On 5Live Drive (2 hrs 26 mins 40 secs) we had a report from the BBC’s Cairo correspondent Jon Leyne who told us that after the Muslim Brotherhood’s attempt to seize power and steamroller the ‘Revolution’ it had become ‘a very scary situation’ in Egypt….‘a very dangerous point’.
‘Police have fired tear gas in clashes with tens of thousands of protesters gathered near the presidential palace in the Egyptian capital Cairo.
Many of those gathered outside chanted slogans similar to those directed against the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak during protests in February 2011.’
How times change….events, dear Jeremy, events….and a willingness to admit that nothing has really changed….the Muslim Brotherhood were always likely to act in this way…….it is just that some, in the BBC especially, were not prepared to admit that…..which has a resonance for us in the West as we admit more and more Muslims into Europe but the ‘Establishment’ refuses to consider the consequences for the future……
I’m certain most people remember the BBC’s willingness to accept the benevolence of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
‘The country’s only properly organised mass political movement outside the ruling party is the Muslim Brotherhood, and it would do very well in any free election.
Unlike the jihadis, it does not believe it is at war with the West. It is conservative, moderate and non-violent. But it is highly critical of Western policy in the Middle East.‘
I believe the BBC were forced to remove the word ‘moderate’ later on.
Michael Burleigh is not so impressed by either Bowen or the Muslim Brotherhood:
‘As usual, BBC television news coverage of events in Egypt is reduced to the spectacle of Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen getting teargas in his eyes. I’m surprised John Simpson hasn’t landed to share the experience. They could gasp, weep and wheeze in tandem. This low grade spectacle is what you and I pay £140 a year for.
Such ‘reporting’ tells us almost nothing about the fundamentals of a conflict which is hugely important since Egypt is a pace setter for trends across the Middle East.
The West is rightly fearful that the Muslim Brotherhood’s understanding of democracy consists of ‘one man, one vote, one time’.
The Muslim Brotherhood is remaining at arm’s length from the demonstrators. It wants elections as soon as possible, because it thinks its organisational strength mean it will win a majority.
It is being careful to stay on side with the army, with whom it has many links. It imagines that while the army preserves public order, it will be able to enact the sort of sharia regime it desires.
That is what is happening behind the drama of Mr Bowen’s tears.‘
Michael Weiss has more evidence of the BBC’s attitude:
‘On January 28, the BBC posted to its website an info-box summary of the Brotherhood’s orientation, which it unquestioningly described as “reject[ing] the use of violence and support[ing] democratic principles.”
An even more laborious attempt to sanitize the Islamist movement came from Middle East editor of the BBC News website Tarik Kafala, who published on February 20, “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood promotes moderate path.” ‘
Michael Weiss has noticed something about BBC coverage that I have noticed several times…that despite the ‘BBC’ knowing, for example, about the Muslim Brotherhood’s professed motives and intentions and possibly even investigating such characteristics the ‘frontline’ of the BBC, the reporters and the programme and news presenters, ignore, or don’t know about that, and carry on reporting as if on a different planet with an alternate view that doesn’t match the reality….. They only hear what they want to hear.
Here is Weiss’ summary of that attitude:
‘Given that the BBC has exposed the Brotherhood’s extremism in its broadcast programming, it’s remarkable that the BBC online editors remain wedded to a policy of presenting the organization in its own preferred terms.’
They only hear what they want to hear…and unfortunately that is all they want to tell us a lot of the time which distorts the perceptions of world events and therefore our reactions to them….which can have serious consequences….as in the predominantly anti-Israeli feeling, and all that entails, engendered by pro-Palestinian reporting.
Not just the BBC. The whole Western political class is indulging in it’s preferred approach to reality. That is denying it.
Democracy.? Don’t you just love it. Time for them all to grow up and begin to understand that democracy is perhaps a non exportable product when rammed down the throats of cultures that really have little use for it. Unless it suits the current strong man of course.
For INBBC & BBC Arabic TV Muslim Brotherhood Cairo Bureau:-
“Despite Obama’s Pollyanna statements, Egypt close to Shariah law.”
http://www.examiner.com/article/despite-obama-s-pollyanna-statements-egypt-close-to-shariah-law?
For INBBC:-
“Morsi Flees Presidential Palace as Protesters Break Through Police Lines”
(inc video clip)
By Daniel Greenfield.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/morsi-flees-presidential-palace-as-protesters-break-through-police-lines/
EGYPT:
INBBC censors out any mention of:-
(a.) Islam, (b.) Muslim Brotherhood!
In this long, obfuscating report, INBBC practices amazing self-censorship-
“Clashes outside Egypt presidential palace in Cairo”
(More poor INBBC Leyne reporting.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20600920
Compare the above with the following ‘Telegraph’ report:-
“Morsi leaves through back door as Egypt protesters surround palace.
“Egypt’s presidential palace was encircled by anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters in a violent demonstration in Cairo, as the constitutional crisis caused by Mohammed Morsi’s assumption of unchallengeable powers showed no sign of abating.”
By Richard Spencer, and Magdy Samaan in Cairo.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/9722461/Morsi-leaves-through-back-door-as-Egypt-protesters-surround-palace.html
Radio 3’s Nightwaves tonight, moved by the plight of the Rohingya Muslims in Burma, did a quick discussion on why Buddhism is, contrary to its image, involved in so much violence: no holds were barred: the religions shameful secrets were fearlessly exposed. Identifying with the one turns into identifying with the violence of the state. Europeans, browned off with the Crusades and the Inquisition cannot feel they are on innocuous ground if they set out in search of Nirvana in stead of a Christian heaven. It’s just like all the other religions.
About time too -you can hardly pick up a paper without reading about these damned Buddhists kicking up merry hell in what appear to be several dozen flashpoints around the planet.
Tonight’s presenter was Samira Ahmed.
Pity Tibetans aren’t moslems. They could demand and get independence, let Tibet go to rack and ruin, move to China and wreck that country too.
You can bet that the Chinese authorities don’t let Tibetans get into China’s main cities – they are restricted to “Tibet” and far eastern provinces that are part of Tibet proper. Likewise Muslims are kept far away in the western end of China.
…..far western provinces of China…
Two goodies:
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/12/04/obama-republicans-are-top-national-security-threat-not-al-qaeda/
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/12/04/pic-of-the-day-135/
Obama, your bitch is our dictator.
Curiously un-RTed by Beeboids. Imagine.
I think that many of the readers of this site did not believe the Tahrir Square party was quite the light hearted affair portrayed as it was by the BBC reporters. Time has proven us right – well some of us never doubted that it would.
I think that is the very scary nub of this argument Deborah. Whilst the BBC and the mainstream press were almost cockahoop at the events we were seeing, there was enough in the MBs past and their present to suggest that should they take hold it was not going to be one big happy party.
It didn’t take a genius to find this stuff either. It was right there for anyone who wanted to dig a little. For a BBC so fond of blogs and twitter feeds (or at least those that subscribe to their world view), they were curiously incurious about the noise being made that effectively said “watch out for the brotherhood”. Their website (the arabic version) gave a more honet appraisal of what they wanted from the world.
It was all there right in front of them. We found it from thousands of miles away, yet those on the ground did not even seem to stumble on anything that made them suspicious enough to go look deeper.
They even didn’t seem very curious when the MB who said they wouldn’t get involved in this election and that election, suddenly started getting involved. They didn’t find it worth investigating the observation of a group reneging on one promise after another.
It was there right in front of them. I honestly can’t believe that they could not see it. There was too much in plain sight to do that. At best they were hopeless deluded romantics. At worst they were complicit.
Either way this is dangerous stuff. People will watch this and believe it to be the black and white truth. they will make decisions and form veiwpoints. Most I would hope will simply just hold a wrong viewpoint. That said however there will be people who act on it and that becomes extremely dangerous when you look at the very precarious events going off in that whole region.
I admit I was one of those initially more optimistic about the chances of rational behavior in Egypt. As it turns out, Geert Wilders was more correct than I cared to admit: the Muslim World needs to go through an Enlightenment before there’s any hope.
I still firmly believe that the Egyptians – or anyone, for that matter – have the right to some kind of democratic self-determination. If they screw it up, it’s their own fault, and maybe they’ll learn a lesson someday.
When Mubarrak was first being attacked by the Egyptian people, I well recall people there saying that the Muslim Brotherhood were conspicuous by their absence…providing drinks from a safe place outside Tahrir Square, at best.
Yet when the regime fell, guess who stepped out a la Janet Webb to claim the credit and the glory..yes indeed those reeds in the wind blowing with the fashions…the Muslim Brotherhood.
Funny that the IRA started out as a craven bunch of lilies, then began to rewrite their history pretty quick later.
Must be something in thos Morsi/Adams beards…does anyone else think that they look like brothers on occasion?
They should both swing from lamp posts, although O’Beeb (and of course al-Beel) would disagree.
For INBBC:-
“Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood accused of paying gangs to rape women.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/12/05/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-accused-paying-gangs-to-rape-women/?test=latestnews#ixzz2ECVAjoss
“BBC reporter assaulted by Zionists in Tahrir Square.”
Proof of Jeremy Bowen’s delusion – or blatant dishonesty for…*ahem*… some reason – about the Muslim Brotherhood can be seen here.
Defenders of the indefensible continue to remain silent.