“You can either wage Jihad by the tongue and by the mouth – that is ideological jihad – or by the hand and the sword. Those are the official categories of jihad…..And jihad by the hand and the sword can be done here in France [& the UK] with cars and knives.” BBC
It is remarkable how politicians and the BBC launch outraged attacks on Google, Facebook and now WhatsApp, for apparently giving terrorists a place to hide…Politicians should perhaps be looking closer to home, such as towards Broadcasting House, for those who promote the terrorist and/or the ‘non-violent’ extremists’ narrative, the BBC of course is happy to divert attention from its own activites and pose as the champion of democracy and free speech whilst steadily undermining them.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd resolutely announces that ‘Social media firms must join the war on terror’ and yet she ignores the very real danger that is presented by one of the world’s most powerful and influential broadcasting organisations that is spreading extremist propaganda.
She ignores the fact that there is a war being fought, and it’s not just with guns, bullets and bombs. The Media, far from being prejudiced against Muslims, is the weapon of choice for those who seek to make Islam the dominant religioous and political force in Britain, and the BBC is at the forefront of the charge. And, this is the important thing to note, those who are ‘fighting’ this media war are not the obvious ‘radicals’ like Anjem Choudray, they come dressed in western suits and talk of reform and tolerance but always blame Muslim ‘anger’ on British society, on that phantom menace ‘Islamophobia’. Of course what is even more frightening is that these men, and women, have not just managed to position themselves as authorities on questions of Islam, its place in Western Society and ‘radicalisation’, as Media spokesmen of choice but have also inveigled their way into the heart of Government advising it on matters of religion and radicalisation.
It is the people with ideas, the talkers, the glib snake-oil salesmen, and saleswomen, who are so dangerous, it is they who feed the anger and inspire those who would take up arms…and yet the BBC gives a platform to an endless parade of these Muslim propagandists who encourage Muslims to desire to live ‘as Muslims’ and separate themselves from the societies they are in. Anjem Choudary, a constant voice on the BBC, is a case in point and yet once he was jailed the BBC told us…
‘It wasn’t a game. The evidence now shows that Anjem Choudary is one of the most dangerous men in Britain. Not a bomb-maker. Not a facilitator. But an ideologue, a thinker, who encouraged others not to stop and think for themselves before they turned to violence to implement their shared worldview.’
Plenty of other examples, such as Cage, the MCB, MPACUK and various ‘independent’ voices such as Tariq Ramadan, all allowed unchallenged airtime on the BBC to peddle their ideas, their ideology.
Baroness Warsi is also a constant voice on the BBC pushing the Muslim narrative, she was on Marr on Sunday and on Start the Week today….
On Start the Week Amol Rajan talks to Sayeeda Warsi about how far Britain’s Muslim community is viewed as ‘the enemy within’.
Let’s remember just why she is a controversial and hardly ‘moderate’ voice…..
From HurryupHarry....
Baroness Warsi is alleged by multiple sources in and out of government to have consistently resisted calls to develop a proper strategy on integration and tackling extremism at its roots, even though this is the Prime Minister’s policy and part of her job at the Communities and Local Government department. One source says: ‘Sayeeda made clear when she got the job at CLG that she didn’t agree with the Prime Minister and that she simply wasn’t going to do this bit of her job.’
Douglas Murray in the Spectator on those who try to undermine the Prevent programme, as Warsi does….
It is striking that in the past the people who have sought most publicly for the policy to be scrapped are those who quite simply do not want Britain to have a counter-radicalisation strategy because they themselves favour the radicals or are radicals themselves.
Warsi also argued that extremist groups such as Cage should be looked upon as representative voices of the Muslim community [which some might agree with ironically]….until it suited her to attack the BBC for giving them a platform….
Anjem who?
The Islamist Baroness Warsi was also shown up for the hypocrite and opportunist she really is. She is a long term adversary of the anti-terrorist Prevent programme and not long ago was agitating for the government to engage with Msulim groups that were considered ‘beyond the pale’…presumably those such as Cage, MPACUK and the MCB. She suggested that by not engaging with such groups the government was disengaged with the Muslim community….she was saying that these groups represent the Muslim community then?
Irony of ironies Warsi then attacked the BBC for giving Choudary airtime….
Criticising the BBC, Baroness Warsi, the former minister for faith and communities, said extremists should not be given platforms to express their damaging views.
Pity the BBC gives her so much airtime to peddle her own Islamist propaganda.
This is the same Warsi who wanted Israel to be disarmed and left defenceless whilst also demanding the terrorists of Hamas be given weapons. The same Warsi who enjoyed the company of many a devout Muslim in the Muslim university society FOSIS, well known for being the breeding ground of extremists. The same Warsi who made it her job to do whatever it took to undermine the anti-terrorist Prevent programme. The same Warsi who argued for the inclusion of extremist organisations in the national debate about what should be called ‘extremist’ or ‘radical’ and what should be acceptable..arguing it is the refusal to accept the radicals’ agenda as ‘normal’ that makes them radical.
Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph wrote this article denouncing her and the government’s foolish policies, Islamic ‘radicals’ at the heart of Whitehall, and in which he noted that ‘Baroness Warsi gave official roles to people with links to Islamist groups’. She was also an outspoken critic of the anti-radicalisation ‘Prevent’ project and supporter of the Islamist student organisation Fosis.
Gilligan says..
Entryism, the favourite tactic of the 1980s’ Militant Tendency, is when a political party or institution is infiltrated by groups with a radically different agenda. Since Militant’s Trotskyites were expelled from the Labour Party, the word has rather fallen out of fashion. But now, according to one Muslim leader, Islamic radicals are practising entryism of their own — into the heart of Whitehall – courtesy of a woman who was until recently a government minister.
For instance the infamous Islamist Tariq Ramadan sits on the Foreign Office Advisory Group on freedom of religion or belief which is intended to ‘advise FCO Ministers and staff on how to build on the active approach they already take to promoting and protecting the right to freedom of religion or belief worldwide.’ and was run by Warsi.
Warsi is still at it attempting to muddy the waters and spread the blame…Dog-whistle, nasty, toxic politics based on race and religion?
So I think pretty clear where Warsi’s loyalties really lie and what her intentions are as she tours the TV studios and Media outlets.
She is of course given a warm welcome by the BBC…here [H/T Sue at Is the BBC biased? [hell yeah]] we can see how Marr fawns over her….
Andrew Marr’s introduction this morning:
Good morning A simple hire car. A knife – and they’re not hard to buy. And a deranged man who fits no easy pattern. Isn’t the truth that sometimes it is completely impossible to stop acts of terrorism, and we need to learn to live with that unhappy fact?
Sayeeda Warsi was on The Andrew Marr Show this morning arguing that the Westminster attack had nothing to do with Islam. People from all religions can carry out violent acts, she said, and Masood “was a violent Christian long before he was a violent Muslim”. She also condemned the government’s “obsessive focus” on “Islamic ideology” – a term she regards as “not factually correct” – and wants to see the present Prevent strategy replaced by a new strategy which will better engage with Muslims.
Now, you may have thought that her contribution was the usual, predictable guff from the baroness but Andrew Marr ended the interview by gushing:
‘A moment of calm and clever reflection. Sayeeda Warsi, for now, thank you very much indeed for talking to us.’
He’d already described her new book as “eloquent”.
Her appearance on Start The Week was yet more pro-Muslim propaganda that suggested Muslims were the victims of prejudice and anti-Muslim hate. She tells us ‘Islamophobia’ is the last bigotry blindspot in the UK and that it is socially acceptable, it passes the ‘dinner table test’ apparently. Of course it’s not prejudice but fact-based opinion that Islam is dangerous, unpleasant and backward….as David Goodhart says…unlikely that knowledge of Islam makes you want to like it…
Some claim that if people understood Islam more everything would be fine, they would be more tolerant, I think quite the contrary….the more they understand about it the more alien they would find it…authoritarian, collectivist, patriarchal, misogynist…..all sorts of things that Britain might have been 100 years ago but isn’t now.
And isn’t it more true to say that Muslim extremism has passed the ‘dinner table test’, the Muslim dinner table that is? Isn’t it true that the ‘extremists’ ‘ narrative is one that is held by the majority of the Muslim community, the anger at Israel and British foreign policy? They may not openly condone violence but they certainly exploit it, and use the threat of further community ‘anger’, to force politicians and the media to favour Muslims…..‘One lesson well understood in both Stalin’s Russia and Nazi Germany was that propaganda is most effective when it is backed by terror’
And is Warsi’s contention that the ‘extremists’ are a fringe group, a ‘ring of criminals’, who don’t represent Muslims or Islam true? That was a lie said about the Germans who backed Hitler so ardently….as stated by the the Guardian’s own Madeleine Bunting…..
‘He [the Pope at the time] acknowledged he was a “son of the German people” … “but not guilty on that account”; he then launched into a highly controversial claim that a “ring of criminals” were responsible for nazism and that the German people were as much their victims as anyone else. This is an argument that has long been discredited in Germany as utterly inadequate in explaining how millions supported the Nazis.’
Here is the Guardian again telling us how prevalent the ideology is within the Muslim community and puts the blame on ‘us’…
The entire emphasis on countering narratives and extremism eclipses the myriad reasons why so many Muslims are deeply critical of the government. The problem is defined solely in terms of “extremist narratives” and prevents critical reflection on what “we” might be doing and the political context. Anger over western foreign policy and recent wars, plus the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict, are major sources of discontent and dissent, and not only among British Muslims. Here, those involved in government strategy must consider whether they have sufficiently come to terms with the political context, and its role in creating the extremism and radicalisation now being targeted by the government.
And what of Warsi’s claim that Muslims are happily integrating……Trevor Phillips thinks not [No surprise that the BBC’s new MCB favourite spokesman, Miqdaad Versi, argues against him in the Guardian]…..
What it reveals is the unacknowledged creation of a nation within a nation, with its own geography, its own values and its own very separate future….Britain is nurturing communities with a complete set of alternate values.
Some of my journalist friends imagine that, with time, the Muslims will grow out of it. They won’t….they really don’t want to adopt much of our decadent way of life.
Many of our elite political and media classes simply refuse to acknowledge the truth
Integrating Muslims will probably be the hardest task of all. It will mean abandoning the milk-and-water multiculturalism still so beloved of many, and adopting a far more muscular approach to integration….deciding how to confront their thinking where it collides with our fundamental values.
Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.
Just remind me again why the BBC gives so much time to Warsi but attacks Google et al for giving a platform to extremists?
Even some at the BBC itself have doubts about its own peddling of extremist propaganda…but it’s not just videos as he worries about…it’s those supposed voices of ‘moderation’ such as Warsi who are the real problem…
Are we helping ISIS by running its videos on the news?
Social media enable them to fight psychological warfare. The horrifying images of masked men, a faceless enemy, have helped these groups to intimidate the public.
Downloading social media content, mainstream news organisations have used pictures of mass executions, aimed at showing the barbaric actions such militant groups. But the use of these pictures to show how heartless and cruel the group is, in fact serves the interests of ISIS and similar organisations. Winning the hearts and minds of the public is hardly the aim of the extremists. Rather they want the media to show how a group of ‘devoted’ religious men has abandoned life’s luxuries to fight a ‘holy war’.
For this reason we need to reconsider how to deal with such images. I think the time has come to discuss new editorial guidelines on how to deal with organisations like ISIS and its clones.
