Author Archives: Alan

“Nothing of importance will not offend somebody, somewhere.”

Is the BBC biased against the EDL?

I think it is…though arguably justifiably. The EDL does get a lot of airtime and coverage…but there is definitely not a neutral stance from the BBC when it talks about them or to them, there is always an undercurrent to every BBC report on them…the default approach is always that the EDL is extremist, violent and racist, that their anti-radical Islamist rhetoric is just an excuse to have a go at Muslims rather than to reform the ideology as they claim.

Regardless of the actions of some EDL members at demonstrations the EDL would have a problem…that problem being the fact that the vast majority are white, working class and Christian. The BBC takes one look and shudders.  Someone like Tariq Ramadan though can say the same things and get a warm welcome at the BBC…as noted later in this post.

Here is Sarah Montague talking on the Today programme about such groups:

Montague says: ‘It’s one thing to say these are extremist groups on the fringes…but it’s the extent to which they pollute the rest of the population I suppose in terms of how you deal with it is the concern and how much pollution do you think has gone on?’

What other politcal group would get spoken of in such terms?  Their ideas ‘pollute’ the rest of the population?  Can’t imagine her saying that about a religion.

Of course the EDL do themselves no favours by presenting a certain ‘face’ to the world….however that is almost inevitable given the demographic that they mainly spring from and the method of passing on their mesaage…but is that any reason to discount and ignore their beliefs?

This was John Simpson’s reaction to riots in Paris a few years ago:

‘The riots in France by the Muslim immigrants were due to Muslim’s fury and resentment, bitter grievances, ignored and demeaned, kept in poverty by a system which cares very little about them.’

There is a similar BBC reaction to the riots in Sweden….and of course to the ones the UK recently.

 It would be interesting to  see the BBC’s reaction if the EDL adopted the ‘Sinn Fein/IRA’ approach and separated the ‘direct action’ protest group from the political…and got themselves some media savvy spokesman with some gravitas and stature….perhaps even a Muslim.

The BBC were always ready to talk to Gerry Adams…going so far as to evade a government ban on broadcasting interviews with the IRA…despite his links to the murderous IRA who tortured, bombed and killed so many.

A few facts about the EDL:

The EDL has just over 30,000 members.

The EDL’s basic values are laid out in this document:

Memorandum of Understanding relating to the formation of a European network of advocates for human rights and personal freedoms, in opposition to Sharia Law and other forms of oppression.

The EDL’s avowed intention is to stop radical Islam, which they believe stems from the Koran which they view as ‘barbaric’ and out of date…they want to see the Koran reformed and brought into the modern , progressive world…controversial stuff.

How different is that to the call by highly respected, and controversial, Muslim ‘reformer’ Tariq Ramadan who says Muslim communities must take immediate steps including facing down literal interpretations of the Koran that bear no relationship to modern life?

The BBC is quite happy to chat to Ramadan and accord him the greatest respect….

Islamic extremist or the man leading reform of the faith? Professor Tariq Ramadan explains why his critics are wrong and why the London bombings mean more than ever that Western Muslims must split from the East. 

Muslim communities must take immediate steps, he says, including facing down literal interpretations of the Koran that bear no relationship to modern life.

So is Tariq Ramadan a ‘far right extremist’ then?  His views are the same as the EDL’s…expressed somewhat more diplomatically.

Dr Usama Hasan is also allowed a voice on the same subject:

‘Specific examples of literalist, fundamentalist readings that still dominate Muslim attitudes worldwide are manifested in the resistance to progress in human rights, gender-equality and democratic socio-political reforms that are too-often heard from socially-conservative Muslims.’

Is he on the ‘far Right also…is he ‘polluting’ the population?

How popular is the EDL and just how many people agree with their views?

Matthew Goodwin, a leftwing academic has made it his job to study the ‘far Right’ and the ‘Counter Jihad movement’……from his work we can see that 50% of his poll agree that there will be a ‘clash of civilisations’ between white Britons and Muslims…36% disagree.  Further more 52% of Conservatives, 33% of Labour, 18% of UKIP and 24% ‘other’, and only 5% of the BNP agree with the EDL.

So there is a large ground swell of opinion that does think the EDL have something worth saying…Goodwin himself admitting:

‘Their beliefs about the threatening nature of Islam have wider public support.’

Having said that the EDL say it came into existence precisely because the voices of those people were being ignored:

‘We’re English, we’re working class, millions of us out there, we’re not being listened to.’

The BBC followed the EDL in a film: ‘Young, British and Angry’ from which that quote came.

The film maker, Ben Anderson, concluded that they may still not be listened to…not because the message is wrong…indeed many Muslims, as shown above with Tariq Ramadan, support the reform of Islam but the violence and abuse at EDL marches turns people away:

‘I was in a Luton pub with two of the founding members of the EDL, who had been celebrating St George’s Day.

Two childhood friends of theirs arrived, brothers, and African Muslims. One was practising, the other wasn’t.

“We agree with you about Islamic extremism,” they told their EDL friends.

“We’d be side by side with you at those demos, but there are just too many idiots there, we’d end up in fights.”

This summed up perfectly the problem the EDL has – as long as you can hear and see racism and violence at its demos – as long as its main tactic remains organising what is essentially football awaydays – where hundreds, and sometimes thousands of young men get tanked up and march into town centres, looking and sounding like they want that civil war they have predicted, it’s difficult for many people to take any political point seriously.’

That is a dangerous game though from the BBC to join in…to dismiss the EDL because of their ‘football hooligan’ image only serves to further their frustration at their views not being taken seriously…once they believe that democracy  and the politicians have failed them some on the Far Right might eventually conclude that the IRA or Islamist approach is the only one that gets respect and results….everyone takes what they have to say seriously….before 9/11 no one cared a jot about ‘Muslim issues’…no one even knew what they were…now everyone listens.

As I say a dangerous game to keep denigrating, demonizing and whipping  up hate against these people because of their views…views which coming out of the mouth of a Muslim the BBC respects.

Mathew Goodwin himself admits  in a letter to the Labour Party advising it on its immigration and identity politics that faith in politics will fail if such issues are not addressed ….though he is no friend of the EDL:

‘You [Labour] will be nervous about the conversations above. But not having them may well undermine your longer-term goals. The same applies in Britain, where academics such as Lauren McLaren have shown how feelings of cultural disunity do not apply only to feelings toward other citizens: they also stretch to feelings about political elites and how the overall community is governed. Put in other words, by ignoring these concerns over immigration and identity – and in particular getting to get to grips with the cultural dimension – you risk undermining not only your own goals, but broader trust in the British political system.’

It is perhaps ironic that I use those figures from Matthew Goodwin because he is someone who is engaged in a battle against the EDL…not the Islamic radicals though…just the Far Right and the EDL.

All the more ironic when he lectures Labour on the need to listen to the ‘people’ about immigration and national identity when Goodwin seeks to push the EDL out of the debate.

In his study : The Roots of Extremism: The English Defence League and the Counter-Jihad Challenge, he makes the case for an intensive campaign against such groups:

‘Few mainstream voices in Europe are actively challenging counter-Jihad narratives, or the surrounding reservoir of anti-Muslim prejudice among the general public, but this is an essential part of any successful counter-strategy.’

 ‘The paper takes the English Defence League (EDL) as a case study to reveal the drivers of support for counter-Jihad groups, which can assist in designing effective and appropriate responses to the counter-Jihad movement.’　

So rather than believe that the EDL may have something to say Goodwin has immediately decided they must be silenced.  You have to wonder how much the BBC has bought into Goodwin’s ‘strategy’ and shapes its approach to reporting on the EDL based on ‘countering’ their movement as he suggests.

Goodwin has of course made regular appearances on the BBC promoting this approach.…on the Big Question, on Today, on various news programmes.

How much can we trust Goodwin?  Is he a disinterested bystander?

He is pro Labour as noted above…

and Pro Islam

What is it that he claims about the likes of the EDL?:

‘They are not simply anti-Muslim or overtly racist, but xenophobic and profoundly hostile towards immigration. They are more likely than others in society to expect inter-communal conflict and to believe that violence is justifiable.’

That’s taking a pretty broad brush to a whole organisation…the ‘silent majority’ of whom do not shout racist abuse or engage in violence.

Back with Montague on the Today programme we are told:

Muslims are scared…they are gripped by an endemic fear after this attack…which alienate and isolates them from society.

Not only that but:  There was a general fear of [British] society…not just of the EDL and the Far Right.

The EDL are exploiting the murder [of Lee Rigby]…aiming to be ‘at war’ with Islam…encourage low level conflict and tension in communities.

You have to ask, as the BBC doesn’t, just what is the real cause of this supposed ‘endemic fear’?

The non-Muslim’s ‘endemic fear’ of Islam is of course not considered….or just dismissed as islamophobia.

What is it that Muslims fear?  Attacks in retaliation?  Retaliation for what?  Retaliation caused by bombs and a horrifc murder by other Muslims in the name of Islam.

So in other words the problem isn’t really the Far Right…it’s Muslim extremists…who  were the ones who openly declared that they wanted to start a war and went ahead and tried to start one.

As said, no one had the slightest interest in Muslims, or Sikhs, or Mormons, or even Christians before 9/11….who changed that atmosphere of benign neglect and tolerance?

The BBC has carried out many interviews with ‘Tommy Robinson’, leader of the EDL.

The problem is of course that the EDL are mostly white, working class and haven’t been to Oxbridge…not only that but they promote a view that the BBC recoils at.  They lack credibility in the BBC’s eyes to talk about Islam and reform..whatever the actual merits of their case,  Tariq ramadan is ‘brown’ and Muslim…he wears a suit and doesn’t get involved in street demos…the BBC loves him.

Here is one of Jeremy Paxman’s interviews with Tommy Robinson which demonstrates the contemptuous disdain the patrician journalists of the BBC hold the EDL in. Here Paxman is only concerned with linking the EDL to Breivik….Paxman states that no one denies there is lots of concern [about Islam]…but he doesn’t address those concerns at all….I wonder if Tariq Ramadan’s work gets referenced in Breivik’s ‘manifesto’? 

In this other interview Paxman denies the Muslim rape gang theory  (now proven of course)and again treats Robinson with disdain.

Listen to the radio and you will always hear the EDL talked of in the same breathe as the BNP, labelled as extremist, far right and racist.

In this report the BBC side step the EDL’s reason for existence…to ‘fight’ Islamism…stemming from the ‘barbaric 7^th century Koran’…instead the BBC declares that its members join up because they are fed up with the mainstream political parties and the economy…nothing to do with Islam…..in fact it compares the EDL  and the Far Right to the Green Party bizarrely…whilst calling the EDL extremist.

An indepth study of the EDL and its members refutes this:

Widely held assumptions about their supporters – which often stress economic austerity, political protest and Islamophobia as the key drivers – are challenged by new survey data on public attitudes towards the ideas of one leading counter-Jihad group, the English Defence League.

The BBC  has a highly defensive attitude towards Islam….firstly we know that the hierarchy are concerned about violent retribution if they broadcast something Muslims might find offensive:

“Without question, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms’, is different from, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write’,” he said. “This definitely raises the stakes.”

Second, the hierarchy look on Muslims as an besieged minority….to allow criticism of Islam would stoke racism and communal conflict.…Mark Thompson refusing to broadcast a play that claimed Islam was damaging free speech…and saying other faiths had “very close identity with ethnic minorities” and as a result were covered in a more careful way by broadcasters.’

 That is why a Muslim like Tariq Ramadan is ‘allowed’ to speak in the subject of Islam, the detrimental cultural practices that result from a literal reading of the Koran and reform of it.

This is the theatrical performance that the BBC wouldn’t show: Can We Talk About This? is a verbatim theatre work investigating the interrelated issues of freedom of speech, multiculturalism and Islam as manifest in Western democracies. How does the West support progressive Muslim voices that want a modern and moderate version of Islam which offers equality to women, homosexuals and tolerance towards other  faiths? If we don’t, won’t or can’t discuss aspects of religions that are oppressive, as we do in debate over secular matters, how does a society, or community, develop?

But who defines what is offensive and on what grounds?

As one of our interviewees succinctly noted: “Nothing of importance will not offend somebody, somewhere.”

Matthew Goodwin says (in 2011) supporters of the far right are generally neither irrational nor isolated, and that a far right party without extremist baggage could be electable in Britain.

The Daily Mail reports that the ‘New Cultural Forum’ has brought out  a report on BBC bias authored by Ed West ….no link to it yet unfortunately:

The BBC gives too much weight to pro-immigration voices and ‘almost totally ignores’ the negative social impact of multiculturalism, a new study has claimed.

The corporation suffers from left wing ‘groupthink’ that prevents its journalists from challenging institutional bias and results in pro-immigration ‘propaganda’, according to the research published yesterday.

It was also accused of ‘downplaying’ violence by Islamists while being happy to criticise Christianity and report on the activities of other violent extremists.

Sounds all too familiar

David Dimbleby admits to being a member of the IRA and that he was very proud to have worn the ‘uniform’…though he insists he didn’t bomb or kneecap anyone….insisting he had nothing to be ashamed of……he never did the disgusting, disgraceful things that Gerry Adams did.

Well no, that’s obviously all untrue…and the BBC would never call Adams disgraceful and disgusting…despite him having been a member of one of the most notorious terrorist groups in the world…and now a respected politician.

The BBC naturally apologised to a, er, Sinn Fein member for labelling him SF/IRA on a name card at Question time….Sinn Fein….murder, bombings and terror have nothing to do with Sinn Fein ideology.

However Boris Johnson and the Tory ‘Toffs’…that’s a different matter…..they are ‘disgusting and disgraceful’…

David Dimbleby claims that when he was a member of the notorious Bullingdon Club  he ‘“loved” being elected to the club and was “really proud” of his uniform…insisting his cohort “never broke windows or got wildly drink”, he dismissed opinions claiming that he ought to be ashamed of his membership.‘

 He goes on to say: ‘ It was a completely different organisation from what it clearly became when Boris Johnson, David Cameron and George Osborne joined, who seem to be ashamed of it, pulling their photographs and so on. But we never did these disgusting, disgraceful things that Boris did.”

Either David is lying through is teeth or he was completely boring and I hope he got debagged regularly for being so pompous and straight laced.

Wiki tells us, as if you couldn’t have guessed, that the Bullingdon has been notorious for  a very long time…long before Dimbleby joined up….

 Infamously, on 12 May 1894 and again on 20 February 1927, after dinner, Bullingdon members smashed almost all the glass of the lights and 468 windows in Peckwater Quad of Christ Church, along with the blinds and doors of the building. As a result, the Club was banned from meeting within 15 miles of Oxford.

It might be noted that all damage is paid on the spot…possibly not always a consolation to the owner of any establishment…but how many ‘working class’ pubs that get trashed are similarly recompensed?

Part of the joys of being a student I would imagine…being old enough to go to pubs, have money to spend and the time to sober up with few responsibilities….not as if it’s just the Bullingdon Club students that get hammered….the newspapers are often filled with photos of students  in various stages of paralysis and tales of excess…they just aren’t dressed in a fancy suit….fancy dress maybe.

Gotta wonder if that colours Dimbleby’s view of the Tory ‘Toffs’ despite himself being TV ‘royalty’.

Would the BBC treat anyone else with such contempt….Labour politicians who dressed up as Nazis for instance…I’m certain none of them got up to any hi jinks at Oxford or Cambridge…which of course they all went to as well as the Tories.

I am certain,  just like David Dimbleby, they were all angels.

Just keep bashing the Tories for being rich….despite people in the media probably earning far more than any of them.

MI5 has reportedly ‘bungled’, Harry Palmer has failed.  There will be no film of this one.

MI5 is being accused of allowing the two Jihadis to carry on their lives despite the security services having a good idea about their inclination towards extremism.

That maybe…it will come out in due course.

But what else might come out of any inquiry?

What about the role of the Media, the BBC in particular, in harassing the security services, the police, the military, the courts and politicians whenever they make a move to question, contain, lock up or deport such people.

Do the security services hold back from taking action because of fears of the Media firestorm that will engulf them, as well as the well practised Muslim ‘grievance’ industry,  especially on occasions when it turns out that although they had some indications that looked suspicious and worth checking they turned out to have innocent explanations.

The BBC hasn’t just reported on various cases of extremist Muslims it has interfered in the process of dealing with them…the BBC has frequently ‘campaigned’ by deliberately highlighting these cases and giving them so much airtime to get prisoners released or to limit detention  or control orders, against extending the time limit for holding suspected terrorists without charge and to present the case against Guantanamo Bay.

Lawyers and civil rights spokesmen  such as Clive Stafford Smith have been given massive amounts of airtime and got away without serious challenge to their assertions of abuse or illegal actions by governments.

Moazzam Begg’s father must have had his own car parking space at the BBC the number of times he was on air….and all to get released a man who admitted training to be a terrorist.

Whilst in the training camp in Afghanistan Begg said he “… met men who seemed to me exemplary in their faith and self-sacrifice, and seen a world that awed and inspired me.”

Guantánamo files leaked in 2011 reveal that the Department of Defense had secretly concluded that Begg was a “confirmed member of al-Qaida,” and that he had been an instructor at the Derunta training camp, as well as having attended the al-Badr and Harakat aI-Ansar training camps.

Note that Begg and convicted terrorist Dhiren Barot were both radicalised long before 2001 or the Iraq War in 2003….as was Mohammed Sidique Khan of the 7/7 plot.

What do I mean by ‘radicalised?  Well he saw that the Taliban were fine examples of an Islamic theocracy:

‘Begg wrote in his autobiography that in 2001, the Taliban had made “some modest progress—in social justice and upholding pure, old Islamic values forgotten in many Islamic countries….As The New York Times put it: “Despite the Taliban’s status as an international pariah for its treatment of women and its hospitality toward al-Qaeda, Begg saw it as a fine, inexpensive place to raise a family.”

Begg recalls telling two U.S. agents who visited him in his Guantanamo Bay cell that:

‘I wanted to live in an Islamic state–one that was free from the corruption and despotism of the rest of the Muslim world…. I knew you wouldn’t understand. The Taliban were better than anything Afghanistan has had in the past 25 years.’

So his radicalisation was in fact to adopt a ‘pure’ form of Islam.

Unfortunately, however much  some people may want to, you cannot separate Islam from the subsequent Jihadi actions.

At the end of the day the security services are under enormous pressure…firstly to stop attacks, and secondly not to make wrongful arrests…being then blamed for discrimination and the targeting of Muslims, leading to a mentality of victimhood and grievance…and then …er…radicalisation….and all to be done with limited resources.

The blame is often highly politicised of course, the media targeting certain people.

This is from the Telegraph where an unnamed source is briefing against Cameron:

One senior Westminster source suggested the visit was a mistake. He said: “I just wonder what he was going to thank them for. While they [the Security Services] did tremendously well during the Olympics 10 months ago a number of pieces of information have come to light since then. The interesting question is how much David Cameron knew about the potential intelligence failings when he went to see them.”

 The BBC’s Jim Muir in Lebanon provided us with what I thought was an uncomfortably pro-Hezbollah report this morning on the Today programme (8:32)…perhaps he had some of those Hezbollah ‘minders’ ‘editing’ his report.

Justin Webb told us that the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, gave a speech which ‘horrified’ Syria watchers.

Muir didn’t seem too concerned…in fact he seemed quite upbeat about it.

Firstly he told us that people have rather overlooked the involvement of Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict.

Could that be because the BBC has been rather remiss in reporting that involvement as I have noted before.…Hezbollah were already well known to be heavily involved in fighting in Damascus on Assad’s behalf.

If you look at this report from the beginning of May by Paul Danahar, linked to on this morning’s Today ‘Live Page’,  there is one thing missing..no mention of Hezbollah…he mentions the ‘rebel’ side’s allies…Jihadists and criminals…oh and denounces Saudi Arabia’s involvement as ‘selfish’….but no Hezbollah nor any such link to Iran or comment about Iran’s motives…merely noting Iran is providing arms to Assad….nothing about Iran wanting to wipe out Israel?

‘The situation has been further complicated by the introduction into the arena of al-Qaeda-linked jihadists and armed criminal gangs.  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.  Saudi Arabia and Qatar are meddling in Syria for thoroughly selfish reasons. Freedom, democracy and human rights have absolutely nothing to do with why they are arming the rebels.

President Assad’s Alawite community is a splinter from the Shia faith – its closest allies are in Shia Iran.  Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia hates Shia Iran, so it is using the war in Syria to try and weaken it.’

Fairly strong attack on the Saudis…why not for Iran as well?

Muir in his report, tells us that there is a creeping involvement of Hezbollah….well they’ve been there a long time.  He tells us they were there to protect the border villages initially…but they are fighting, and have been for a long time, in Damascus and other strategic towns.

We then get to Nasrallah’s speech which the BBC kindly offer large portions of to us….

What did it say?

Basically that Israel and America are behind the attacks on Syria and the ‘Resistance’ will be encircled if Syria falls…Palestine will be lost and the people and states of the region will face a bad and harsh oppressive future…[ with Israel and the Americans in charge].

Justin Webb comes in and says the danger is that Hezbollah’s enemies will get back at them not in Syria but in Lebanon.

So just who exactly are Hezbollah’s ‘enemies’?  Does he mean those  nasty, aggressive Israelis?

He might have done.  Muir assures us that Nasrallah has done everything he possibly can to head off the possibility of regional war and that he has demanded that the fighting has to stop…Hezbollah won’t allow sectarian fighting to spread elsewhere.

Nice to know we have the peace loving (Islamic so must be ) Hezbollah reining in the war mongering Israelis and Americans.

Nasrallah, we are told, has promised victory…as he delivered over the Israelis in 2006 Muir says.

No gloating from Muir there at all, I’m certain.

Muir introduces Nasrallah’s next clip by saying  ‘Let’s listen to those stirring words from him’

Stirring words?

From the leader of what is a terrorist organisation?

This report from  the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus gives a much better, not hard to do, perspective on the involvement of Iran and its motivations.

A little bit slack from Muir that he doesn’t mention Iran and its involvement with Hezbollah and their intentions towards Israel…giving the sense that Hezbollah are the ‘peacemakers’ in the region…the Today programme is supposedly the prestige, renowned jewel in the BBC’s news output…but so often it provides half the story…and as in this case seemingly half the story from one side of that story…giving the impression of bias…unintended I’m sure.

BBC Watch has a look at one of Muir’s reports from a few days ago on the same subject which does detail Iran’s involvement…so why not on the Today programme which has such a large and influential audience?.

The BBC raised the issue that it may be converts to Islam who are the real problem when it comes to extreme Muslims, clearly not the  ‘born Muslims’, and therefore nothing inherent in the religion of Islam as such…radicalism is merely the ‘zeal’ of the new convert.

Yes, you don’t see many  ‘born Muslim’ zealots do you?

Evan Davis asks which comes first for converts…

…are they deranged before they are radicalised..or do they become deranged after radicalisation?

That’s a neat trick isn’t it?…which ever way you look at it extremists or radicals are ‘deranged’….putting another layer of separation between any causation and Islamic ideology…along with the ‘zeal’ of the convert and the ‘perverting’ of Islamic teachings.

There is no connection to Islam.

This, from the Guardian was an interesting comment…about the ‘fundamentalists’…

‘Converts to Islam often talk about grappling with trying to distinguish between authentic Islamic teachings and Muslim cultural practices. Most converts are determined to follow the teachings of Muhammad, but would rather leave South Asian culture for South Asian people. The ideology of extremist groups is based on a literalist interpretation of Islamic sources which they claim is pure and uncontaminated, or in other words, free from cultural bias. This is of course highly contestable but for some converts, the promise of an Islam that resembles its earliest form can be especially appealing.’

That raises the awkward and unwanted question..what is the True Islam?  That is the question that the fundamentalists, the radicals, the extremists say they are answering and the answer is a pure version of Islam, the original Islam…the real Islam…it is  of course a version well funded by Saudi Arabia…the birthplace and theocratic heartland of Islam.

A rather ‘fundamental’ question.  If  their version is the real version what does that tell us about Islam? What does that mean for any country that has a growing Muslim population?…and the number of Muslims have doubled since 2002 in the UK.

 It is the question that the BBC avoids like the plague….but it is kind of central to the debate on extremism and indeed on how Islam and Islamic communities might look inside Britain and what might be the effects of  ‘mini Paskistans’ springing up inside British borders….the BBC already pandering to such a notion with its ‘Asian network’.

If you are a ‘native Brit’ of any colour, but a non-Muslim, that might be a question of great interest to you…especially if you live in one of these areas that suddenly become ‘Islamised’…whose laws do you obey?  What cultural practices can you follow…can you still drink, play music, dress as you like, be gay?  Will you decide to move out as 600,000 whites have done from London?

Huge, important questions that the BBC ignores.  And to be fair, the government ignores.

Saturday’s Today programme (8:53) brought on a convert, Abdul Haq Baker, who told us what Islam meant to him and how it inspired him.

He said that when he embraced Islam the ‘Authority’ he acknowledged, that is God’s Authority, transcended everything he rebelled against, he was submitting himself to Allah, the law giver, the law maker.

Islam provided him with a complete structure, a complete way of life that removed any fear of authority, police, government, the intelligence services…you name it…because they were created by man and were so by limited…he was submitting himself to the infinite.

He stated that this ideological and psychological shift was very, very empowering.

It is curious that the BBC et al do not believe, or admit that such issues can be part of normal Islamic observance….the essence of Islam being the ‘Sovereignty of Allah’ over man made laws.

The trouble is that that ’empowerment’ and distance from man made laws, the submission to the total sovereignty of Allah isn’t confined to converts. That is the basis of Islam….Islam meaning Submission…to Allah.

Something that Cameron, Pickles and the BBC need to recognise. 

Where do loyalties lie?  To Islam first or to Britain…to a Britain that is a secular, democratic nation which is governed by a Parliament making laws responding to modern day issues rather than by some dusty, ancient desert text from 1400 years ago…as Keynes might have said:  ‘Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.’?

It is the most important question as Muslims push for Sharia courts and more and more Islamic concessions whilst Muslim majority areas like Tower Hamlets become ‘Islamised’.

Going back to that Guardian article…how does the writer round it off?:

‘No matter how uncomfortable it may be, we have to recognise that our foreign policy is highly problematic. It is the west’s use of violence in Muslim countries – which often causes great harm to civilians – that ultimately provides the fuel that allows extremist groups to recruit both converts and lifelong Muslims.’

Once again the Leftist Media support, acknowledge and give credibility to the terrorists.

Rather than question and challenge the assertions by ‘extremists’ that foreign policy is a ‘war on Islam’ they allow the claim to go uncontested…not just uncontested but as here almost endorsing it in essence…‘Western violence causing great harm to civilians’. …what that message sends out is that the terrorist’s methods may be wrong but their heart is in the right place….that is an incredibly dangerous message, one that itself can only lead to more radicalisation.

This has long been a problem at the BBC…Victoria Derbyshire is especially prone to ‘nodding along’ when callers come on and rant their piece about foreign policy…the BBC itself is of course of the same frame of mind….year on year making claims about the war that can only be inflammatory and which feed into the extremist’s own narrative giving them credibility.

Once again I suggest that if the BBC sticks to reporting news it fulfills its obligations but when it starts to campaign on issues then it has taken sides and should be held responsible and  accountable for the consequences that follow when its broadcasts influence events.

Of course polls reassure us:

British Muslims feel a greater sense of national pride than the average UK citizen, according to the results of a new poll.

While 79 per cent of the Britons quizzed said they agreed with the statement ‘I am proud to be a British citizen’, the figure rose to 83 per cent among Muslims.

That’s a rather neat summing up of the BBC attitude according to Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times.  Something backed up, at least the part about women, by the former Today programme editor Jenny Abramsky who  says that the BBC has a ‘huge responsibility’ to employ more women.

 Liddle says:

‘This is an open letter to a man called James.  This particular James is white, middle-aged and public school and Oxbridge educated, and he’s running the important bits of the BBC.

All the top people of the BBC are called James and are white and public school and Oxbridge eductaed, except for the Director General, who is white and public school and Oxbridge educated and called Tony.

That’s the BBC:  No blacks, no dogs, no Irish.  No women, either, or very few, nor indeed anyone called “Keith”.

Anyway, it is perhaps because they are called James and middle class that they seem terrified of telling the news as it is.  If there were a few more people called Tariq or Keith or Harbinger, then there might be a little less tiptoeing on eggshells, less of this absolute terror of giving offence to the people the Jameses definitely are not.

In Sweden there are riots…almost all the people doing the rioting were, to adapt Nick Robinson’s phrase, people of non-Swedish orign.  These were…are..race riots.

It was not the ordinary Swedes rising up against the oppressive Swedish state; it was immigrants.  Come on James – why not tell us the truth?’

Another open thread to kick the week off…the sun is shining, the day is beautiful and the future’s bright….but there is absolutely no connection to Islam I should make clear.

‘Right Thinking Muslims’   What are they?  Who are they?  What do they think?

I don’t know,  but Nicky Campbell and all those BBC presenters who  use the phrase obviously do…perhaps it is similar to the ‘Right Thinking Tory’ who has dumped all his principles in favour of a ‘Good Press’ from the BBC.

I seem to know what a ‘Right Thinking Muslim’ isn’t….he isn’t someone who adheres to the teachings of the Qu’ran.

How do I know that?  I have been lectured for two days by the BBC, by politicians and by Muslim commentators and by the naive ….who all told me that the views expressed by the killers did not have any basis in Islam.

In 2006 John Humphrys admitted that:

‘The vast majority of terrorist attacks have been carried out by Muslims in the name of Islam.’

He went on to say that one in four Muslims in Britain, according to an NOP poll,  said the 7/7  attacks were justified by Britain’s support for the War in Iraq.

How times, and opinions change.

Cameron said this:

‘This was not just an attack on Britain and the British way of life, it was a betrayal of Islam and the Muslim communities. There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act.’

The Qu’ran commands:

‘Fight for the sake of God those who fight against you, but do not attack them first.  God does not love aggressors.

Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the place from which they drove you.

Fight against them until idolatory is no more and God’s religion rules supreme.

Fighting is obligatory for you much though you dislike it.’

The Qu’ran demands that Muslims fight in defence of Islam and Islamic lands.

It is unequivocal, unmistakeable, immutable.

If non-Muslim armies are fighting in Muslim lands, killing Muslims, then Muslims not only are entitled to take up arms but are obliged to do so.

If David Cameron respects Islam then he must respect the Qu’ran and its revelations, all of them….it would be a charade to say he respects Islam but declare that the beliefs and values expressed in the Qu’ran are in some way a ‘perversion’….which is what he has in fact done.

However confidence in that line of thinking seems low as The Great and The Good want to keep the terrorists ideas and ideology out of sight and out of mind…..perhaps they  think it is in fact all too believable, all too attractive to impressionable young minds set on adventure and excitement all tied in with the romance of  Jihad, serving God as well as their ‘People’, battling the Corrupt Tyrants?

Baroness Warsi has expressed outrage that the Media have given airtime to extremists.

‘Baroness Warsi said: “We all have a responsibility, including the media, not to give airtime to extremist voices – idiots and nutters who speak for no one but themselves.’

Is that true?  Is it not better to have these ‘nutters and idiots’ on air, in a controled environment being questioned about their beliefs, being made to outline, explain and justify their claims….with the intention of disproving them and taking away any credibility they might have.

Is Warsi afraid that their claims might just be ‘right’ in an Islamic sense?

In 2006 John Humphrys had a famous encounter with Trevor Brooks, renamed Abu Izzadeen, but I’ll call him Trevor as Cameron, Pickles and Warsi have determined he isn’t a ‘proper Muslim’…or should that be a ‘Right Thinking Muslim’?

The BBC agonised over whether to allow him on air….Smelling The Coffee.…‘there was an editorial judgement to be made both about whether he should appear in the first place, and if so where in the programme….There is a powerful argument to be made that presenting the most extreme voices on air actually damages the process of integrating the Muslim community into the fight against terrorism. The BBC has a duty to balance voices, and to present a representative range of views from within communities.’

Trevor is a very persuasive and powerful speaker who doesn’t back down…he expressed views clearly and logically and outlined his beliefs and how they were defined by Islam.

John Humphrys struggled because he didn’t know enough about Islam, he didn’t know that Trevor was so confident because he was right…he was that ‘Right Thinking Muslim’….in an Islamic sense…though not perhaps in a Christian politician’s sense, the prism through which Cameron views Trevor and his ilk.

Ironically,  John Humphrys in the end resorted to shouting a metaphorical ‘Why don’t you go back home’ to young Trevor who had reduced him to an inarticulate, angry but well dressed and well paid putative EDL member.

As the Telegraph said:  ‘ It is difficult to deal with someone when there is no common ground on the basic principles of justice – as John Humphrys discovered.’

Passing the ammunition

Humphrys was hung by his own petard  and his own anti-war feelings…and of course Andrew Gilligan’s desire for a scoop.  Their claims about the creation of the Iraq War Dossier leant ample justification to any Muslim that wanted it to claim this war was illegal, immoral and was clearly against Muslims…therefore he would be justified in defending those Muslims attacked by ‘The West’.

Politicians have never of course been entirely trusted, along with journalists, but Andrew Gilligan in ‘The Reunion…The Hutton Inquiry’, boasted that the result of his work was that the relationship, the trust, between politicians and the Public had been destroyed…and, rather pleased with himself and his interview, he said that he had played his part in that.

Yes, he did…his false reports meant that the whole tone of the war and subsequent counter insurgency was set against a backdrop of distrust and disillusion from the public which restrained the politicians and the Army from putting in the necessary resources to carry on the fight effectively with minimal casualties and in the fastest possible time.

The second effect was to spur on the Jihadis, to justify their beliefs, endorsing their claims…the ripples from that interview still resonate today as we have just seen on the streets of Woolwich.

You could say this is chickens coming home to roost….the BBC et al have been attacking the ‘War on terror’ since it’s inception and have denounced it as illegal, Iraq being justified by a ‘Dodgy Dossier’ sexed up by war mongering politicians….they have given every justification for Muslims to believe that the war is wrong, illegal and immoral…a war against Islam…and that they should do something about that.

The BBC et al have attacked the West for its involvement in the Middle East, its support for the Dictators, its creation of Israel, Guantanamo Bay, rendition, arresting too many Muslim ‘suspects’.

The BBC et al have long supported the ‘Muslim grievance industry’ repeatedly supporting clams of discrimination, poverty, Islamophobia and mistreatment.

The BBC et al have fed the beast that is now going to consume them.  Us.

The BBC et al have passed them the ammuniton and now some Muslims are out to praise the Lord.

 But no one wants to admit that, no one wants to take responsibility for having to act.

Sit tight and wait it out

Why does Cameron and Co make such claims about Islam?  They have a cunning plan…sit tight and hope it all blows over.

‘Government is likely to discover that the principles of the criminal law and the requirements of national security run straight into each other. If so, it will not be the first time that ministers have been reminded that the criminal law is not designed to deal with terrorists who want to replace democracy with Sharia law.’

They had three choices…surrender to the demands and change foreign policy…they obviously can’t do that.

or…to admit these acts , if not the method, are done in the name of Islam,  are truly sanctioned by the Qu’ran….but then what?  How do they deal with that..tear down the Mosques, burn  every Qu’ran, deport every Muslim?  Not going to happen.

or…the last…and only…choice…do nothing.  Accept the hits, accept that they are going to get terrorist strikes and mass civilian deaths perhaps but carry on regardless whilst turning a blind eye to the causes in the belief that any cure might be worse than the illness.

The BBC’s own rules

It is unfortunate for them that the BBC hasn’t read the script…it is still feeding into the narrative that ‘foreign policy’ must be changed before peace reigns once more…and thereby underpinning the jihadist recruiter’s efforts.

Only yesterday we had supposedly moderate Muslims, one after the other, filling the airwaves with their assurances that this wasn’t in the name of Islam…but they then say…what drives radicalisation is foreign policy….er….in Muslim lands, which upsets Muslims here..because the Qu’ran demands they protect the, em,  Ummah against attack. 

If the BBC are going to bury the truth about Islam, along with the government, then they need to do all they can to combat the narrative about foreign policy, they cannot allow that to continue to catch hold  of the imaginations of a whole new batch of devout recruits for the Jihad..