Ah, my old twitter sparring pal, Mehdi Hasan, has been moved on to greater things! Biased BBC’s Alan asks;
” Wonder when the BBC will see the light as another of their favourite ‘moderate’ Muslim commentators is felled?
Mehdi Hasan has been ousted from the New Satesman and gone further to the fringe at the Huffington Post UK.
http://freebeacon.com/huffpos-house-jihadi/?tw_p=twt
‘Raheem Kassam, editor of the conservative The Commentator, told the Free Beacon that Hasan might have parted ways with the New Statesman due to his toxic political views.
“There is the ongoing speculation around Westminster as to whether he was dropped due to the sheer scale of negative attention he brought to the New Statesman magazine,” said Kassam, who has thoroughly documented Hassan’s favorable coverage of Iran.
“Everyone knew that the status quo couldn’t continue with Hasan,” he added. “It was only a matter of time until he was rightly held to account for what became increasingly nonsensical journalism and a repeated refusal to comment on his extreme views as highlighted by the videos.” ‘
Hasan was widely recognised as an Islamist with disturbing views….as well as ostensibly a loony ‘Lefty’ to boot.
You might think the BBC would think carefully before using him as a commentator on important issues but of course their desire to have a ‘Muslim’ on the Telly or radio overran their common sense…..it was in any case hardly a ringing endorsement for Islam to be represented by Hasan….as he was one who believed in actually living the religion, carrying out its true requirements…..or as the BBC might put it ‘perverting the religion’.
Because of course such a way of life is hardly compatible with the Liberal, Enlightened West.
The BBC loves a friendly Muslim though…..it attempts to slip in as may as possible into the mix in its programmes to ensure we aren’t ‘frightened’ by the ‘mysterious and strange’ community in our midst.
Like Professor Jim Al Kalili…..scientist with a Muslim name…however….’Al-Khalili has stated that, “as the son of a Protestant Christian mother and a Shia Muslim father, I have nevertheless ended up without a religious bone in my body.’
Regardless of that the BBC know we will immediately class him as Muslim because of his name….the BBC intent is to say….’Look, here’s a ‘Muslim’. He’s friendly, a nice chap, and what’s more a highly intelligent, successful scientist…..you must not think all Muslims are potential terrorists!’
It is also part of their campaign to have the the ‘golden age’ of Islamic science brought to the fore and given its ‘due place’ in our history….because of course, the BBC, and the Guardian, tells us, the West was built on the Islamic science….without Islam we’d be living in mud huts eating raw cows….and ultimately to have us ‘see’ Muslims and Islam as a benefit to society rather than a backward, Medieval, oppressive, homophobic, mysogynistic, divisive and intent on religious apartheid religion that brings violence and conflict to our society.
Good luck on that.
To Beeboids, moving to the HuffPo is a step up, not down. They’ll be looking to Hasan even more now.
Given Mr. Marr’s ‘body of work’, including Levenson, on online bloggers vs. ‘real’ brown-noser lobbyfodder like himself, I am not so sure on the first. The last… for sure.
Even with a voluntary audience of six and a half, by saying the ‘right’ things, the BBC will accord HuffPo ‘speaking unto the nation’ co-status by that unique way they assess most else.
Great post David,
The golden age of islamic science is slightly misleading. If you had nothing else to do every night for a few thousand years, except sit outside a goat skin tent and stare at the stars, you’d probably get round to a spot of astronomy eventually !
Any progress in the sciences, made by arabs, is despite islam, not because of it. And I’m not sure that they can point to anything that they have produced, discovered, developed that someone else in the normal, Western world hadn’t already done. It’s a myth that we owe anything to islam, in my reading of these things.
i m afraid no end in sight as far as el beeb is concerned,
he was there again this morning, along with Panto Nikki
on 5live,(i feel sure he wasn t introduced as the former editor of TNS either)
Not that great at Chemistry though, unless someone else fuels the planes for them.
For every 7/7( peroxide..hardly state of the art, for all the damage those sickos did) there are plenty scorched trainers and singed goolies as opposed to blowing themselves up.
Hell-apparently one of them recently was refused entry to a chemistry A Level course in some place like Kingston Poly…THAT`S How low their standards are re “Chemistry”.
Still-as long as they can locate prime places to beat women or amputate limbs, then their biology might be somewhat better than their chemistry.
We can obviously tell that their poetry is shite as well.
One can accept the Golden Age but demand an explanation of why after this short period Islam has produced absolutely nothing.
many of the things widely attributed by muslims to islam, are (as usual … nothing of the sort) upon further inspection too, many hilarious claims about science in the old muslim terrorist manual are equally bogus.
Muslims and Islam as a benefit to society rather than a backward, Medieval, oppressive, homophobic, mysogynistic, divisive and intent on religious apartheid religion that brings violence and conflict to our society.
Add to which – backward, backward looking to 7th century Arabia, intolerant of any innovation because the koran abhors innovative thinking, plagiarist, lying for Islam as permitted in Islam.