‘When will the Syria crisis end? God knows.  

God knows because this crisis is increasingly not about freedom but about religion.’  Paul Danahar BBC

Mark Mardell has long supported Obama’s dithering, sorry, masterly inactivity..no….cautious, wise, diplomacy over Syria.

‘It is clear Mr Obama doesn’t want to go to war in Syria. He regards it as too complex, too difficult, too uncertain.

American action there would have a huge impact on the perception of America in the region – confirming every image he wants to change.

Yet the US is, perhaps, moving slowly and cautiously toward taking action. There is no sense of a time scale and no real certainty about what might be done. This is very Obama: the caution, the desire to bring allies along, the reluctance to rush to judgment.

Enemies call it dithering. Even allies are sometimes impatient. I doubt whether any of that worries a president who says sending young men and women into action is the hardest thing he has ever had to do.’

Unfortunately the real world has intruded into Mardell’s Obamian utopia, oddly, in the shape of the BBC’s Paul Danahar who has introduced a full dose of realism into the debate on Syria.

Mardell,  no doubt through gritted teeth, has even linked to Danahar’s web article:

@BBCMarkMardell via Twitter thoughtful, gloomy take on Syria’s lengthy conflict http://t.co/x9dZJU8H9z

Why through gritted teeth?  Because the article essentially damns Obama for his inaction over Syria…two years into the conflict and still no support for the anti-Assad rebels.  Danahar is honest about the West’s failure, honest about the need for military action if we want to get rid of Assad, honest about a few other things not normally admitted on the BBC….such as the malign influence of Saudi Arabia and the divisive effects of religion.

I first heard Danahar on 5Live Drive  (18:36) on which he poured scorn, diplomatically, upon the ‘West’…which really means Obama.  The web article is pretty much as the live chat but the 5Live report is blunter and more to the point.

What is Danahar’s conclusion?  

That as soon as it became apparent that the anti-Assad movement was serious, long term and capable of sustained action it should have been supported with funds and arms.

What are the consequences of not doing that?  The original, secular freedom fighters, the original revolutionaries, have lost authority and influence because they have no funds or arms.

Into that vacuum have moved the Islamists funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and who are luring men away from the more secular forces and are now dominating the opposition ranks.

The opposition forces are fragmented with no overall command and control…this could have been put in place from the start if the rebels had been supported and helped to form  such structures at the beginning.  A ‘regular’ army could have been formed and the incursion of the Islamists limited.

Having no overall commander and therefore no overall plan of action means that there is no strategy to beat Assad who can survive lots of single attacks and beat them off individually.

That old phrase ‘divide and rule’ is as apt as ever here.

Iran and Russia are supplying Assad with weapons…and of course should he win will retain the influence over the region that they had before.

Assad has survived, he thinks he can, and will survive long term.  He sees his enemies are divided and without funds or arms whilst he is resupplied by Russian and Iran.

He has no incentive to head for the negotiating table or to cut and run.

The war continues and thousands more lose their lives….all because  Obama hasn’t supported the creation of an army capable of making unified decisions and one that is powerful enough to conduct decisive battlefield  operations capable of knocking out Assad’s forces. 

I disagree with Danahar about this statement which seems at odds with the rest of the report:

‘America is not acting because it does not know what to do or whom to do it with.  Neither do the European countries.

Having spent the last few days in Beirut and Damascus, talking to the international community, Western diplomats, FSA activists and Syrian regime supporters, it is clear that nobody knows how to end this crisis.’

The answer is quite apparent, his whole article pointed to the answer….either let Assad win or pile in arms and money….targeted at the secular rebels, but the Islamists if necessary as well….they are a problem that any post Assad regime would have to tackle.

Here are some notable sentences from Danahar’s web article:

• The vacuum created by Western inaction has been filled by two of the Gulf states – Saudi Arabia and Qatar…..These are both sorely undemocratic states, they are not champions of democracy either at home or abroad.
• Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia hates Shia Iran, so it is using the war in Syria to try and weaken it.   The Saudi interest in the conflict dates back 1,300 years to the split within Islam. That is where its ambitions over the outcome of the civil war begin and end.
• When will the Syria crisis end? God knows.   God knows because this crisis is increasingly not about freedom but about religion.  The Syrian war is turning into a sectarian conflict whose influence will spill beyond the country’s borders.There was the chance at the beginning to stop that being the case. That chance has been lost.

Whilst Danahar’s article and report are examples of how the BBC can provide us with intelligent, informed and unbiased news and analysis you know that this will soon be forgotten.

As soon as the US starts to arm the rebels and fighting breaks out on a larger scale the BBC will change that tune and the normal service of anti-war rhetoric will crank into action with demands for ceasefires and negotiations…thereby just prolonging the war…as we find with Israel which is constantly restrained from winning a decisive battle against Hamas or Hezbollah who survive to fight another day and keep pounding Israel with missiles and any other means of attack they can muster.

If nothing else though, it has shown Mardell how to gauge a situation with an honest appraisal rather than checking first to see how things reflect upon the best beloved Obama’s reputation.

It’s a long overdue welcome back to the Question Time LiveChat.

We’re going to try a new application instead of CoverItLive, which now charges heavily. Please try out the new software on a Test chat session here. The session for the Question Time chat this evening is here.

Question Time comes from Coventry; a city which dates from 1945.

On the panel we have former Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis MP; Business minister, Jo Swinson MP; Shadow Education Minister, Tristram Hunt MP; the hideous Germaine Greer; and Jerry Hayes, criminal barrister and former Conservative MP. Don’t let that fool you – self confessed “on the independent left of the Conservative Party” he was described as Ken Livingstone’s favourite Tory and said that he couldn’t be a Blairite because New Labour wasn’t right-wing enough.

We’ll kick off at 10:30 over here so please make sure you’ve created an account and had a practice if you want to here.

Hi Folks! Am back from my sojourn down under and finally been able to log in here. It was nice to get a break from the Ministry of Truth for three weeks and I have to say I found Australian news coverage on their “SKY” channel to be pretty decent (Better then Sky here for sure). Also wanted to thank Alan for keeping the posts coming and trust this finds you all well!

Access to online newspapers and magazines is becoming more difficult as it becomes common for paywalls to be introduced.

I imagine the bean counters have done their sums and it all works out as an exercise worth doing….though it might indicate to advertisers that their adverts don’t work and so encourage them to take a lower, less expensive presence online.

However whether it pays or not is irrelevant here.  What is an issue is access to high quality news and information from a variety of reliable sources from which you can gain a reasonable overview of events taking into account the various publication’s own political or ideological views.

The more publications that become paywalled the fewer most people will access. 

Such a scenario hands on a plate enormous power and influence to an organisation like the BBC which provides free online news funded by the license fee……something which already damages the ability of commercial news providers to get a foothold on the Web.

The BBC, already dominant in the sector, will become practically the sole provider of news to most people….their only other source of information their daily paper should they buy one, whereas before they could access a vast number of publications with widely differing views and interpretations of the world as well as indepth analysis and debate encompassing a wide base of subjects that television news can’t provide.

As more and more publications introduce a paywall the BBC becomes a ‘stonewall’ blocking and filtering the world, shaping the news to fit their agenda and only letting you see what they want you to see.

Any solutions to this?  

I guess the best one is for the BBC to be encouraged to be impartial, unbiased, accurate and balanced in its reporting. 

Good luck with that!

The BBC is biased?  Tell us more….

Islam…Institutionally Racist?  ‘Did that mean that freedom of speech, parliamentary democracy, the rule of law or monogamy were no longer to be upheld as worthwhile?

Here was the very nihilism which, if unchallenged, threatened to destroy the West. If all common bonds of tradition, custom, culture and morality were destroyed, there would no social glue to keep society together. It would gradually fracture into disparate tribes with competing agendas, and eventually destroy itself.’

Robert Aitken, ex BBC, tells us that the BBC  would have ignored the Asian grooming gangs in Rochdale.

The Guardian’s Joseph Harker tells us that organisations like the BBC are right to ignore the religion and race of these gangs despite the judge in the case saying:

“All of you treated your victims as though they were worthless and beyond any respect – they were not part of your community or religion.”

But evidence mounts that  religion is of paramount importance in society and is the cause of much crime and violence, and needs addressing:

Pakistan election: the 4m votes no one wants  Ahmadi religious minority vilified by extremists as heretic and shunned by mainstream politicians such as Imran Khan.

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, accused elders of the Pakistani community of “burying their heads in the sand” on the matter of sexual grooming. 

We can’t ignore it  Simon Danczuk, Labour MP for Rochdale. 

‘Hindu and Sikh groups have objected to media use of “Asian” description saying that the culprits were “almost always of Pakistani origin”.

The Islamists were demonstrating in favour of an anti-blasphemy law and demanding punishment for “atheist” bloggers who they say have insulted Islam and its prophet.

Almost 300 Christian children abducted and forcibly converted to Islam in Bangladesh.

It is an irony that on the same day that Harker has his piece in the Guardian telling us that Islam does not discriminate against anyone ,the Guardian also publishes a report on the Ahmadis being persecuted by Muslims and reports of Islamists demanding pro-Islamic laws.

Harker demonstrates a mindset all too apparent at the BBC….look the other way when Muslims go bad……one look at Pakistan and you realise why it is important to address such issues…and openly question the rising influence and dominance of Islam in Britain today.

The BBC’s attitude condemns everyone to a future that is not a happy one, increasing ‘tribalism’, segregation and inter communal violence….and you are all being denied a say in that future by the likes of the BBC and the Guardian’s Joseph Harker….closing down debate with cries of islamophobia or racism.

This is the long version of the above, explaining it in depth:

The Guardian tells us that: ‘A former BBC current affairs journalist, Robert Aitken, has said the corporation’s failure to mount a campaign against Lord Justice Leveson’s press reform proposals “has done a great disservice” to the country.

“The Leveson Inquiry was tailor-made to reinforce the BBC’s sense of its own superiority….As a viewer or listener one got the impression that the corporation was rather enjoying itself.”

Aitken warned that a “press cowed by regulation” will make the nation more reliant on the BBC, but that if journalism is chilled at newspapers it will also be at the corporation.

“The BBC’s track record over the past few years does not instil great confidence,” he said. It would not have broken the MPs’ expenses scandal or the story on Asian gangs grooming young white girls for sexual abuse.’

Aitken is absolutely right about the BBC’s coverage of Leveson…its schadenfreude at the sight of Murdoch under the cosh was visible for everyone to see. He is also right that the BBC is one of the organisations that was responsible for the suppression of information about the sex abuse gangs in Rochdale which allowed the abuse to go on for years unchecked because of ‘cultural sensibilities’.

It is ironic then, and not a little worrying, that yesterday in the Guardian the same mindset that turned a blind eye to non-Muslim girls being abused in Rochdale was at work again telling us that we should look away, don’t investigate all the lines of inquiry that might help stop this in future, instead cover up the abuse and pretend it doesn’t happen….at least not in Muslim communities.

This mindset has its own bible, where ironically the ingrained prejudices and racism of our  self appointed ‘anti-discrimination’ Stasi are set in out in black and white.

In 2004 Dr Richard Stone, one of the men responsible for deciding that the Met. Was ‘institutionally racist’ published a report into ‘Islamophobia’.

That title should give the game away instantly…it was more a witch hunt than a genuine investigation of criticism of the Islamic religion.

This gives a taste of what depths that report sinks to:

‘Racism is not in the minds of black people, nor is Islamophobia in the minds of Muslims, nor anti-Semitism in the minds of Jews.

‘Racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are in the minds of white people, in the institutions, organisations and cultures they mould and lead’.’

Here is a quote they use to illustrate how badly Muslims are treated in this country, quoting an unnamed Muslim journalist….

‘Today, Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims are living on a diet of death, hypocrisy and neglect that is traumatising and radicalising an entire generation.’

So you get an idea of the hysterical, bigoted thinking that is being used. It is ironic that a report about discrimination should tarbrush all white people as anti-Semitic, Islamophobic (whatever that means) and racist.

So what did the Guardian, in the form of its deputy comments editor, Joseph Harker, say?

From what he says it is apparent that Harker obviously agrees with the leader of the Rochdale sex abuse ring, Shabir Ahmed, when he claimed the girls were “prostitutes” who had been running a “business empire” and it was all “white lies”.

And no doubt Harker also agrees with him that the judge is a ‘racist bastard’ when the judge said this:

“All of you treated your victims as though they were worthless and beyond any respect – they were not part of your community or religion.”

The judge branded the 59-year-old an “unpleasant and hypocritical bully”.

So what is Harker’s take on all of this ?   He tries his hand at parody to explain his own conclusions….as he compares the crimes of white abusers like Savile with those of Muslims:

‘Every day across Britain, it seems, there’s a new and horrific revelation of sexual abuse…..after the shock has subsided and we have time to reflect on these revolting crimes, the main question in most reasonable people’s minds must surely be: what is it about white people that makes them do this?

I’m beginning to feel sorry for whites. I have many white friends and I know most of them are wholly opposed to sexual abuse. But they must be worried that their whole community is getting a bad name.’　

He explains his little joke:

‘All of the above arguments were made within various parts of our print and broadcast media when similarly small numbers of Muslim men were revealed to be grooming young girls for sex. If you think the claims about white people are wrong, then so is the stereotyping of Britain’s Muslims, and the widespread questioning of their culture and their religion, because of the perverted actions of a few.

If you object to this article, then you should understand how it feels to be a Muslim reading similar pieces pandering to Islamophobia day after day – and you should object to those too.’

Immediately you can see the problem with his ‘argument’ such as it is.

He compares white men abusing any child they can lay their hands on regardless of race, colour or creed with an abuse gang that selected its victims because they were not Muslim.

That is clearly a wrongheaded way of looking at this…if Savile and Co had only been abusing Muslim girls then you could make the comparison…but they weren’t.　

Harker goes on to say that no one then projects the blame of Savile et al onto the white community as a whole….well no…because as explained their victims were not picked because they were of a particular type.

Even when this is pointed out to Harker in the comments section to his article he can’t understand the point, saying:

‘Why should we talk about cultural values, or people “from that community”? It’s no more relevant than in North Wales or the BBC. Despite it being over 6 months since revelations about Savile and the conspiracies which kept his crimes secret, I’ve not seen one article making a subculture point about white people.’

That’s because ‘whiteness’ of his victims wasn’t the issue for Savile…..the cultural and religious values of the Muslims in Rochdale were relevant as they defined which victims would be abused.

This isn’t a question of Islam making men into perverts, it is an issue about Islam creating a mindset that allows Muslims to demonise and dehumanise non-Muslims which then enables them to abuse them free of conscience if that is what they are inclined to do…religiously sanctioned discrimination.

So why would anyone make a point about ‘white people’?

Is it true as Harker says that only the Muslim community is being stigmatised by having their culture brought into question?　

No….The fact is certain groups have been blamed for the abuse by Savile et al.

The Catholic Church has been severely criticised, not because Catholicism encouraged abuse but because the culture of the Church covered up the abuse and allowed it to continue.

It was the BBC culture which allowed its ‘stars’ to get away with abuse because they were so famous, so ‘useful’ to the BBC that they were ‘untouchable’.

Greg Dykes admitted as much recently: ‘In television, presenters and stars have always been protected in a way that the rest of us never are, in terms of the way organisations work. They would always protect them. But it’s difficult to establish the truth.’　

It was the culture of the BBC and the unique status of Savile et al that made them ‘untouchable’, that was the issue.

So in fact a ‘group’ of people has been identified and ‘broad brushed’ by association……the ‘Superstars in the TV industry are all being given a bad name by association, and the culture that allowed some of them to get away with abuse has been identified….and action taken to remedy that.

The BBC has carried out numerous inquiries, with another one likely for Stuart Hall’s activities….into the culture, practices and customs that allowed abuse to go on…and actions taken to prevent it happening again.

Where are the inquiries into the culture and practices of Muslims in Rochdale that gave sanction to their behaviour?  Is it right to deny the role of religion and culture, to sweep that under the carpet and blame their actions solely on some ‘perversion’…that’s just too easy,  allowing the Authorities to escape the need for any action.

Harker is saying that we should ignore that so that the Muslim community doesn’t feel that it is somehow under attack.

Why shouldn’t that culture and religion be brought into question? The Catholic Church has been vilified, the BBC has been vilified…and rightly so….what’s so special about Islam?

Harker ignores the fact that the girls were selected by religion, he ignores the fact that the Muslim ‘community’ knew what was going on and ignored it. He ignores the fact that covering up the abuse led to years more abuse for the girls and many more victims.

Harker is in effect condemning more girls to abuse…because future perpetrators know that people like Harker are working to hide their crimes and keep them off the pages of the newspapers….the police and social services once again cowed into not tackling the issues for fear of being labelled ‘racist’.　

Harker claims that Islam has nothing to do with discrimination or abuse….it is ironic that on the same day the Guardian printed his piece it also printed the below…showing that it isn‘t just a small group of ‘extremists‘ in Pakistan who are discriminating against other religions it is the mainstream…with laws even passed in the Pakistani Parliament to enable such discrimination:

Pakistan election: the 4m votes no one wants

Ahmadi religious minority vilified by extremists as heretic and shunned by mainstream politicians such as Imran Khan

‘Last week, Khan, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI), vigorously denied he had ever asked members of Pakistan’s roughly 4 million-strong Ahmadiyya community to vote for him.

In an impassioned video statement, Khan promised to protect anti-Ahmadi laws and articles of Pakistan’s constitution that human rights groups have long criticised as deeply discriminatory.

The laws ban Ahmadis from “posing as a Muslim”, meaning almost any public act of devotion is a criminal offence, potentially punishable by death under the country’s notorious blasphemy laws.

In a statement, Khan said the “PTI totally subscribes to the articles of the constitution concerning Qadianis”, using a term most Ahmadis find deeply offensive.’

Harker clearly hasn’t done any research into what went on in Rochdale. If he had he would know that it is accepted that religion and culture played a major role in the abuse:

A 2012 report by the Deputy children’s commissioner said that 33% of child sex abuse was committed by Asians in Britain, where Asians are 7% of the population, but concluded that it was “irresponsible” to dwell on the data.

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadan Foundation, accused elders of the Pakistani community of “burying their heads in the sand” on the matter of sexual grooming. He said that of 68 recent convictions involving child sexual exploitation, 59 were of British Pakistani men and it was a significant problem for that community. He said the actions of criminals who thought “white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused” were “bringing shame on our community.”

They claim that by highlighting the scandal, I am doing the dirty work of Right-wing extremists such as the BNP —helping to taint Pakistanis with the smear of criminality.

But this is nonsense. The damage has been done by the criminal activity of the gangs themselves.

The truth is that we will win far more respect by challenging abuse, rather than colluding with its cover-up.

Simon Danczuk, Labour MP for Rochdale says ‘We can’t ignore it’:

‘For a while now, I’ve had concerns about disturbing attitudes towards women shown by some of Rochdale’s Asian residents. It goes way beyond casual chauvinism to something far worse. In the two years I have been an MP, I’ve had to throw people out of my surgery because of their violent views on women.

If even Asian councillors were writing letters of support for people now found guilty of horrific sex crimes, it is clear we have a culture of denial.’　

Harker is extraordinarily wide of the mark when he tries to equate ‘whiteness’ or race with abuse in his parody.

The issue was clearly religion as this BBC report illustrates….it was not ‘Asians’ abusing the girls, it was Muslims:

‘Hindu and Sikh groups have objected to media use of “Asian” description saying that the culprits were “almost always of Pakistani origin”. They contend that clouding the issue by calling them “Asians” is unfair towards other Asians and is detrimental to a frank discussion.

It says the reluctance of the media and the government to discuss the “disproportionate representation of Muslims in such cases” and the fact victims are “almost always non-Muslim girls” is adding to the cause of far-right groups such as the BNP.

The groups say sex gangs have targeted Hindu and Sikh girls but the cases are rarely reported as they seldom reach the courts.

The statement says: “We believe that political correctness stifles debate and will not facilitate a frank and mature discussion or solutions to get to the root of why the above pattern is emerging in these crimes and how to help find a solution to the problem.’

Harker’s attitude is dangerous…he knows what happened, he knows the causes, he knows the consequences for victims, and yet he seeks to bury the evidence in some misguided attempt to protect the guilty in order to protect the ‘good name’ of a community…a community that itself has some explaining to do….and a religion that encourages the belief that non-Muslims are a lower order of life.

The BBC’s Peter Taylor, for all his knowledge of the events in Northern Ireland always seems somewhat naïve when it comes to the whole picture…perhaps too caught up in the details to see it in the round?  Not just of Northern Ireland but terrorism generally…..Jihadists and all.

Ever the loyal BBC man he manages to get a dig in at UKIP…associating them with IRA terrorists here (and on the radio this morning):

‘At last month’s Sinn Fein’s ard fheis (party conference), he departed from his prepared speech and scathingly asked: “Where were they when there was a war?”

Interviewing Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly, I got the distinct impression that the party was now rowing back from inflammatory remarks of this kind, perhaps realising that such attacks may be counterproductive. David Cameron is now doing much the same with UKIP.’

Suppose that makes a change from the BBC linking them in reports to neo nazis such as the Golden Dawn Party in Greece.　

Here is a surprising statement from Taylor:

‘A new generation of young people is being attracted to the dissidents and he (Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris, head of the PSNI’s Crime Operations ) described the process with words that I have come to associate more with Islamist extremists than Irish republicans.

“Radicalisation is happening,” he said.’

So Irish republicans weren’t ‘radicalised’?…you’ve got to be kidding….was it just a day job or something…a career choice.…Tescos or the IRA?

Here is ex IRA member being interviewed in 2005, possibly ironically, by the Boston Globe, considering recent events and Taylor’s comparison to Jihadists:

As a 10-year-old living in British-controlled Northern Ireland, Shane O’Doherty offered himself up to martyrdom.

IN 1965, when he was ten years old he tore a sheet of paper from a notebook he used to copy lessons at school and wrote down a pledge:

“When I grow up, I, Shane Paul O’Doherty, want to fight and, if necessary, die for Ireland’s freedom.”

As he said about the time he became an IRA terrorist, age 15, upon his transformation from nobody to bomber:

‘I was no longer an insignificant teenager. I became heroic overnight. I felt drunk with power.’

Radicalised? I’d say so…by being weaned on the ‘rebellion’ from the cradle most likely.

However he has turned to the Church, now training to be a priest….

“I had rejected the Church’s doctrine of a just war,” O’Doherty says. “I had come to believe that only pacifism was truly moral, truly Christlike.”

Taylor goes on to say:

‘The problem with the dissidents is that they appear to have no coherent and cohesive political programme.

When all is stripped away, it is “Brits Out” and self determination for the Irish people.’

Well yes…that was essentially the IRA’s position….Brits out…and then deal with the politics…implementing Gerry Adam’s cherished socialist utopia.

Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing was more about ‘agitation and publicity’ rather than having a conventional political ideology….lacking a political philosophy……other than the usual calls for equality, religious and civil liberty and the pursuit of happiness and prosperity as in the 1916 Proclamation that you might expect from ‘rebels’ there is no ‘coherent and cohesive’ political programme from the IRA.

Even in their ‘peace statement’ the IRA still reiterated this basic aim:

‘Our decisions have been taken to advance our republican and democratic objectives, including our goal of a united Ireland.

We believe there is now an alternative way to achieve this and to end British rule in our country.

The IRA is fully committed to the goals of Irish unity and independence and to building the Republic outlined in the 1916 Proclamation.’

In 2012 Taylor was asking :

Can Afghanistan learn from Northern Ireland?

Let’s hope not eh?

Still the Taliban don’t seem to have read the script that Taylor laid out:

‘There comes a point in a protracted insurgency or “terrorist” campaign when the combatants recognise that neither is going to defeat the other.

The result is military stalemate.’

I guess that’s why the US and Brits will be running from Afghanistan with their tails between their legs having declared ‘victory’ in the next year or so…negotiations or not.

Still Taylor has always been somewhat on the optimistic side….seriously suggesting we can talk and negotiate with Al Qaeda or the Taliban…and produce a peace.

To try and end the violence, is it time to engage with al-Qaeda?

Here Taylor pushes the line that it is US foreign policy that is the driving force behind Al Qaeda:

‘In reality, the issue is US foreign policy.

In the words of Mike Scheuer – who headed the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit before and after 11 September, 2001, and who warned his superiors about the consequences of invading Iraq – “the only indispensable ally bin Laden has in terms of generating a worldwide Jihad is US foreign policy. Without that, his task is almost insurmountable.” ‘

The Arab Spring, especially in Egypt and Syria, disprove that theory……the fundamentalists may have been slow off the mark but they have caught up and are taking over…..and nothing to do with US foreign policy…all domestic.

If it was all about ‘foreign policy’ Iran would also be in the firing line as a supporter of Assad and an aggressor against the Sunnis in Iraq.

The real radicalising moment was 9/11 when Muslims around the world in their enclaves in Western countries and as oppressed peoples in their own countries saw that they could unite and fight together…how many times have we read that a Muslim suddenly became more devout after 9/11?

How many Muslims were cheering in the streets of Britain after 9/11?

As T.E. Lawrence said:

‘Such people demanded a war-cry and banner from outside to combine them, and a stranger to lead them, one whose supremacy should be based on an idea: illogical, undeniable, discriminant: which instinct might accept and reason find no rational basis to reject or approve. This was the binding assumption of the Arab movement; it was this which gave it an effective, if imbecile unanimity.’

That was the ‘Call To Arms’ that roused Muslims to rally around a Muslim flag….not US foreign policy but an awakening of Muslim consciousness, the appeal to join together to unite and reassert themselves and empower themselves in order that they can force recognition and acceptance of their religious and cultural demands within the countries they find themselves living in.

We can see how that is turning out…

‘One lesson well understood in both Stalin’s Russia and Nazi Germany was that propaganda is most effective when it is backed by terror.’

Or as the IRA said:

 “Both Sinn Féin and the IRA play different but converging roles in the war of national liberation. The Irish Republican Army wages an armed campaign… Sinn Féin maintains the propaganda war and is the public and political voice of the movement”.

 The BBC seem to be having a go at campaigning for the acceptance of polygamy in this country…for Muslims….that is legal recognition of multiple wives. …despite the catalogue of misery created by polygamy that the BBC paradoxically perhaps, exposes.  Polygamy already exists not just in Islamic society but in secular Britain…the recent case of Mick Philpotts being one such prominent example….of course such relationships have no legal standing…the second partner being essentially a ‘mistress’ without any rights.

The latest examination of this by the BBC was this programme by Jemima Khan (Timed out on the iPlayer now) which she has also had published in the New Statesman…provided in full at the end of this post.

We heard that the modern lifestyle fits in with polygamy, though that was then contradicted.  It is often imposed  upon women without permission of the first wife and that it is often done to reinforce Islamic identity.

We are told it was introduced by God in the Koran to protect widows and orphans…wives must be treated equally and fairly…but that it really amounts to religiously sanctioned mistresses….who have no legal rights.

One Muslim man stated that British laws are irrelevant as God’s law is above Man’s.

Baroness Cox, who is against Polygamy, states that we cannot condone suffering of women in polygamous relationships…the law must come first and that Muslim women are being betrayed by Britain which is not battling against these cultural impositions….we must have one law for all.

At the end we heard from Islamic law consultant, Khola Hasan: “Britain is refusing to accept that polygamy takes place,” she says. “It’s a reality and I think the British legal system is going to have to open its eyes and accept that it’s a reality in Britain. “Polygamy is not going to go away.”

She believes that “Forcing mosques to register all nikahs, and thereby banning polygamy, will only make Muslims feel more persecuted. “The Muslim community in Britain already feels victimised.”

She argues that, rather than banning polygamy, which she views as a “solution to many complex and difficult situations”, the practice should in fact be recognised by British law.

That sums up why it is so important that the BBC et al examine Islam, its beliefs, values and intentions as it becomes ever more dominant in this country….as Muslims run a parallel legal and social system alongside the British one ‘underground’ how many more times will such an attitude be expressed…it’s happening already, accept it…or else you will have an alienated, victimised Muslim community…ready to do what?

The BBC’s description of that is also telling…Islamic law consultant, Khola Hasan, wants the English legal system to recognise the existence of polygamy (though she does not wish the law to be changed to accommodate the practice.)

It’s quite clear from her words Hasan does want British law to be changed to accomodate Islamic laws….the BBC are once again playing down the problems being created by Islam in this country.

Although Jemima Khan’s report is not available another older one is, from the Asian Network, asking ‘What’s wrong With Polygamy?’

Both this report and Khan’s are curious things…both highlighting the fact that polygamy leads to a lot of unhappiness for women, and is the cause of many divorces by first wives…and yet the programmes both seem to support the legal recognition of polygamous marriage.

We are told that the number of unhappy women in unhappy marriages is huge…and growing as polygamy rises.

But what are the reasons for Muslim men to enter into a polygamous marriage?…there are three main reasons:

1.  They are radicals/extremists or just the orthodox who use it to reinforce their Islamic identity.

2.  Those forced into an unhappy first marriage but who cannot divorce the first wife due to social pressure.

3. Men with parents abroad looking for someone to look after them…looking for a servant in essence.

Hardly good reasons to turn over the laws of the land to accommodate polygamy are they?

A heartwarming tale:

Still, we are told in both reports that polygamy (10:13 in this one) ‘came about as a result of a battle in which many Muslims were killed resulting in several orphans being left and it was suggested by God almighty that if you marry an orphan you can safeguard their wealth and property…so go ahead and marry them.’  (referencing the Koran, Sura 4.3)

The presenter himself goes onto tell us that:   ‘It’s clear that polygamy came about due to the circumstances at the time.’

That demonstrates another problem with the BBC….it allows Muslim propaganda without question.

Polygamy wasn’t ‘suggested’ by God to the Muslims…it was rife throughout many cultures long before that, the Arabs taking many more than 4 wives.

Therefore it was not designed to protect widows and orphans as in the heartwarming tale spun by Muslims and the BBC…and in fact the Koran does not say ‘marry the orphans’…it just says look after them and their property until they reach a certain age.

Muhammed had 9 wives….one was a slave girl and the other a young girl of 9 years.. not an orphan.

He also married the wife of his adopted son who divorced her so that Muhammed could take her for himself….now this was frowned upon by Arab society…no problem…Muhammed invented a verse for his new scripture which made his actions acceptable…..

‘While Muhammad was sitting next to his wife Aisha, he suddenly went into one of his prophetic swoons.  When he had recovered, he said, “Who will go and congratulate Zaynab and say that the Lord has joined her to me in marriage?” Thus we find in sura 33.2—33.7:

 The most natural and immediate reaction to the preceding account must surely be that of the Prophet’s own wife, Aisha, who is said to have remarked wittily on this occasion, “Truly your God seems to have been very quick in fulfilling your prayers.” ‘

Note that…even his own wife doubts that God is really speaking to him.

Here Muhammed again invents yet another verse so that he can indulge himself with another woman…in this case his slave Mary…he was caught by his wife in the act and this upset the whole Harem until God intervened to smooth things over:

‘Harmony returned again to the harem. The sura concerned is 66.1: O Prophet! Why have you forbidden yourself that which God has made lawful unto you [i.e., Mary], out of desire to please your wives, for God is forgiving and merciful? Verily God has sanctioned the revocation of your oaths; . . The Prophet had entrusted a secret to one of his wives but she repeated it and God revealed it to him. … If he divorces you, God will give him in your stead wives more submissive unto God, believers, pious, repentant, devout, fasting; both Women married previously, and virgins. ‘

So it is quite clear that widows and orphans were not the reason for polygamy being part of the Koran…it was a previous cultural practice by the Arabs and was a convenient way to accommodate Muhammed’s own desires.

In other words the BBC is misleading us and making polygamy out to be some Muslim grand design, humane and equitable in intention, when the truth is far from that….it is clearly mostly intended to allow men to take many wives for their own reasons.

The BBC is also saying that Hasan does not want a change in the law…when she plainly does….she wants us to change british law to accommodate Muslim law…..the thin end of the wedge and the BBC knows that…hence it played it down.

The BBC seems to be suggesting that because these polygamous ‘marriages’ are so often damaging they need recognition in law to give rights and protection to the additonal ‘wives’.

Really?  They know such marriages are illegal, they know what they are entering into, so why should they have any more rights than a ‘mistress’ who becomes the third person in a non-Muslim marriage….is this once again the BBC pressing for special dispensation and laws for Muslms only?

Surely if the BBC were to look at polygamy it should have examined the full spectrum of examples across society…from the infamous Philpotts to Mormons or whoever else indulges in such practices….why just Muslims?

I think the BBC is out of its depth with this and demonstrates why ‘campaigning’ for anything is unwise for the BBC.

In this report from 2012 the BBC, illustrating the confusion, is more pragmatic and reports without any seeming underlying aim…certainly it is not promoting polygamy or the extension of legal rights to Muslims for it:

 Polygamy in Islam: The women victims of multiple marriage

Here is Jemima Khan in the New statesman:

What kind of woman is willing to share her husband?

Jemima Khan investigates why more and more Muslim women in Britain are choosing to become “co-wives”. For many divorced, widowed or older women, could polygamy be a practical answer to their problems?
By Jemima Khan Published 23 April 2013 

 Farzana is a senior nurse, 36, attractive,selfpossessed and articulate. “I have begun to consider polygamy,” she tells me at a matchmaking event in central London for divorced and widowed Muslims interested in marrying again. “When you think about love in an Islamic way, then co-wife idea makes sense.”
According to Mizan Raja, who set up the Islamic Circles community network and
presides over the east London Muslim matrimonial scene, women are increasingly
electing to become “co-wives” – in other words, to become a man’s second or
third wife. As I reported last year in the New Statesman, Raja gets five to ten
requests every week from women who are “comfortable with the notion of a
part-time man”. He explained: “Career women don’t want a full-time husband. They
don’t have time.” So couples live separately, a husband visiting his wives on a
rota.
A dapper City boy listening to Raja whispered to me: “Actually, that’s not
right. In late twenties a girl is considered past it, so this arrangement is the
best she can get.”
If you’re divorced, widowed or over 30 and Muslim, finding a husband in this
country can be a challenge. Does polygamy, or more specifically polygyny (a man
taking more than one wife, as opposed to a woman taking more than one husband),
as sanctioned by the Quran, offer a possible solution?
Aisha (not her real name), a divorced single mother with two children, recently
chose to become a second wife. She was introduced to her husband by a friend.
She says that at first she was hesitant. “I was like, ‘No, I can’t do it. I’m
too jealous as a person. I wouldn’t be able to do it.’ But the more that time
went on and I started thinking about it, especially more maturely, I saw the
beauty of it.”
They agreed on the terms of the marriage by email, covering details such as “how
many days he’d spend with me and how many days he’d spend with his other wife,
and money and living arrangements”. They then met twice, liked each other, set a
date and were married. Her husband now spends three days with Aisha and her two
children from her previous marriage and then three days with his other family,
unless one of them is ill, in which case he stays to help but has to make up the
missed time to his other wife.
She confesses that “if he was to stay all the time I’d love it”, but says that
having time off “is definitely beneficial in some ways as well”. She has “more
freedom” to see her friends and her family, and it is a relief “not having a man
in your face half the time, when you are cranky, and he can go somewhere else
and you can manage the kids on your own”.
As a divorcee, bringing up children on her own for three years before
remarrying, she built up an independent life for herself: “It’s hard to let your
goals go for a man all over again.” Although she concedes they have had a “few
teething problems” and that it took his first wife “some time to come to terms
with it”, now, she says, they “have come to an understanding . . . We are
finding our feet.” Both sets of children are aware of the new situation and have
accepted it. In fact, she says that her husband’s daughter from his first
marriage “can’t wait to meet second Mummy” and her own son, who now has a father
figure and “role model” that he was previously lacking, is “really happy with
it”. They have yet to experience “a big family get-together”, but Aisha says she
is “hopeful that will happen soon . . . I’ve spoken to her [the first wife] a
couple of times. She seems really lovely. I would really like for us to become
good friends . . . for there to be that kind of bond of sisterhood between us.”
The main obstacle to happiness, according to Aisha, “is the sense of ownership”
and jealousy. “But that’s something that you’ve just got to use your wisdom to
get past . . . It’s more important for me to have a father for my children . . .
to have a helping hand when I need it.” She insists that problems arise only
when the husband does not treat both wives equally, as explicitly mandated in
the Quran, or when the wives are not mature enough to rationalise and accept the
situation.
Anecdotal evidence, in the absence of the statistical kind, suggests that
polygamy is on the rise in Britain. And according to a poll conducted over a
week by Singlemuslim.com, 33 per cent of men and 9 per cent of women would
choose to be part of a polygamous marriage. Because such marriages take place
through an unregistered marriage contract, they do not constitute bigamy, a
criminal offence in the UK.
The reasons for polygamy are complex. Aisha says that, from her point of view,
“Single mums don’t have the pick of the bunch . . . [Polygamy] is there so we
can still have the benefits of marriage, so we don’t have to be left on the
shelf, so our children can still have role models, father figures, and so we can
still have that emotional stability, financial stability and security.”
The stigma of divorce, as well as later marriages and the importing of foreign
brides (15,500 women were admitted to the UK in 2011 as wives of British men,
according to Home Office figures), have all exacerbated the problem for Muslim
women looking for a husband.
Aisha tells me that her husband saw polygamy as his religious duty. “A lot of
people think it’s just about sex but . . . sex goes out the window after a
while. If you don’t want your husband marrying someone else, what would happen
to these single mums, then, and these divorcees? Is it fair that they just stay
on the shelf? We should be looking after our community. Islam is all about
community and society and we should look after our brothers and our sisters
equally, otherwise it’s every man for themselves.”
Kalsoom Bashir, the project manager of the Muslim women’s rights organisation
Inspire, and Khola Hasan of the Islamic Sharia Council in Leyton, east London,
both believe that forced marriage is another reason for polygamy. British men
are forced into marriages, often with cousins imported from “back home” with
whom they have nothing in common. “For a man who has been in the difficult
situation of being forced into a marriage, and the numbers are huge in Britain,
absolutely huge . . . for many of them, polygamy is a good way of being happy
and keeping the family happy,” Hasan explains.
The Quran instructs Muslim men to “marry women of your choice two or three or
four”, but warns that “if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly
[with them] then only one or [your concubines]. That is more fitting so that you
do not deviate from the right course.” The Prophet Muhammad said, “Whosoever has
two wives and he inclines towards one to the exclusion of the other, he will
come on the Day of Judgement with his body dropping or bending down.”
In other words, “It is mission impossible,” according to Mufti Barkatulla, a
senior imam and sharia council judge in Leyton. He firmly believes that there is
no place for polygamy in modern Britain. “There are a number of cases we have
come across and there is hardly a case where a man can balance all the duties
required in a polygamous situation . . . In today’s industrial society, it is
impossible to observe the conditions laid down by the scriptures.” Polygamy, he
points out, predates Islam and was permitted in Islam in the context of war to
offer protection to war orphans and widows. Many of the Prophet’s 11 wives were
widows.
Sara (not her real name) is a 40-year-old Muslim convert. She accepted the
practice of polygamy as part of her religion and when she fell in love with a
married man, she was the one who suggested that she become his second wife. “I
was busy and studying. I felt I could cope with not having someone around all
the time,” she tells me.
In reality, though, Sara now says, their marriage was more like a religiously
sanctioned affair. “Because of the social taboos against [polygamy], it had to
be secret from the community and I couldn’t have any children . . . because then
it will be known that he has a second wife.” Although she met her husband’s
first wife, going on holiday with her once and even offering to babysit her
children, the first wife never fully accepted the situation. “I really had this
idea that we somehow would eventually find some way of getting on . . . I was
imagining it would be like these stories I have heard of where it works, so I
thought it would just be a matter of time and we were destined to be together.”
Eventually, after six years, Sara sought a divorce.
In his 25 years presiding over thousands of divorce cases at the Islamic Sharia
Council, Mufti Barkatulla has heard many similar stories. Between 2010 and 2011,
43 out of the 700 applications for divorce to Leyton’s sharia council cited
polygamy as the main reason.
Mufti Barkatulla and Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, the former director of the Muslim
Institute, devised a Muslim marriage contract – in effect, a religiously
sanctioned prenup, to be signed at the time of the nikah, or religious ceremony
– that sought to address the imbalance in Muslim marriages, giving women equal
rights to divorce, allowing them to feel safe from rape or abuse, and preventing
husbands from taking a second wife. It also states that the nikah must happen in
conjunction with a civil ceremony, for extra protection.
He tells me the story of a woman whose husband “had agreed to a civil ceremony
but because dates and everything were not agreed the husband kept on delaying
it”. One day when she got home, she found a notice on the door: “Everything is
over. Collect your things from my sister’s house.” The woman told him that she
felt as though she had been “on trial” but eventually was discarded.
An estimated 70-75 per cent of Muslim marriages in the UK are not registered
under the Marriage Act, unlike Christian and Jewish marriages, which are
registered automatically. Mosques have the legal right to register to conduct
civil weddings, but only about one in ten have chosen to do so. A nikah or
Muslim marriage can be performed anywhere, even using proxies or on Skype. When
a marriage is not registered and the relationship breaks down, the unregistered
wife has no rights to spousal or child support and can even be left homeless,
denied her due share. In the event of the husband’s death, the registered wife
and her children will inherit and the unregistered wife and children will not.
If Muslim marriages are unregistered, and take place outside of the jurisdiction
of this country, there is no automatic recourse to justice through the British
courts. Instead, an aggrieved party must go to an unregulated sharia council for
mediation. The crossbencher Baroness (Caroline) Cox is concerned by this clash
between sharia and civil law. “There is now operating in this country a kind of
parallel quasi-legal system and that goes against the fundamental principle of
liberal democracy of one law for all.” Of polygamy, she says: “To have more than
one wife is not acceptable in the UK and people . . . must accept the laws of
the land they choose to live in.” In 2011, she introduced the Arbitration and
Mediation Services (Equality) Bill, which had its second reading in the House of
Lords last October and “would make it illegal for any person or contacts to be
established which would operate as a kind of alternative legal system. Anyone
purporting to operate in that way in a judicial capacity would actually be
committing a criminal offence that could [be punished with] a prison sentence
for this alternative legal system.” The bill will be re-tabled in the next
Parliament.
Khola Hasan of Leyton’s sharia council believes that forcing mosques to register
all nikahs, and thereby banning polygamy, will only make Muslims feel more
persecuted. “The Muslim community in Britain already feels victimised,” she
says, and it will inevitably force the practice underground, leaving women more
vulnerable. She argues that, rather than banning polygamy, which she views as a
“solution to many complex and difficult situations”, the practice should in fact
be recognised by British law.
According to the Singlemuslim.com poll, 61 per cent of Muslim men and 28 per
cent of Muslim women agree with Hasan that British law should be changed to
permit polygamy. “Britain is refusing to accept that polygamy takes place,” she
says. “It’s a reality and I think the British legal system is going to have to
open its eyes and accept that it’s a reality in Britain.
“Polygamy is not going to go away.”

BBC Watch has reported this interview of Chris Patten by the BBC’s Stephen Sackur concerning James Harding:

  Sackur: “He [Harding] said – quote – “I am pro-Israel and I haven’t found it hard because The Times has been pro-Israel for a very long time……James Harding is self-declared pro-Israel. Do you have any problem with that? Do you think that it might create problems for you and for the BBC when one considers that perhaps the most contentious issue we all in BBC news and current affairs have to deal with on a daily basis is reporting the Middle East?”

No surprise that Harding might be pro-Israel…he is Jewish.

But this is what he also said, something that Sackur didn’t reveal:

‘Harding stressed the need for balanced journalism. “We say we’re pro-Israel but we’re also pro the Palestinian state… the question a journalist should always ask himself is are you making the case before opinion is dressed up as reportage?”

 It’s a fair question to ask…well it would have been if Sackur had also mentioned the bit about being pro-Palestine as well…and hadn’t added ‘very’ to the words  ‘ The Times has been pro-Israel for a long time.’ in his question.

Sackur is married to an Iraqi, Zina Sabbagh….I wonder if that influences his reporting on the Middle East or his interviews with Israeli diplomats?

Not the first time Sackur has been concerned about the ‘Israeli Lobby’:

The Pro-Israel Lobby:
A Lobby to Reckon With

Assignment
Stephen Sackur
BBC World Service (radio)
11 May 2002

‘In this week’s Assignment, Stephen Sackur investigates America’s Pro-Israel lobby and its influence on the White House’

Sari Nusseibeh, Professor of Philosophy at Bir Zeit University, a leading Palestinian intellectual and political activist, was arrested by Israeli Border Police at his home in the West Bank village of Abu Dis on 29 January.

You have to ask though if the same concerns were raised about the suitability of Muslim Aaqil Ahmed within the BBC when he was made head of religious broadcasting…surely that too concerns one of the most contentious areas of news and current affairs that the BBC has to deal with?  Mark Thompson allegedly told Ahmed not to mention his religion…presumably to lessen any controversy…especially as Ahmed had been accused of introducing pro-Islamic programmes to Channel 4….so rather than question his suitability it seems Thompson wanted to sweep the question under the carpet.

Were the same concerns asked about Labour’s James Purnell being given a £300,000 job at the BBC?

Were the same concerns shown about the recruitment by the BBC of  Ali Hashem….who previously worked for the terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, in their own Televison station, Al Manar?

The BBC is of course concerned about possible extremists within the ranks of UKIP:

 ‘Nazi salute’ UKIP candidate claims Facebook account hacked’

Just for interest, and in relation to a previous post that mentioned Israeli historian (of European history), Shlomo Sands, here is Sackur interviewing him:

‘Zionism succeeded to create an Israeli nation’