Mike Jericho has put together a valuable post on the subject (he was a little upset some of his efforts had been overlooked, but I am rectifying that somewhat now. It points out the value of pointing out matters in the comments section). For every article on the BBC website that reveals some hard information, there will be several soft-wad padding articles, usually with a strong politically correct dimension, linked to it. Mike’s post is an examination of that padding concerning Islam and Christianity.
Of Sidebars and Bullshit
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Sorry to be contrary but some advice on how Muslims can circumvent the ludicrous restrictions of their religion and make a contribution to the economy should be welcome, given the high levels of unemployment in the ‘community’.
Venichka,
In many white working class areas of Britain, cropt hair is certainly common and would be considered not out of the ordinary.
The point I was trying to make, is that the BBC wouldn’t dream in a million years of seeking out or reporting any hostility towards white people given an attack by whites had occurred in an area.
But after 50 people are murdered by muslems, the BBC sees fit to dress someone up to give at least a passing resemblance to a muslem, and provocatively trawl for hostile comments, all to fit the organisation’s relentless political agenda.
Anon, dunno what happens oop North, but I’m white (admittedly over 6 foot and male and currently with a fairly agressive looking haircut) and I can’t think of anywhere in London that I’d really be scared to go. It’s not quite inner city US levels here yet even in the dodgier parts.
Anonymous, have you been to one of these white no-go zones? Where are they? Have you been afraid for your life in one? (No “friend of a friend” anecdotes please – direct personal experience or that of immediate aquaintences)
I’m not saying that there may or may not be such places but I’ll wager that I’ve lived and worked in a couple of these places (should you care to name them) and I did NOT feel afraid for just being white in them.
Arts world hails hate law defeat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4670390.stm
“Atkinson previously said he would no longer be able to write sketches such as one set in a mosque that he wrote for Not the Nine O’Clock News.
It showed Muslims at prayer, bowing to the ground with a voiceover saying: “And the search goes on for the Ayatollah Khomeini’s contact lens.”
Well, Atkinson may write a similar sketch but there’s no chance that today’s BBC will broadcast it. The BBC operate their own race & religion law that forbids criticism or ridicule of Islam.
Where are the Danish cartoons BBC? Scared to publish them?
Muhammad cartoon row intensifies
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4670370.stm
“Newspapers across Europe have reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to show support for a Danish paper whose cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage.
France Soir, Germany’s Die Welt, La Stampa in Italy and El Periodico in Spain all carried some of the drawings.”
Maybe all the muslims will leave the EU in disgust? Strange they don’t seem to like what the ‘sharia-compliant’ Islamic Republics have to offer…….
the cartoon rage story is now the lead on on the international version of the bbc site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Should ‘anti-Islam’ cartoons have been published?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=904&edition=1&ttl=20060201164620
“Should the European press have censored cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad?
Cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist have been condemned by Arab Leaders.
The caricatures caused an outcry when they were published in the Danish press, but French newspaper France Soir has reproduced them under the headline “Yes, we have the right to caricature God.”
Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet Muhammad or Allah.
Have you seen the cartoons? What is your reaction to the row? How do you see the boundaries of freedom of expression versus religious offence?”
Just one (small point). The boundaries of ‘Freedom of expression’ are defined in UK law. You won’t find ‘religious offence’ at any boundary as it doesn’t exist (in law), but of course pervades the BBC like a cancer. (Christian offence excepted (Jerry Springer)).
Have your Say. It’s ‘fully moderated’ but surely worth a punt?
I notice Orla doesn’t associate with Jews.
I wonder if her reporting is sloppy and partial because she doesn’t hang out with any Jews, or if both of those are separate consequences of something else?
Still, with Orla Goering leaving, it’s clear that the Hamas terrorists haven’t had everything their own way this week.
Venichka wrote:-
In these isles beards tend to suggest things like “liberal, guardian reader, sandal wearer, quasi-intellectual”, right?
I knew there was a rational basis for my pognophobia.
Funding crisis looms for Palestinians
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4666080.stm
Why do Hamas take/need money from the zionist enemy they are sworn to destroy?
Surely they can emulate the many other Islamic economic powerhouses in the region…..er…oh..
Venichka wrote:-
In these isles beards tend to suggest things like “liberal, guardian reader, sandal wearer, quasi-intellectual”, right?
Yes, and increased probability of plumbing or market trading skills. Or being a ‘man’ as in “A ‘man’ died when his body exploded today outside a busy….”
T-C-C
ha ha ha (+bonus points for introducing me to the word “pognophobia”)
Grimer,
the BBC sends out somebody in sunglasses, baseballcap, hooded top and ‘overgrown’ beard to ‘gauge’ the reaction of the rest of the population.
This does point up the public’s hostility to people with beards. Such as my sister-in-law for example.
“Muhammad cartoon row intensifies:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4670370.stm
”
It’s an interesting story, because it seems to indicate which way the BBC has decided to push this issue (I am reminded of how Western observers have to divine the intentions of the Chinese government by picking apart the official state newspaper).
Refreshingly the BBC seems to have come down on the side of free speech; there are lots of quotes from French and German newspapers that have printed the cartoons and don’t care what the Islamic protestors say, and the only dissenting quote is buried quite a way down. Even Reporters Without Borders has come down in favour of free speech.
This is one of those fascinating issues where the BBC has to choose between two contradictionary things that it has to believe in equally, like in “1984”.
“In Berlin, the prominent daily Die Welt ran a front-page caricature of the prophet wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb.
The paper argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire.
“The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical,” it wrote in an editorial.”
Although the BBC article doesn’t explain where the hypocrisy lies, I assume it has something to do with the anti-Jewish cartoons mentioned above.
TCC
Are you really saying that your sister-in-law has a beard then?
PM on radio 4 is talking about the cartoons right now.
PM are interviewing the France Soir editor now.
“Atkinson previously said he would no longer be able to write sketches such as one set in a mosque that he wrote for Not the Nine O’Clock News.”
On a tangent, a website called “Some of the Corpses are Amusing” has the script of the pilot episode here:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/sotcaa/sotcaa.html?/sotcaa/hidden/ntnocn_pilot01.html
It had Rowan Atkinson and “Christopher Godwin, John Gorman and Jonathan Hyde”, whoever they were. Also, there is this (warning: swastika):
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/sotcaa/sotcaa.html?/sotcaa/archive/greatmoments01.html
The third page of the pilot has an extended joke about the Shah of Iran seeking refuge in a suburban bed and breakfast in England somewhere (the show must have been quite soon after the Islamic revolution in Iran).
It’s actually quite bad. Contains the joke:
QUOTE
GODWIN
And in the wake of the Islamic referendum last Friday…
PHOTO OF THE AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI
…the Ayatollah has decided not to close all cinemas, but in future, only Islamic films will be shown. Films like ‘Perda On The Orient Express’, ‘The Man In The Iron Mosque’, and ’28 Brides For 7 Brothers’.
UNQUOTE
Which is unfunny and in reprinting it I have probably made Biased BBC illegal under several race-hate laws.
As for the thing above about beards being normal for Asian people, the man in the report continually stressed that he was a Londoner; beards are not normal and Londoners. They are abnormal and indicate moral weakness.
QUOTE
VOICEOVER 2 (CHRISTOPHER GODWIN)
Iran, and the search goes on for the Ayatolla Khomeini’s contact lens.
‘BONG’. STILL PHOTO OF BUSINESSMEN AT DESK
VOICEOVER 2
Due to adverse weather conditions, the British Rail pools panel meet to decide what trains would have arrived, where.
‘BONG’. STILL PHOTO OF IAN SMITH
VOICEOVER 1
And in the run-up to democratic elections in Rhodesia, Ian Smith introduces racially-mixed swimming pools…
STILL PHOTO OF A GROUP OF BLACK PEOPLE
…half the water for the whites, and half for the blacks.
STILL PHOTO OF SWIMMING POOL
The whites get the top half…
UNQUOTE
PM interviewed a Guardian cartoonist who hasnt seen the cartoons. ho hum..
(although in fairness he did come out in favour of publishing them – free speech, satire and all that)
“beards are not normal and Londoners” – or rather “beards are not normal for Londoners”. I did not want to suggest that Londoners are not normal.
(except for bearded ones)
BBC News’s Have Your Say: Should ‘anti-Islam’ cartoons have been published? feature has been edited, the question “Have you seen the cartoons?” removed. Did BBC News suddenly remember that it has censored the illustrations itself?
Of course they should have been published. What I want to know is, why haven’t the BBC or the rest of the British press reproduced the cartoons, so that we can make up our own minds?
Why isn’t the BBC raising the banner for free speech? What is the BBC afraid of?
Last week the BBC ran a debate on censorship in China. It looks like we’ve got censorship a lot closer to home.
[chatmandu_uk], London, United Kingdom
Recommended by 6 people
Tomorrow morning at 11:00 AM on BBC Radio 4‘s Crossing Continents: France: After the riots.
Remember this BBC parody?
http://www.sodall.co.uk/BBC/parody/index.htm
The scrolling news item about a taxi driver doing 73mph on the M6 was funny.
Now all day we’ve had this story prominently placed on the BBC Views Online mainpage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/4669594.stm
Sure, it is significant for the officer concerned, and perhaps newsworthy that the CPS actually won an appeal(!), however with all that is going on in the world how can the prominence given by the Beeb to this story be justified?
Grumpy -> it’ll be interesting to see if they can bring themselves to mention the “I” or “M” words.
The trailer for “Crossing Continents” claimed to know the “real reasons” for the riots. I can’t be bothered to state what they claim those reasons to be; it’s the standard BBC view, you know them already.
BTW I found the “28 brides for 7 brothers” quite funny. And the British Rail pools panel – fantastic.
“The reason nonMuslims don’t object/mind/are insensitive to this type of insult to Islam is that they are seldom if ever subjected to such insults themselves.
I mean, when is any religion/ideology/sensitive topic DELIBERATELY and PUBLICLY insulted like this?”
Brother Ameen obviously hasn’t read/watched a lot of American media. If he did he’d see Christians being regularly riduculed.
At this rate, the BBC will have to publish these cartoons. Everyone else is showing them!
I genuinely hope the Beeb does. If it refuses to do so on the grounds of not wishing to cause offence or because it is afraid of a violent backlash, it deserves a bloody good kicking.
What I suspect will happen is that a British newspaper will print them first and the BBC will follow suit. The corporation doesn’t want to stick its neck above the parapet, as it were.
Archduke, I live and go to school in France, and can tell you that suggesting a relation between the rioters and their faith in discussions with fellow students has got them calling me a “fascist”. The latter term is the general denomination for right-wing students in my experience and that of my friends in other schools.
(I’m chatmandu_uk)
“What I suspect will happen is that a British newspaper will print them first and the BBC will follow suit. The corporation doesn’t want to stick its neck above the parapet, as it were.
TAoL | 01.02.06 – 7:21 pm |”
__________
I’m guessing they’ll wait for the papers to print them and then show the papers.
Also, they might show them on the news, but I doubt you’ll see them on the website. Don’t want to offend the ‘international’ audience do we?
Grumpy Troll,
Ask innocently why the buddhists aren’t rioting…
Danish cartoons “in pictures” – the outrage that is, not the cartoons themselves.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4671204.stm
BBC are cowards – come on Beeb, prove me wrong!
BTW…a round of applause to Mike Jericho on a fine piece of kebabery (or ‘Fisking’ as you professional blogspeople call it). 🙂
“Grumpy Troll,
Ask innocently why the buddhists aren’t rioting…”
or Indian Hindus?
or Vietnamese?
or Senegalise Animists?
i would bet that all of the above have been treated to a fair bit of racism whilst in France.
Many thanks, TAoL.
I am getting more and more verbose but try this:
The Philosophy of the BBC is fragmentary (like most people’s). It is built on abstract ideas, tempered by experience and pragmatism (although a lot less of the latter than is good for any individual, let alone an organisation with a world-wide brief)
Occasionally it is possible to see a chain of logic.
I was struck by a discussion about football racism between Nicky Campbell and a spokesman for the ‘Kick It Out’ campaign. While ostensibly about football racism on the continent (the chants, the gestures) Spain, Italy, Poland etc. (The conclusion was that people should work toward a New European outlook (a discussion for another time)), the talk gradually moved into the nature of racism and how to stop it.
And it was here that a few of the Beeb’s core beliefs started to emerge.
The BBC believes that people are not born ‘Racist’. It holds the opinion that racism is learned; it has cultural causes.
If it has cultural causes, then to get rid of Racism, the culture of a country must be changed.
At this point the BBC makes a series of assumptions.
I think their ideas run along these lines:
The BBC assumes that multiculturalism is the mechanism by which the culture of a country can change • the tool for the job.
Implicit in this idea is the concept that other cultures (and by extension, other races) cannot be Racist (otherwise the importation of other cultures would be pointless, with other culture’s racism simply reinforcing the racism of the indigenous culture).
Such cultures, lacking the taint of racism, would form the lesson, be an example to lead the way forward for the majority culture. Therefore multiculturalism is to be not only encouraged, it is vital, in order to rid the country of the evil of Racism.
Now this poses problems.
If the working assumption is incorrect; if other cultures (and by extension, other races) are Racist, then multiculturalism is not only doomed to failure as a concept within itself, it is actually increasing Racism, possibly to an explosive degree.
To admit this would be to admit failure.
Given the level of money, resources and sheer brainpower (scratch the last) invested in such social engineering, it would be a failure with consequences that exceed Blair’s adventures in Iraq.
Now there is one thing that is difficult for people and almost impossible for organisations • to acknowledge that they are wrong.
For the BBC, this means ‘inconvenient’ evidence of Multiculturalism’s failures are redefined out of existence, airbrushed into obscurity, explained away or just plain ignored.
So we have the causes of Riots in Birmingham, and all mention of race was avoided – until the truth got too fierce to ignore.
We have Racial Crimes committed by minorities on other minorities and on the indigenous community and these reports vanish into a ‘sea of incidentals’ • minor stories.
We have acts of terrorism perpetrated by followers of, and licensed by, a creed imbued with the idea of ‘Cultural Supremacy’, explained away as acts by ‘Misguided Criminals’ or ‘Alienated Minority Youth’.
We have a growing cultural Apartheid in the inner cities (surely a dagger through the heart of ‘Multiculturalism’), which is blamed on ‘White Flight’ and the Racism of the Majority.
The BBC is replete with instances of BBC Bias, and you can all find your own such examples to support this view of BBC beliefs
But unless the central questions of culture, race and religion are addressed, we will continue staggering on toward societal breakdown and mob violence, following in the footsteps of the French model.
To avoid this, the national broadcaster has to set aside its prejudices and look at all the evidence and then begin to tell the truth.
Do you think the BBC can manage such a task?
Didn’t think so.
I’ve just read through the first 3 pages of the ‘recommended’ posts. 95% are in favour of free speech and reject the Islam ‘outrage’.
i’m beginning to have some for faith in my fellow (wo)man. If ‘The Guardian’ had any balls, it would invite Polly Toynbee to introduce an article that reproduces the cartoons in tomorrows paper. Surely Shami Chakrabarti would be up for that?
All clear at Danish newspaper after bomb threat
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-01T203123Z_01_L01238305_RTRUKOC_0_US-RELIGION-DENMARK-NEWSPAPER.xml&archived=False
So predictable. “Do what we say or we’ll kill you.” Religion of peace, remember?
as an Irish person, who has lived in the UK for a fair number of years, i find “multiculturalism” to be almost a apology for the Empire – but without mentioning the Empire nor apologising for the atrocities committed in the name of the Empire (e.g. all the crap that went on with the Black & Tans in Irelands for example)
it’s a kind of self-loathing thats quite unhealthy – i’ve always said to English friends that the English have never had a “de-nazification”,for want of better word, process after the collapse of the Empire – Britain has never faced it head on, dealt with it, and moved on.
the result is that you are now in the utterly absurd and ridiculous situation where you have a Scottish socialist banging on about British nationalism i.e. Gordon Brown.
To us Irish, that’s just being a Quisling – we can see right through that.
We Irish still cant comprehend why the Scots havent got their independence yet – but instead have allowed themselves to be submerged into this morass of “multiculuturalism”
but thats my two cent take on it anyway.
Nick Griffin’s blog
Free Speech on Trial
http://freespeechontrial.blogspot.com/
Abhu Hamza’s jury also out today, sorry don’t know if he has a blog?
The BBC has published one of the cartoons!
“Now there is one thing that is difficult for people and almost impossible for organisations • to acknowledge that they are wrong.”
This is how I envisage the BBC, and other socialist organisations. It is like a broken robot. Like a broken war robot from a science fiction story. Its home planet is long dead but it keeps fighting an old war in a new universe. It is out of time, but it keeps going because it knows no different, like the gunfighters from “The Wild Bunch”, who came too late and stayed too long.
It no longer has any hope and might not even believe what it says, but it keeps going, because faith long ago replaced reason.
Every few years the government releases some secret files that tell us about the past, thirty years ago, when Edward Heath was prime minister and newspapers were black and white. Thirty years from now the government will release secret files that will tell us about today, about how they lied to us.
I reckon that thirty years from now the BBC will admit it was wrong. It will shrug its shoulders and say “well, you were stupid to follow us; we didn’t mean it anyway”. The BBC’s writers will have retired to nice houses in the countryside or in France and Spain or maybe by that time India or a series of high-security compounds in South Africa, and they will not care a jot for the people they left behind.
and they’ll be still blaming America and Israel for the Iranian nuking of New York and Washington DC – and still wondering why the Americans got all hot and bothered over that and turned Iran into a nuclear wasteland.
so, even in retirement, it’ll still be the “Jooooooos” fault.
Forgive me if this has been covered already but the BBC’s news reports today disgracefully blacked out the ‘offensive’ cartoons on the frontpages of the French and German papers when they showed them in their news reports. Even by the BBC’s PC standards this is appalling. We’re talking about an issue of free speech, a basic principle of life in Britain and what does the country’s foremost broadcaster do? It can’t bring itself to show them. Absolutely unbelievable. Can everyone please ring the BBC’s complaints line and register their anger at this blatant kowtowing to an agressive, threatening pressure group. Because this is truly beyond the pale.
“Because this is truly beyond the pale.”
crazy isnt it?
welcome to Tony Blair’s 21st century Britain.
“today disgracefully blacked out the ‘offensive’ cartoons on the frontpages of the French and German papers”
CNN are also blacking out the cartoons in their video reports. seems like they dont want to lose their “exclusives” in Pallywood.
Check these sidebars from the front page:
Africa’s food crisis
Special investigation on why over half of Africa needs food aid
Cartoon outrage
Middle East fury over Danish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad
Video and audio
Victims of a forgotten war: DR Congo facing human crisis
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
No, I’m not making it up either.