose, it seems, in hailing a scientific consensus on global warming. Well, the US National Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Science would beg to differ.
The know-it-alls at the bbc ignore science and other facts so they can slag off the USA. Kyoto doesn’t take account of huge polluters like China and India. It is also not in dispute that there is no definitive scientific proof re global warming. So why should the US, whose scientists are among the best actually and historically in the world, sign such a piece of rubbish?
Bush has offered to remove a lot of agricultural protection/support if Europe does too. This is by far the biggest news for Africa – it would give them a chance to trade their way forward, to build their own industries using their own products.
Only the “Old Europe” of France and Germany cling to the CAP. Bush and Blair offer a chance to start to sweep CAP aside. Magnificent news.
But not to the BBC apparently. They are studiously downplaying it.
The plain fact of the matter is that the Hindus did present a plan for resolving the situation and presenting further violence, and that it has been rejected. The Beeb doesn’t report that — why not?
Moreover, whatever one thinks about Ayodyha, it doesn’t excuse the Beeb’s dreadful double standards in presenting “Hindu fanatics” as a contrast to the lovable Muslim pussy-cats the Beeb tries to whitewash at all opportunities — even to the point of trying to explain away the Beslan atrocity by stating that the “militants” were aiming at the fleeing children’s legs rather than shooting them in the back as anyone with half a brain could clearly see with their own eyes.
Muslims blew up 100 Hindus traveling to a sacred pilgrimage site in Kashmir a couple of years ago but they are still not called “Muslim fanatics”, “Muslim mobs”, “Muslim extremists” etc. as a search of BBC news clearly shows these terms being routinely applied to Hindus.
I also suspect that the Beeb would not take the opportunity in the case of the Kashmiri pilgrimage atrocity, for example, to opine about the decline of religious tolerance in India. It’s only the responsibility of the Hindus to be “tolerant”, never the responsibility of the other group – just as it is in the West, according to the BBC.
The BBC will never change course on climate change. If the world gets hotter it will be “man made”, if it gets cooler it’s “man made”.
Rather than peddling scare stories, I think climate scientists should try to prove the causes of the “mini ice age”. One they can explain something that did happen, I might believe their stories about something that might happen.
The Kyoto Protocol is set to cost $1,000,000,000,000 and will only slow the rate of warming by 7 years (if the scientists are right). Wouldn’t we be better spending that kind of cash transforming Africa or developing new, clean technologies?
Any type of pollution is bad. However, I’m much more concerned about pesticides, fertilisers, heavy metals, dioxins, etc that are entering the water table.
If you can’t see this as bread and butter nationalist politics, you’re wilfully ignoring the obvious. Advani is adamant now that a Hindu temple will be built where the mosque was destroyed. Some compromise given his supposed distress at the destruction of the mosque.
You can play the game both ways on who gets the soft soap:
You can sidetrack onto some secondhand recollection of the BBC commentary of Beslan, or claim that the BBC is applying double standards, but ultimately you are simply choosing some reports, ignoring others and plying the tired line of the BBC giving muslims an easy ride on the same old selective, interpretative nonsense.
It’s just as easy to select a different body of evidence from the same source and come to the opposite conclusion.
Cockney “I can imagine China signing Kyoto and I suspect that the Chinese representative who signed it probably can as well.
They could sign it just like Chirac – it required no reduction in emissions from either China or France (another EU stitch up – Germany,UK + a few, who make the finacial contributions are also required to make reductions in emissions sufficient to allow the remaining EU nations a free ride).
Your links are less than impressive. In none of them do I find Muslims described as being “fanatics” “mobs” “hardliners” etc. OTOH, in one of your own links, I do find Hindus being described as “fanatics” by a Beeb commentator. You simply have proved my point for me, thanks!
You haven’t made any point at all with your links. Bring me some BBC links describing some rampaging Muslims as “fanatics” and “mobs” and “extremists” and I’ll concede you made a point. As of now, you haven’t made one.
I never mentioned LK Advani — so why do you bring him up now? I said that Hindus had offered to build and pay for a replacement mosque on a site at Ayodhya, and that this offer has been rejected becaue the Muslims want that particular site — despite the fact that it doesn’t have the same religious value for the Muslims as it does for the Hindus. What I wrote is true. The Beeb has not reported this in any of the Ayodhya coverage I’ve seen so far. That is also true. Why haven’t they mentioned it?
Are you one of those people who think that the Beeb doesn’t softsoap Islamic militancy in Israel too?
I find your adamancy over this issue puzzling. Obviously you have some sort of personal attachment to the Ayodhya issue that is clouding your commentary.
The issue is the Beeb’s double standards. So go ahead, find me some links where the Beeb described Muslims as “fanatics.” I’ll accept any geographical location.
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In your wildest dreams, do you think the BBC would have taken this jokey approach if, say, George W Bush had said something derogatory about our food? Or Tony Blair had said this about French food?
“Do you agree with President Chirac’s criticism of British food?
President Jacques Chirac is reported to have cracked jokes about British food during a meeting with German and Russian leaders.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4651777.stm
You see at the BBC, it’s not what you say, it’s who says it.
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Eamonn
I had the Duke of Edinburgh in mind when Chiraq said that.
Let’s be clear, Chiraq was clearly heard to say that one cannot trust the English/British, based on their cuisine. This is clearly a xenophobic thought crime under some EU Directive. Let’s have him nicked when he turns up in Jockland next week.
We can give the Duke of Edinburgh the same DHYS soft soap treatment as dished out to Chiraq too:
Do you agree with the Duke that you’ll get slitty eyes if you stay too long in China?
Do you agree with the Duke that you’ll get a pot belly if you hang around in Hungary for too long?
Do you agree with the Duke that Indians can’t wire up a fusebox?
Do you agree with the Duke that when in traditional robes, the President of Nigeria looks like he’s ready for bed?
You could play this all day long.
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No mention on the BBC news of Bush’s offer to cut US farm subsidies if the EU does the same.
I wonder why the BBC did not mention this? Because, perhaps, it makes Bush look good, and will very likely show up Mr. Chirac as an arrogant French git?
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I agree with the Duke on all of the above.
I agree with everything that Berlusconi says.
On the enviroment, Bush is right. Kyoto is a cop out.
Chirac may have a point but the real point is LET PEOPLE SPEAK.
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Did George’s parents never tell him that two wrongs don’t make a right?
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You know the BBC is just so daring! They fearlessly write about religious jokes:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4652099.stm
They even get hilarious quotes from that thoroughly funny guy, Mark Steel.
The only thing is that the article focusses on just one religion and others are, sort of, not mentioned. Funny that, but so, well just so BBC don’t you think?
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Eamonn:
I see that the Beeb is still trying to pretend that the incitement to religious hatred bill is aimed at protecting Christians from criticism.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4651619.stm
Plenty of Beeb double standards on display in this article about the destruction of the Ayodha mosque:
Former BBC India correspondent Mark Tully recalls the day Hindu fanatics pulled down the historic Babri mosque in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya.
Hindu fanatics? When would the Beeb ever describe angry Muslims as “fanatics”? Angry Muslims can shoot small children in the back on live television, and the Beeb will only ever call them “militants.” Or perhaps, “insurgents.” Certainly not “fanatics.”
Then there’s this gem:
Hindus traditionally accept there are many ways to god and, as one 20th Century Western scholar has put it, “for the dogmatic certainty that has racked the religions of semitic origin Hindus feel nothing but shocked incomprehension.”
So India with its Hindu majority should be the last place to find religious fanaticism. It should be an outstanding example of religious pluralism in a world where people of different faiths still so often find it difficult to live with each other.
So it’s all the Hindus’ fault, eh? No mention of the fact that the Hindus offered to share the site with the mosque, but the Muslims turned this offer down. They wanted all or nothing.
Not very “pluralistic” of them, what?
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No mention on the BBC news of Bush’s offer to cut US farm subsidies if the EU does the same.
I wonder why the BBC did not mention this? Because, perhaps, it makes Bush look good, and will very likely show up Mr. Chirac as an arrogant French git?
Zevilyn
Quite so re Bush. And in an effort to spare Chirac the BBC1/News24 bulletins made no mention yesterday of his insulting remarks.
Today they offer a (D)HYS where most of the comments are about food – How literal!
Chirac was using food (plus his reference to BSE) as a vehicle to display his arrogant contempt for the UK.
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On the (D)HYS thread this clown takes first prize for missing the point &, typically, looking first at “our” shortcomings
Oh, for goodness’ sake. There are good things and bad things about both British and French cuisine. Can’t we be a bit more grown up about this, enjoy the best bits of both, concentrate on fixing our own imperfections and just say “vive la difference”, instead of fuelling this pointless food feud?
Chris Lilley, Banbury, UK
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“One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad”
Surely this is incitement to racial hatred? I wonder if the Police will have the balls to arrest him when he comes to the UK?
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Exactly Rob.
Chirac’s comments about the food are not the issue (despite what DHYS thinks about it.) The real issue is saying that the British can’t be trusted.
Who wouldn’t take offense at a comment like that?
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Susan
It’s a badge of honour to be insulted by the French.
In Chiraq’s case, he’s not only Surrender Monkey in Chief but the most preposterous stuffed shirt of a politician to be found anywhere. He’s also corrupt to the core. If it wasn’t for the fact that being Monsieur Le President not only provides immunity from prosecution but even from investigation – egalitee, mon amis! – he’d be picking up the soap so carelessly dropped by his cell mate, Bubba.
He also seems unaware that if it wasn’t for we Anglos he’d be living on a diet of German sausage and that we helped clear that lovely French countryside of the Boche!
Nah, I’d be more worried if the swine had praised us.
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Erm … I’m sure Joerg recognises that British sense of humour when he sees it … 😉
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Perhaps Tony could be ‘overheard’ commenting that the France’s main contribution to EU health and safety standards is the hole in the floor toilet?
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“So it’s all the Hindus’ fault, eh? No mention of the fact that the Hindus offered to share the site with the mosque, but the Muslims turned this offer down. They wanted all or nothing.”
The day it was built Hindus were supposed to be building next to it. How do you share a site upon which a religious structure is already built anyway? I’d be interested to see your source for the “sharing” line. Got a link?
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Re Bush questioning on US mainstream TV – came across this
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=13313_Where_Mainstream_Media_Stands
Anyone old enough to remember the storm whipped up when Nigel Lawson (then Chancellor)infered Today’s Brian Redhead was a Labour supporter would welcome voter registration.
Someone (think it’s Forbes)publishes list of leading Jouno’s party affiliations
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Radio 4 has now reported that the mosque on the site of Ayodhya which was destroyed by Hindu extremists dated from the 16th century; but what was there before it? Can one lie by omission? This is what the BBC passes off as impartiality.
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Anonymous, here you go:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0307/p06s01-wosc.html
A shrine to Lord Ram was built on land surrounding the mosque in 1961. The Muslims who managed the mosque filed a lawsuit to get the shrine removed and the land around the mosque returned.
Quote:
Far from the bull-horn bravado of Hindu activists, Mohammad Hashim Ansari keeps his own plans for resisting the temple construction. Mr. Ansari is the original plaintiff in a suit filed in 1961, when the then-Congress-ruled government first acquired the land surrounding the Babri Mosque and allowed Hindus to place a small shrine to Lord Ram against the back wall.
His legal argument is deceptively simple: “It is our mosque, so return it to us,” he says. “There is no compromise. Either it will be negotiated in court, or it will be resolved through power. I am ready for both.”
The Hindus have offered to build a replacement for the Babri Mosque btw,in the same general site.
This offer for a replacement mosque has been rejected.
That is what I meant by an offer to share the site. A site is a plot of land, no?
The Muslims have a chance for a new mosque in the same general area as the former Babri mosque, but stubbornly insist on having the exact place where the mosque stood.
Why do the Hindus get the stick from the BBC for causing most of the problems when the Muslims are also contributing to the problem by being so stubborn?
I understand that many of the RSS folks are not nice people, so it’s probably accurate for them to be called “fanatics” by the BBC commentator. However, then, so equally should Muslims be called who riot and kill based on a **rumor** that someone, somewhere, has “desecrated” their holy book.
But the Beeb would never, ever apply the same terminology that they apply to Hindu “fanatics”, to any type of Muslims, no matter what they do.
Why doesn’t the Beeb reporter note that the Hindus have offered to build a replacement mosque at Ayodhya?
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Note how the Beeb’s selective morality is on display in this issue. Normally they would take the side of the indigenes against “cultural imperialism.”
If it were a case of an old Christian church built on a Native American holy site, is there any question which side they would take?
But in the case of the Ayodhya issue, they clearly take the side of the formerly imperialist settlers building on a site sacred to the indigenous peoples.
Why the selective morality?
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“One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad”
Granted British food is famously inedible but I’d trust the UK before France any day of the week – and I think I speak for most Americans when I say that!
I am soooo grateful to my four times great grandparents Coupart for emigrating to the United States! To think – I might have been French! Ick!
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‘Hindu fanatics? When would the Beeb ever describe angry Muslims as “fanatics”? ‘
Susan – I went to the BBC Online search page and entered the following search strings:
“hindu fanatics” – 7 hits.
“muslim fanatics” – 4 hits.
Even these 4 hits are not really comparable with the usage in the Hindu examples.
With all the strife in the world and no shortage of Muslim fanatics, the BBC uses the term more frequently for Hindus and steers clear of labelling Muslims in this way.
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Regarding Muslim ‘holy’ sites, I’m reminded of a BBC documentary run about 2 years ago by Dan Cruikshank. In the first he investigated various sites in Israel, and in the next he visited the Iraq museum in Baghdad. Here’s a letter sent to the BBC about his biased reporting.
Perhaps you can explain why Dan Cruickshank was able to do better journalism on this, the second of his documentaries, than on the first? Does he realize how hypocritical he showed himself to be?
In the beginning of this documentary he expresses relief at seeing the US tank guarding the Iraq museum, yet he showed the Israeli forces guarding Jewish sites in the West Bank as an ‘unholy’ occurence. Is it just because he has interest in the Iraqi artifacts, and none at all in the Jewish sites, that has has no empathy? Even though he visited Joseph’s tomb, that had been left unguarded and saw himself the subsequent desecration and destruction by the Palestinians, he made no equation.
He described the tunnel under the Western (wailing) Wall as a new excavation, done to incite Palestinians. In fact it was an archaeological re-excavation of existing tunnels dug over 2 thousand years ago – a find he should respect and uphold.
The irony of his realization that the Iraq troops had used the museum as a fortress, even though he had first believed the Iraqi curator that it was not, as against his willing acceptance of the Palestinian version of how Israel had shelled the Church of the Nativity against a ‘few’ Palestinian gunmen holed up there. No mention of how the Palestinian gunmen desecrated that site, besides purposefully using it to create a ‘world’ situation that would villify Israel, as so many of their other ‘creations’ are designed to do.
I wonder how many Jewish and Christian sites there will be left if Israel was not protecting them. Do you think it is an accident that the Dome of the Rock – the site where Mohammed is ‘supposed’ to have risen to heaven, is situated on top of Temple Mount – one of the holiest sites in the Jewish religion? Especially considering that Israel or Jerusalem was not even mentioned in the Koran. How many more ‘holy sites’ will the Muslims ‘discover’ and build on top of if Israel doesn’t protect them?
I think Dan Cruickshank should have a rethink, and do some proper investigation before he dares to make any more documentaries, and I hope you will forward my comments to him.
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Michael, you are right! I just did the same thing. The Beeb’s descriptions of angry Hindus are overwhelmingly pejorative — I found lots of references to “Hindu mobs” “Hindu hardliners” as well as to “Hindu fanatics.” They are not usually given the dignity of being called “insurgents” or “militants” as is all too common in the case of practioners of the other religion.
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Well I’ve had enough of Africa, the G8, Live8 and the rest. Nah nah nah I can’t hear you.
The BBC has now truly sunk to the level of the sixth form:
ECO VILLAGE ‘IS MODEL FOR US ALL’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4654077.stm
Is this news? That a bunch of freaks and wierdos want to live in their own filth? More than that, the BBC sems to be shrilling for it somewhat.
This is the final straw:
AFRICANS ON AFRICA: COLONIALISM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4653125.stm
Guess whose fault the problems of Africa are? Yep, those beastly colonial powerzzzzzzzzzzzz. Biyi Bandele, a Nigerian playwright, gives us the benefit of his view, which seems to be that Africans aren’t culpable in any way for that basket case of a continent.
Any article which requires the Yazzmonster to inject a degree of common sense into it must be written by a prime loon.
Biyi Bandele does finish on a positive note, however:
We must come together, not in a sentimental but ultimately pointless spirit of nationalist phrase-making, but to pull ourselves, together, out of this mess we’re in.
He lives in London.
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“For example, we sell biscuits made by a small bakery in Tobermoray in Mull. In return, we supply them with flour.
“It’s an alternative to the capitalist model that works.”
Yeah, it’s called barter. And it can be decidedly inconvenient. I meant try making change for a cow some time!
BTW I had no idea 18th c. Britain was so dependent on slave labor! One might add that it was agrarian rather than industrial economies that found slavery useful.
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Let me see if I’ve got this straight; African nations have been independent for thirty or forty years now – more than a generation – but their problems are entirely do to the long gone colonizers – corrupt governments, insane dictators and crazy economic theories have *nothing* to do with the problem!
Yeah, sure.
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Maybe our resident Socialist John B. can correct me but aren’t the African countries that have adopted socialism / communism or are mainy muslim countries the ones that are worst off?
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Roxana: Do they also accept “barter” for the biscuits they sell? I don’t think so. So obviously they are not using an “alternative economic model”.
What a bunch of fools. And the Beeb laps it up.
One might add that it was agrarian rather than industrial economies that found slavery useful.
One might also add that the industrialized, capitalist free North beat the living crap out of the feudal, agrarian slave-holding South during the US Civil War. So much for not being able to manage without slaves — the ones who did so lost out big time to the eee-vil capitalists!
The Beeb quotes this woman’s ignorant drivel like it was holy writ. Truly astounding.
I worked for a “worker-owned” company once, BTW. The “workers” partied through most of the day instead of working. They couldn’t be fired, especially not the old-timers who had worked there a long time and owned a lot of company stock. I wouldn’t jump at the chance to work for one of those again, let me tell you. A complete waste of time, and of course the company didn’t do well.
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Ah, here’s that phrased used once again:
“Hindu fanatics”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4654007.stm
No soft-pedalling religious extremism here! I guess the “Hindu fanatics” would have to convert to Islam in order to be promoted to “militants” or “insurgents.”
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‘Guess whose fault the problems of Africa are? Yep, those beastly colonial powerzzzzzzzzzzzz. Biyi Bandele, a Nigerian playwright, gives us the benefit of his view, which seems to be that Africans aren’t culpable in any way for that basket case of a continent.’
Pete – I had to laugh at the position taken here that colonialism has done so much damage to Africa: “Of all the nations across Africa, only Ethiopia and Liberia had escaped the yoke of colonialism.”
Yeah – those two nations have really thrived having escaped the yoke of colonialism!
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They call themselves a news service, so why don’t they even mention something like this?
!!!!!!!!!!!
The European Union said a significant portion of the more than $1 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority has been pocketed by Palestinian leaders.
The EU fraud squad, known as Olaf, issued a report that said the PA sent hundreds of millions of dollars to bank accounts in Switzerland and Tunisia. Olaf, concluding a two-year investigation, said other donor funding was probably pocketed by PA officials.
They also don’t mention that OLAF is investigating two British charities, as yet not named, for fraud. In a practice known as ‘double dipping’ these clowns go hat in hand and get a pile of cash from the EU, and then with a false set of accounts, go and ask for the same thing from the World Bank or the US govt.
So, let’s hear it bbc!
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Susan,
When the mosque was destroyed, Hindus were supposed to be building something on next door, as the original link clearly explains.
You mention “The Hindus have offered to build a replacement for the Babri Mosque btw,in the same general site.
This offer for a replacement mosque has been rejected.
That is what I meant by an offer to share the site. A site is a plot of land, no?”
The orignal plan, to build a Hindu place next door meets the same criteria of “site” as yours. So, basically the Muslims rejected building *on top of* the existing mosque. Despite assurances from the Indian government that the mosque would be safe, it was destroyed.
The issue was clearly the exact site, and the Hindu hardliners took it upon themselves to destroy the mosque. Aren’t you libertarians supposed to be about personal responsibility? I can’t see how the destruction, and the inflammatory and illegal manner in which it happened is anything other than the fault of the people who did it.
The issue of ownership is still going through the courts and the Hindus still had every opportunity of reclaiming the exact site legally. As it is, Ayodhya has simply become a pawn for hardline Hindu nationalist politicians.
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Suprising find.
“Stalagmite fuels climate debate”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4636115.stm
Of course they don’t mention that if true then the Kyoto agreement would be proved to be a monumentally bad idea.
The title is a bit “vague” as well.
But 1 thumb up for it actually getting on the site.
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Rob Read
Der Spiegel gives us glaciers:
THE COMING AND GOING OF GLACIERS: A NEW ALPINE MELT THEORY
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,357366,00.html
Melanie Phillips lets the BBC have it:
THE GLOBAL WARMING SCAM
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001307.html
The Royal Society has been rather fast and loose, it seems, in hailing a scientific consensus on global warming. Well, the US National Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Science would beg to differ.
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The know-it-alls at the bbc ignore science and other facts so they can slag off the USA. Kyoto doesn’t take account of huge polluters like China and India. It is also not in dispute that there is no definitive scientific proof re global warming. So why should the US, whose scientists are among the best actually and historically in the world, sign such a piece of rubbish?
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Bush has offered to remove a lot of agricultural protection/support if Europe does too. This is by far the biggest news for Africa – it would give them a chance to trade their way forward, to build their own industries using their own products.
Only the “Old Europe” of France and Germany cling to the CAP. Bush and Blair offer a chance to start to sweep CAP aside. Magnificent news.
But not to the BBC apparently. They are studiously downplaying it.
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Can you imagine China signing Kyoto? I can’t, and I bet there will be no pressure put on China to sign up to it.
The farm subsidies offer from Bush should be a huge story, yet strangely it is not…how unsporting of Dubya not to play the pantomime villain.
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Anonymous:
The plain fact of the matter is that the Hindus did present a plan for resolving the situation and presenting further violence, and that it has been rejected. The Beeb doesn’t report that — why not?
Moreover, whatever one thinks about Ayodyha, it doesn’t excuse the Beeb’s dreadful double standards in presenting “Hindu fanatics” as a contrast to the lovable Muslim pussy-cats the Beeb tries to whitewash at all opportunities — even to the point of trying to explain away the Beslan atrocity by stating that the “militants” were aiming at the fleeing children’s legs rather than shooting them in the back as anyone with half a brain could clearly see with their own eyes.
Muslims blew up 100 Hindus traveling to a sacred pilgrimage site in Kashmir a couple of years ago but they are still not called “Muslim fanatics”, “Muslim mobs”, “Muslim extremists” etc. as a search of BBC news clearly shows these terms being routinely applied to Hindus.
I also suspect that the Beeb would not take the opportunity in the case of the Kashmiri pilgrimage atrocity, for example, to opine about the decline of religious tolerance in India. It’s only the responsibility of the Hindus to be “tolerant”, never the responsibility of the other group – just as it is in the West, according to the BBC.
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The BBC will never change course on climate change. If the world gets hotter it will be “man made”, if it gets cooler it’s “man made”.
Rather than peddling scare stories, I think climate scientists should try to prove the causes of the “mini ice age”. One they can explain something that did happen, I might believe their stories about something that might happen.
The Kyoto Protocol is set to cost $1,000,000,000,000 and will only slow the rate of warming by 7 years (if the scientists are right). Wouldn’t we be better spending that kind of cash transforming Africa or developing new, clean technologies?
Any type of pollution is bad. However, I’m much more concerned about pesticides, fertilisers, heavy metals, dioxins, etc that are entering the water table.
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Excuse me, that should have been “preventing further violence” in the first sentence.
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Zevilyn,
I can imagine China signing Kyoto and I suspect that the Chinese representative who signed it probably can as well.
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Susan,
“The plain fact of the matter is that the Hindus did present a plan for resolving the situation and presenting further violence”
Actually no. Advani peddled the line of tolerance in 1998 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/s/w_asia/44387.stm and now stands accused of incitement. It’s a highly moot point that he wanted compromise, unsupported by the facts. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4655901.stm
If you can’t see this as bread and butter nationalist politics, you’re wilfully ignoring the obvious. Advani is adamant now that a Hindu temple will be built where the mosque was destroyed. Some compromise given his supposed distress at the destruction of the mosque.
You can play the game both ways on who gets the soft soap:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4654593.stm
Hindu “activists” or “hardliners” and Muslim “militants”
or Hindu “protestors” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4655901.stm
or the soft soaping of LK Advani: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2075803.stm
You can sidetrack onto some secondhand recollection of the BBC commentary of Beslan, or claim that the BBC is applying double standards, but ultimately you are simply choosing some reports, ignoring others and plying the tired line of the BBC giving muslims an easy ride on the same old selective, interpretative nonsense.
It’s just as easy to select a different body of evidence from the same source and come to the opposite conclusion.
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Cockney “I can imagine China signing Kyoto and I suspect that the Chinese representative who signed it probably can as well.
They could sign it just like Chirac – it required no reduction in emissions from either China or France (another EU stitch up – Germany,UK + a few, who make the finacial contributions are also required to make reductions in emissions sufficient to allow the remaining EU nations a free ride).
http://org.eea.eu.int/documents/newsreleases/ghg_emissions-trends2004-en#annex
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Anonymous:
Your links are less than impressive. In none of them do I find Muslims described as being “fanatics” “mobs” “hardliners” etc. OTOH, in one of your own links, I do find Hindus being described as “fanatics” by a Beeb commentator. You simply have proved my point for me, thanks!
You haven’t made any point at all with your links. Bring me some BBC links describing some rampaging Muslims as “fanatics” and “mobs” and “extremists” and I’ll concede you made a point. As of now, you haven’t made one.
I never mentioned LK Advani — so why do you bring him up now? I said that Hindus had offered to build and pay for a replacement mosque on a site at Ayodhya, and that this offer has been rejected becaue the Muslims want that particular site — despite the fact that it doesn’t have the same religious value for the Muslims as it does for the Hindus. What I wrote is true. The Beeb has not reported this in any of the Ayodhya coverage I’ve seen so far. That is also true. Why haven’t they mentioned it?
Are you one of those people who think that the Beeb doesn’t softsoap Islamic militancy in Israel too?
I find your adamancy over this issue puzzling. Obviously you have some sort of personal attachment to the Ayodhya issue that is clouding your commentary.
The issue is the Beeb’s double standards. So go ahead, find me some links where the Beeb described Muslims as “fanatics.” I’ll accept any geographical location.
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When a Parliamentary committee issues a report making recommendations contrary to government policy the BBC usually play it up big.
Not so with the Lords committee that agrees with Bush on the approach to climate change.
Instead the BBC seek to ridicule & smear its chairman in the course of 1 sentence.
Siberia will become a “rather nice place to live” and Europe will benefit “on balance” from global warming, says ex-Enron director Lord Wakeham.
When are the Tories going to get the message about the BBC’s agenda?
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sorry the link (article hidden away in the Politics pages)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4655373.stm
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OT
Interesting events over here:
http://afghanlord.blogspot.com/2005/07/receiving-threat-messages-from-bbc.html
I’d say ‘no way’ even at the Beeb, but these days….
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There are advantages to localised warming for the UK as well.
Perhaps someone could burn the BBC down?
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DJ:
It’s probably from Orla.
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