THE NEIL REPORT
STATEMENT BY THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS
For the BBC impartiality is a legal requirement.
BBC journalists will report the facts first, understand and explain their context, provide professional judgements where appropriate, but never promote their own personal opinions.
We will make our journalistic judgments for sound editorial reasons, not as the result of improper political or commercial pressure, or personal prejudice.
“At the moment every newspaper is desperately seeking an Islam expert, who then becomes the mouthpiece for the entire set of issues and is always asked to proclaim the ‘official’ opinions from the lectern.” Hilal Sezgin.
The BBC itself seeks out those Muslims it thinks will be best suited to provide an image of Islam that non-Muslims will charmed by and gulled into a complacent acceptance of an ever increasing Muslim influence upon their lives….and see it as beneficial or at least not harmful to them.
I have already mentioned the first episode of the BBC’s ‘One to One’ programme in which the BBC gives us an entirely one sided view of Islam…presented by a Muslim and only talking to Muslims.
It is outright propaganda designed to assuage your doubts and fears about Islam….to persuade you that it is essentially harmless. However a close look at the programmes and the Muslims who are interviewed and their beliefs should raise more questions about Islam and its increasing influence than it answers. The presenter, Razia Iqbal, as seen before, doesn’t seem too friendly towards Western culture.
In the second programme she talks to Hilal Sezgin, whom Iqbal calls ‘Turkish’ rather than German in the interview……
Razia Iqbal talks to Hilal Sezgin
Razia Iqbal explores what it means to be a Muslim in modern Europe. Here she talks to the German writer and journalist, Hilal Sezgin, at her small farm just outside Hamburg.
It’s a fascinating interview….enlightening but paradoxically sabotages the BBC narrative about Islam…because, despite Sezgin calling herself a Muslim, and Iqbal obviously going along with that, Sezgin is not Muslim.
That’s a bit of a bombshell (a surprise to her too no doubt) of which more later.
First let’s hear what she has to say about Islamophobia….
Firstly she claims integration is not a one way street, the majority culture has to compromise as well….really? Isn’t it more often that Muslims come here and demand we change our lives to suit them…but refuse to compromise theirs at all?
She claims that no one cares about non-Muslims being homophobic or people not being feminists or being creationists, but are solely critical of Muslims who are homophobic, or anti-feminist or who believe in Creationism.
So the Church of England isn’t under enormous pressure about gay marriage, or everyone loves Germaine Greer , or Richard Dawkins doesn’t constantly assault belief in creationism from all walks of life?
She claims the ‘infamous’ Thilo Sarrazin and the majority in Europe who support his views are Islamophobic and therefore prejudiced and racist….Islamophobia is everywhere, spreading throughout Europe as shown in every day violence, racism and now in politics.
Though in the village she lives in she has never faced any prejudice.
Ironically perhaps, it turns out that ‘Muslim’ Sezgin is the only ‘islamophobe’ in the village.
But still she insists that anyone who criticises Islam is prejudiced and racist.
OK, say we go along with that premise…what does that make Hilal Sezgin?
As I stated earlier, Sezgin cannot be considered a Muslim, why? Listen to what she said…but first know that the Koran is the inviolate word of God, unchangeable and final. The Koran cannot be changed or ‘re-interpreted’…therefore Islam cannot be reformed….there is only one Islam….no polytheistic worship and no sects.
In the interview Sezgin tells us that she has her ‘own version of Islam’….Liberal, unorthodox and progressive.
So she has invented her own ‘Islam’ then…..so breaking two cardinal rules of Islam…do not change the Koran and do not form a sect…she’s a ‘Splitter’.
Who am I to judge though….what do her fellow ‘orthodox’ Muslims think? Not much apparently….‘Suddenly‘ she tells us, ‘she didn’t want to be part of the German Muslim community because they rejected her and pushed her out for her views on Islam.’
The very fact that she has felt the need to produce her own version of Islam tells you immediately that she believes that something is wrong with Islam….she has become a critic of Islam…so is she herself now one of the Islamophobes, a prejudiced racist?
Just how critical is she? Quite it seems…not only has she got her own version of Islam but she has rewritten the Koran, that Unchangeable Word of God……
‘Together with the Egyptian reform theologian Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, she recently presented in the book “Mohammed und die Zeichen Gottes” (“Mohammed and the Signs of God”) a modern interpretation of the Koran.’
That is not all…she is a member of ‘The Liberal Islamic Federation’ …The movements include among other things a new interpretation of the Koran and the exegesis of the Qur’an, criticism of traditional beliefs and partly a rejection of Hadith .
The ‘Hadith’? What might that be? Only the Prophet Muhammad’s own interpretation of the Koran….and therefore taken as the one true interpretation…as he would know if anyone did, wouldn’t he? As he made it all up.
So she rejects Muhammad’s Islam. But she’s not Islamophobic?
Ironically she supports, entirely unintentionally, the ‘Islamophobes’ arguments….that Islam needs to be changed…..it can’t be of course…which creates a problem…one which the BBC absolutely refuses to discuss or allow onto the air.
Even Sezgin agrees that a deeper knowledge of Islam is needed……
‘Sezgin laments the lack of alternate viewpoints in this media discourse, which sometimes fails to demonstrate the most basic background knowledge or any inkling of farsightedness.
Whether due to ignorance, blanket judgments or the wrong choice of imagery – a one-sided picture of Islam has dominated the media ever since 9/11. And journalist Hilal Sezgin thinks that competent colleagues and commentators are in short supply in this field.
“The 11th of September inevitably prompted people to ask themselves: for god’s sake, what kind of religion is this that I belong to? Is there something about Islam I’ve totally misunderstood?”, Sezgin wondered after the horrific terrorist attack.’
Of course she thinks she is saying Islam has been misreported and it is lack of education that makes people ‘Islamophobic’……I would suggest the opposite…it is the lack of insight into the true nature of Islam that allows the Great and the Good of the Establishment to continue to bury their heads in the sand about the dangers of Islam to Western, secular, democracies and chatter on about it being the ‘religion of peace’.
Remember how often the BBC regales us with tales of the glories of the Islamic Golden Age of Science…what does Sezgin and crew think?:
‘Liberal Muslims tend to skepticism about the possibilities of the Islamisation of modern knowledge (for example, with regard to Islamic finance , Islamic philosophy and Islamic science in general).
Liberal Muslims consider attempts to establish Islamic forms of science as a political move often conservative Muslims.’
So the BBC’s position is essentially a political one to raise the profile of Islam.
Sezgin is by any definition not a Muslim…it is disingenuous of the BBC to present her as a stereotypical Muslim, one whom we should all look to as an example of the true character of the Muslim community growing around us.
That’s not to knock her views…in fact they are exactly what is required…however as said….her views mean she is not a Muslim….and so cannot be at all representative of Islam or Muslims.
You may also want to look at Hanif Qadir from the first programme in more detail…here is a previous post on him.
Now you can believe or not what he has to say about his decision not to fight in Afghanistan…however…2002, when he was there…the fighting was basically over, the Taliban were on the retreat to Pakistan…relatively few Americans were in Afghanistan….mostly Special Forces…the fighting was done by Northern Alliance Afghans….also note how Qadir continually attacks the West and America…claiming the US was just bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age….and seeing US troops standing over the bodies of women and children in an arrogant manner.
He suggests that it is right that Muslims feel anger, frustration and marginalization….but wrong that they become radicalised…..he admits Muslims say one thing to the media… ‘Islam is the religion of peace’…but say completely different things at home.
Personally I never trust these ‘reformed’ jihadists…..they may have decided not to use an AK47 or RPG but still ‘evangelise’ for the religion and seek to increase its influence and growth.
As an FBI agent said in “Muslim Mafia” …. ‘CAIR and the other Muslim Brotherhood front groups differ from al-Qaida in that, while all share the same goals, they use different methods to achieve them.
“The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics,” the official explained.’
Gerry Adams gave up the bullet for the ballot….but note that he said The Struggle will continue…he remained committed to the same cause that he spent years terrorizing NI for but now seeks to accomplish it by democratic means.
In many ways that is the more dangerous and successful method…because most people do not see the danger creeping up on them until it is too late.
Hitler of course was also elected…and supported by the Great and the Good.
Alternatively – and I’m basing this on what I remember from a debate on this topic with a BBC producer here some years ago – the BBC could be thinking this is an attempt to push some progressive, enlightened thoughts into the heads of their Mohammedan audience. Get one of their own kind to be an example to them, not to you.
I do realize you make a case that most of them won’t accept her that way. Doesn’t mean the Beeboids aren’t misguided.
But David if what you say is correct, why should the BBC be playing this role of trying to soften Islam or to make moslems rethink their religion. Surely the role of the BBC is to inform and to entertain. Not to preach a new religion. Islam is Islam as Alan says. Why not expose it for what it is. That would be a far more effective way of starting an honest debate.
…exactly!
‘Surely the role of the BBC is to inform and to entertain. Not to preach..’
You’d think. Maybe they can give us their views which, as I am given to understand, represent those of the UK public.
However, if ‘unhelpful’, one is sure a quick FoI exemption will leave us with only those we are meant to hear.
Joe, I did say the Beeboids were misguided. They do have a remit to educate as well as inform. I just think they’re doing it wrong.
The BBC is never going to “expose” Islam the way you say. Geert Wilders suggested that the Mohammedans need to go through an Enlightenment, and that could be what the Beeboids think they’re suggesting here.
This is, I admit, speculation on my part. I have no idea what the producers were thinking here and they could very well have been simply trying to shove tolerance down your throats again with a false example. But it does match what has been claimed from the inside.
“is lack of education that makes people ‘Islamophobic’……I would suggest the opposite…”
To hijack a quote from the article and turn it around, it is an islamic education that limits muslims to their stoneage view of the world.
How many people in the west understand that most muslims study in madrassahs, where the education largely consists of sitting learning pasages from the koran by heart ?
How can this possibly entitle them to live in a civilised western society ? Our politicians need to start discussing the repatriation programe now, before the problem worsens.
That’s not to knock her views…in fact they are exactly what is required…however as said….her views mean she is not a Muslim….and so cannot be at all representative of Islam or Muslims.
You’re right and I have no doubt there are a few fatwahs of the terminal kind out there on her already.
I noticed that The Mail quickly buried the article by the hate-filled Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in their online edition on Monday.
When I looked, the comments section was filled with people pointing out her anti-British, anti-white, anti-west agenda.
Mo Farrah (whom the article was about) integrated in to British society – and no doubt has in to American society as well – DESPITE people like Alibhai-Brown and other divisive racists, not because of them.
i suggest the bbc take notice of the calliphate stylee OIC/Islamophobia – rather than some, non entity villager
just two examples below of the agenda at hand.
“h). It should be recognized that Muslims have the same basic needs and desires as others, which are material well-being, cultural acceptance and religious freedom, without political or social intimidation. In that vein, Muslim should not be marginalized or attempted to be assimilated, but should be accommodated. Accommodation is the best strategy for integration. ”
This is the core of the matter. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made it quite clear, particulary with reference to Germany – there will be no assimilation of Muslims in Western societies. The demand for assimilation is a form of racism. Notice that even the weak-dishwater second line of European multicultural defence — integration — is not included here
OIC – and blasphemy law. 😀
Sounds as if the OIC is willing to accord the same respect towards other religions that it demands for Islam, but don’t be fooled: this is a smokescreen.
The fixed and unchangeable rules laid down in Islamic scripture and codified in sharia law require discrimination and intolerance towards the practice of any religion but Islam.
Therefore, in this context “respect for the religious beliefs” of Muslims can only mean that Muslims must be allowed to oppress, intimidate, harass, subjugate, and, yes, discriminate against all other religions.
It’s in the Koran. Interfering with their right to do this is an intolerable restriction on their freedom of religion. 😀
this is of course being financed mostly through Saudi Arabia petrodollars,
How about the Abbedin family yes the same MB one as Clintons senior aide, and their Saudi funded Muslim Minority Affairs organisation? not simply as a title or as a religious or social entity but as a Saudi foreign policy of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
It is an entire management system using MMA as the vehicle to catapult MMA to gain specific goals:
1—Recruit individual Muslims that live in non-Muslim lands and transform them as a collective unit by establishing centers, educational programs, mosques and organizations like ISNA and MSA in order to stop Muslim assimilation in non-Muslim host nations.
2—These then can influence the non-Muslim host nations by shifting the demographic scale due to their population growth in favor of the Saudi agenda.
3—A gradual implementation of Sharia will ensue by becoming a major revolutionary powerhouse.
4—This will tilt the host nation in favor of Muslims due to their increase as a population.
5—By this, a transformation then ensues in the host nation to gradually begin to implement a Wahhabi style Sharia.
6—The host state then will join the Musli commonwealth.
link here – “Huma Abedin and the Saudi King’s manifesto” FrontPage
…anyone got that list of how a country changes: the size of the Muslim population and behaviour of that population? It is so good and so true; I saved a copy but now can’t find it. Will keep looking.
Found it:
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30675
Islam is not a religion nor is it a cult. It is a complete system.
Islam has religious, legal, political, economic and military components. The religious component is a beard for all the other components.
Islamization occurs when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their so-called ‘religious rights.’
When politically correct and culturally diverse societies agree to ‘the reasonable’ Muslim demands for their ‘religious rights,’ they also get the other components under the table. Here’s how it works (percentages source CIA: The World Fact Book (2007)).
As long as the Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone. In fact, they may be featured in articles and films, stereotyped for their colorful uniqueness:
United States — Muslim 1.0%
Australia — Muslim 1.5%
Canada — Muslim 1.9%
China — Muslim 1%-2%
Italy — Muslim 1.5%
Norway — Muslim 1.8%
At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:
Denmark — Muslim 2%
Germany — Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom — Muslim 2.7%
Spain — Muslim 4%
Thailand — Muslim 4.6%
From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.
They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves — along with threats for failure to comply. ( United States ).
France — Muslim 8%
Philippines — Muslim 5%
Sweden — Muslim 5%
Switzerland — Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands — Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad &Tobago — Muslim 5.8%
At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islam is not to convert the world but to establish Sharia law over the entire world.
When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions ( Paris –car-burnings). Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats ( Amsterdam – Mohammed cartoons).
Guyana — Muslim 10%
India — Muslim 13.4%
Israel — Muslim 16%
Kenya — Muslim 10%
Russia — Muslim 10-15%
After reaching 20% expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning:
Ethiopia — Muslim 32.8%
At 40% you will find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare:
Bosnia — Muslim 40%
Chad — Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon — Muslim 59.7%
From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels:
Albania — Muslim 70%
Malaysia — Muslim 60.4%
Qatar — Muslim 77.5%
Sudan — Muslim 70%
After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide:
Bangladesh — Muslim 83%
Egypt — Muslim 90%
Gaza — Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia — Muslim 86.1%
Iran — Muslim 98%
Iraq — Muslim 97%
Jordan — Muslim 92%
Morocco — Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan — Muslim 97%
Palestine — Muslim 99%
Syria — Muslim 90%
Tajikistan — Muslim 90%
Turkey — Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates — Muslim 96%
100% will usher in the peace of ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ — the Islamic House of Peace — there’s supposed to be peace because everybody is a Muslim:
Afghanistan — Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia — Muslim 100%
Somalia — Muslim 100%
Yemen — Muslim 99.9%
Of course, that’s not the case. To satisfy their blood lust, Muslims then start killing each other for a variety of reasons.
Fascinating.
I think the following maps speak for themselves (but I’m not sure how well images work in these posts, so apologies if I break the board):
The Muslim world
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muslim_World.png
Birth rate
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birth_rate_figures_for_countries.PNG
Literacy
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_literacy_map_UNHD_2007_2008.png
This is an old trick the BBC always plays when it comes to religion. They just can’t help it. On programmes about Christianity they will have a line up of Modernist Christians who are essentially agnostic, and then claim that this is the real Christianity because they believe in gay marriage, multiculturalism, the E U, unchecked immigration, transgenderism and abortion.
The BBC has the habit of putting up dissenters as the norm. And when they try to promote a ‘moderate’ Islam it is always someone who believes that Islam should be somehow reformed, into something that is not Islam,
However I don’t see the BBC campaigning for lady Imans, female Mullahs or women Ayatollahs. It should be a burning issue.
I did not hear a single word from Hanif Qadir that was inconsistent with the ex-Muslim, Anwar Shaikh’s contention that hatred of the non Islamic is the pivot of Muslim existence (with the sole possible exception of his saying he had no problems with the locals when growing up). Saying that he did not want those boys to become terrorist but things like firefighters and policemen in stead sounded awfully like ‘infiltration is better than militarisation at this point in time.’ At the very and he seemed to be using the terms community, fellow Muslims and human beings as synonyms. Iqbal seemed more than eager to go along with his belief that the Americans were brutal killers of women, children and the poor – she certainly didn’t feel any need to argue the point with him, while he seems to have been genuinely surprised that the Taliban were cruel and vicious: not how a person would expect Muslims to be at all!
One wonders how long the vegan Muslima who found a little piglet so sweet. would have lasted in a Muslim country or indeed being married to an ordinary Muslim in the west – an obvious point which Iqbal quite deliberately failed to put to her.
just like Irshad Manji with her own libby feministy private version of islam who wakes up smells the coffee then ends up, “having second thoughts on Indonesia,” when they see the horror of islamic doctrine up close.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/05/10/irshad-manji-having-second-thoughts-indonesia.html
In the course of praying the requisite five prayers a day, an observant Muslim will recite the Fatihah, the first surah of the Qur’an and the most common prayer in Islam, seventeen times.
The final two verses of the Fatihah ask Allah: “Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favoured; ???
NOT the (path) of those who earn Thine ANGER nor of those who have been led astray.” worded so aptly by mohs sock puppet
indeed this is the whole premis for Qur’anic hatred toward Jews and distrust/hostility toward Christians.
why should anyone find it inconceivable that Muslims all over the world would learn as a matter of course that the central prayer of their faith anathematizes Jews and Christians? or? …
maybe nobody bothers to ask.
the propaganda machine working well.
If only the BBC would get on board George H W Bush’s plan to transform the Middle East.
Details in “The Soft Underbelly of Islam” at
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/