Barnett or Barnum?

If arrests are being made every day, if plots, radicalisation and attempts to head off to Syria are prevented every day, if bombs went off during Labour’s time in office…how is it ‘Prevent’ has failed and recent police cuts are to blame for the Manchester bomb?  How can a man who fought Gaddafi, his family given sanctuary in Britain, a Britain that helped get rid of Gaddafi, turn on Britain because, he says, it doesn’t help Muslims?

I have said before that 5 Live’s Emma Barnett could provide this site with enough material on her own to keep it going for years without any other references to BBC bias elsewhere.  Is it bias though or just ignorance combined with a overhelming sense of self-confidence and belief in her own opinion?…a dangerous mixture.  Rather than be allowed to cover serious news issues such as terrorism perhaps she should stick to the type of thing she has done recently such as a piece on a ‘Vagina Museum’…yep…you read that right.  Then again she herself could be an exhibit…after all a talking vagina must be quite a rarity.  I’d pay to see it.

On Wednesday she went all out for an attack on the Prevent programme which apparently is failing and toxic to all decent Muslims.  Barnett wanted to know how we deal with terrorism, how we, er, prevent it and radicalisation.

Of course knowing what the problem is in the first place would help.  Barnett and Co know what that is.

It’s definitely not anything religious…it is instead a Society problem…Muslims have no hope, no future, discriminated against and marginalised….Abedi was a ‘a typical disaffected youth who was very unhappy’.  It is not one community’s fault or responsibility..it’s a British problem.  There is no one thing that makes someone a [er…Muslim] terrorist…there are many ‘pull factors’ such as a lust for adventure and a solution for your personal problems.

The solution is not Prevent, which has failed…we must engage the community, the messenger must be accepted and credible in the community…the youth must be empowered to…er…challenge authority…they must not feel excluded.

We need a better understanding of their motivation.

As you can see a complete waste of time and a refusal to discuss the real problem, the real motivation behind the radicalisation, the one ‘pull factor’ that excites and unites these radicals and terrorists….Islam.  They all identify as ‘Muslim’ and Abedi came from a religious family that was already itself radicalised, and he himself became more religious and came to believe Muslims were under attack by the West and he wanted revenge.  Right there you have the motivation and the mindset that makes a person vulnerable to radicalisation….Islam commands Muslims to defend other Muslims…therefore if they are told Muslims are under attack many will answer the call to arms…Jihad.  And who has been spreading the narrative that Muslims are under attack?  Muslim radicals of course but also the likes of the BBC which has fed Muslims the lie that ever since the Crusades Muslims have been the victims of Christian and Western violence and oppression….all their problems flow out of the West.

The BBC must take the blame for much of the radicalisation of so many muslims, especially British ones.

Thursday we had a different approach.  Perhaps the BBC had a few calls complaining about the one-sided, anti-Prevent narrative being spun by the BBC the day before [a narrative the BBC has kept up for a long time now].  This time we had on some supporters of Prevent, one the brother-in-law of 7/7 bomber Muhammed Sidiq Khan, Ahmed Patel [see above video], and counter radicalisation worker, Sara Khan.  Naturally they didn’t get as sympathetic and uncritical a platform as those who branded Prevent ‘Toxic’ did.

Patel gave an excoriating run down of what is both the extremist and the BBC’s narrative about Muslim victimhood, foreign policy and the Prevent programme.  He supported prevent and thought it was working and that he was fed up with the ‘anti-Prevent brigade’, by which he meant the Muslim extremist groups, such as Cage, who were driving the false and dangerous narrative that Prevent was toxic, was targeting Muslims and set Muslims against each other as they were supposed to spy on each other.  Interestingly he said that the ‘backlash’ against Muslims was legitimate…if there is a trend of attacks by Muslims on non-Muslims he suggested you could not blame British people for reacting against Muslims when they see these attacks on themselves. [Of course there has hardly been any serious anti-Muslim ‘backlash’…British people have been remarkably tolerant and peaceful under the most outrageous provocation]

He went on to say Muslims have a victim mentality and have bought into the false narrative about being under attack, a war on Islam and attacks on ‘Muslim lands’.  Such narratives are creating a them and us mentality that shuts communities off from each other.

He also said that ‘islamophobia’ was not a word he liked…it was used to shut down debate and silence critics of Islamic terror.

Sara Khan then came on [11:39:40] and told of the death threats and threats of rape she receives from Muslims as she works on Prevent…..they want to shut down debate and shut down Prevent.  Barnett interrupted to say that critics she had on her programme were not extremists [they were] and that Prevent isolates Muslims and is toxic….something has gone wrong she tells us.

Khan slapped her down saying that was lazy rhetoric and made a good case for Prevent and its success.

Barnett then dragged in another one of her ‘not radical’ anti-Prevent voices [11:50]…a Muslim academic specialising in terrorism and all that….Even Barnett came to realise as he spoke that he was ‘radical’ and yet she still said his narrative about British foreign policy was ‘fair enough’.

End of the day, despite all that, Barnett still came out with the claims that Prevent was failing, that something was wrong and that it alienated Muslims.  Perhaps she should take some time out and listen to her own show and learn.