Monthly Archives: December 2005

Even when Americans engage in humanitarian aid, they are bad:

“The BBC’s Zaffar Abbas in Islamabad says Mr Rumsfeld’s visit is aimed at ensuring continued US support in the relief and rehabilitation work in areas devastated by the recent earthquake.

Mr Rumsfeld said the US was pleased to be working side-by-side with President Musharraf and the Pakistani military to do whatever could be done to reduce the suffering of many Pakistanis.

Our correspondent says the US financial support and material support for the relief work has been one of the largest by any Western state.

Many believe that Washington has used the exercise to win support in an area where anti-American feelings run high.” (emphasis added)

Perhaps it is just me, but imagine if when the BBC reported on recovery from the WTC attack, the last paragraphs read:

‘Israel is a major ally of the US and has provided assistance to rescue crews in the form of rescue dogs and trauma medical teams.

Many believe that Mossad was involved in the attack [or should that be “militant protest”?] and that Jewish workers were warned to stay away the day before.’ or

‘Many believe that Israel has used the exercise to persuade the US to veto a proposed Security Council resolution condemning its practice of assassinating militant leaders in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Granted there may be a difference in degree (although not in character), can Americans ever do anything that is simply good for the world? Does this sort of tripe really belong in what is supposed to be the UK’s broadcaster of record?

Here we go again on “militants” – this time in Afghanistan:

‘A high-ranking Afghan government official, who did not want to be named, told the BBC that any reduction in the number of US troops would affect morale in the country.

“This will help the Taleban and will have a negative impact on security,” the official said.’

Notwithstanding the official’s description, the BBC staff writer (who wrote this, presumably after speaking to “the BBC’s Andrew North in Kabul”) insists on calling them “militants”. An impartial broadcaster would call them “Taliban and al-qaeda fighters/militants” (which would be accurate), but we all know where that would lead the reader, given their pretty poor “branding” in the west (although it would appear “al-qaeda” can sometimes be used – I would like to see the style guide on this however)…

Update Why couldn’t this headline be “Hamas leader shot dead“? “Militant” is so clumsy.

If it is not Americans, it’s Israelis.

(None of this somewhat lighthearted posting is meant to detract/distract from Kerry’s very serious point about the persecution of Christians in Iran. Be sure to read it if you haven’t already.

Reader Tom has a look at the coverage of Saddam’s “Poor me!” outburst.*

*From comments, but posted in the interest of archiving (well, at least as long as google is happy to host all of this stuff) as haloscan deletes comments after a while.

The old Dr Who:

“Colin Baker’s Doctor is a vain and self-absorbed bully, although he does manage to wrest some charm from the character. His assistant Peri is written as a squawking American, forced by an apparently xenophobic wardrobe department into a range of candy-coloured, cleavage-enhancing T-shirts, vast bermuda shorts and high heels, but she too grows on you.”

The new Dr Who discussed here.

Given the resources of the BBC, why do we hear nothing of the upsurge of persecution against Christians in Iran? Could it be that the Beeb has its gaze fixed on things that go pop or pop music? Shall we assume that some brutality is simply not that newsworthy in this jolly season? Or worse?

Here is an unedited email received from a close friend who knows a great deal about this subject. Perhaps the BBC could look into it when time allows. I make no apologies for the Christian content. (Full disclosure: I’m a Christian minister.)

Sent: Monday, December 19, 2005 1:52 PM To: Recipient list suppressed: Subject: falling sparrows

Compare these two events:

1) Dozens of volunteers spent several weeks setting up 4 million dominos in preparation for the Dutch world record domino-toppling attempt. A sparrow flew into the hall and knocked over 23,000 and seemed likely to topple many more. So someone shot it – with an air rifle. There was an immediate outrage – a ‘tribute web site’ was set up by animal rights activists – over 20,000 people visited the site. The world record attempt was due to be televised, but after the ‘murder’ even TV staff started to receive threats. The person who shot the sparrow was charged with shooting an endangered species and fined £100 – read all about it here:

“The bird was kept in a government freezer after its killing became a criminal matter. It will be placed on top of a box of dominoes in an exhibition on sparrows next year.”

2) “Iranian Christians are mourning the death of Ghorban Dordi Tourani, an Iranian believer assassinated two weeks ago by an unnamed group of fanatical Muslims and the first Turkmen in Iran known to have been martyred for his Christian faith.

A house church leader in northeastern Iran, Tourani was arrested from his home in Gonbad-e-Kavus on November 22. A few hours later, the 53-year-old convert to Christianity had been stabbed to death, his beaten, bleeding body thrown in front of his home.

I cannot find any mention of this story on the BBC web site. To my knowledge, no memorial site has been set up, thousands of people have NOT protested, and apart from selected Christian news sites, the wider Church doesn’t seem to know of the renewed persecution in Iran.

The only ultimate consolation is that the same God who is aware of falling sparrows, also said, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints…” (Psalm 116:15)

Do, please, pray for Iran and for the Iranian Church.

Credit: Kairos News

Regardless of the religious views of the persecuted people in question, this should be reported. Why the silence?

(an addition to Toby’s post)

Picture used by the BBC to illustrate the British Empire :

Picture used by the BBC to illustrate the Ottoman Empire :

The ‘S-word’ is conspicuously absent from the Ottoman portrait, despite the importance of the institution to that empire.

This is the front page for BBC Online’s country profiles.

Look at the photos:

JFK, Gorbachev and Mandela

An AK47-wielding kaffiyeh-wrapped terrorist/”militant”

A faceless (hence inscrutable) Asian woman in a coolie hat on a bicycle

The Eiffel Tower

What would Edward Said say?

Some days ago, there was a lively discussion thread on Afrocentrism at the BBC.

A BBC Online article is supposedly about teaching history of the Empire in schools:

‘School history lessons should focus more on the British Empire to explain modern UK life, a think tank says.

MPs and historians were among those who contributed to the Fabian Society’s review on “Britishness”.’

Bear with me here – what photo would you think might be posted? Queen Victoria? A grand durbar? How about an entirely neutral picture of shackled black slaves being whipped (admittedly by another black man).

The picture caption: “Schools are being urged to study the history of the British Empire”

That’s the British Empire for you folks (and the “key to UK life”) – slavery.

The “See also’ sidebar has:

Black poet spurns OBE

Calls for more black history in schools

I note the jpg alpha name is “slaves” – and presume that this is the keyword in the BBC image library used to search. The same photo appears in the “black history” article.* Talk about patronising – every time black history is discussed at BBC Online, it would seem the editor types “slaves” into the image library search box.

*The caption there is “Lessons on Afro-Caribbean history often focus on slavery” – which unintentionally states the PC worldview – black = slavery.

…used to be a feminist issue. Now the BBC has found another reason for it – slavery.

Wouldn’t ya know it – when those darned Yanks are not bombing innocent kite flying Ba’athist secret police, their slaving past is apparently making people fat:

“Back in the 1850s more than 100 slaves worked the cotton fields on the 1,250-acre Rosswood farm, one of many such plantations along the Mississippi Delta.

Then the working day was long and arduous, the food basic but filling – gumbos, or stews thickened with okra, cornbread, beans and fish from the Mississippi.

Dr McCune’s grandfather was born into slavery. His father saw mechanisation make redundant the harsh old jobs in the cotton fields.

But the doctor says the dietary legacy of those times persists.

We want our schools and our communities to buy into the idea that we must change our environment, but that will not happen overnight.

“The taste of the individuals in this area comes from their experiences during slavery, the food that is eaten is of poor quality and rich in calories.

“The food that is eaten is highly satisfying, highly filling but the food… that they eat in general is not balanced.”

Something is slightly odd in this article – if the diet was “gumbos, or stews thickened with okra, cornbread, beans and fish” (sounds like healthy unprocessed food) 150 years ago, and the diet now is Burger King (implied by photo) and “mud pie, … cajun fried pecans, sweet potato crunch, … fried shrimp and catfish” (which does not sound like oppressed slave food – with the exception of the catfish), what gives?

Is this just another case of a Beeboid finding an expert who will tell him what he wants to hear? Denying the agency of black people and painting them as mere objects of historical processes (which this article comes close to) can be racist too.

A commenter pointed out this Spiked article by Ben-Ami – a more helpful discussion of the issue.

The BBC meme du jour appears to be fat America (I note the trans-Atlantic lardarses appear not to have made it as far as Mississippi).

Update I clicked “Publish” too soon – our travelling friends are now US teenagers!