Mo Or Less

 

The most popular boys name in England and Wales is….Oliver with 6,649 lucky lads so named, whilst Muhammed just squeaks into the top 100 with 7,240 lucky lads with various spelllings of said name as the BBC tells us.

The BBC gawd bless ’em, still hiding uncomfortable truths as they see it….

What’s in a name?

Born in 2014

6,649  Olivers – most popular boys name

5,327 Amelias – most popular girls name

  • “Mohammed” and common variations of in top 100: 7,240
  • Chart places “Harper” has moved up in a decade: 3,636

 

The ONS itself barely mentions Muhammed and hides the name way down its statistics briefing.

The BBC happily reports what the ONS said without question despite other reports clearly stating that Muhammed is top…and the figures, reported as you can see by the BBC,  saying that.

The Baby Centre says:

The entries are in, the numbers crunched, and the top 100 boys’ names of 2014 have been unveiled!

For the first time at BabyCentre UK, the name Muhammad has topped the list, when alternate spellings such as Mohammed are included. Meanwhile, Oliver is holding fast in second place.

How is it that an organisation like the Baby Centre can get it right and the BBC with all its resources, and the facts in front of them, can’t? Or rather won’t.

The Spectator asks the same question about the ONS’ similar reluctance to admit that Muhammed is top of the list…

Why doesn’t the Office of National Statistics want us to know that Mohammed is the most popular boys’ name in England and Wales?  Yesterday, it put out its annual survey of the top 10 baby’s names.  In 2014, it reported, the most popular boys’ names were Oliver, Jack and Harry. This contrasts somewhat with a similar survey by the website BabyCentre last December which claimed that the most popular boys’ name was now Mohammed.

Ten years ago, the ONS was quite happy to announce in its press release that Mohammed – then apparently the preferred spelling — had entered the top 20 most popular baby’s names.  But now it seems it has become shy of informing us that it is now the single most popular boys’ name in England and Wales.

It does seem that once again the news is being ‘managed’ so that we only get to hear what they want us to hear in the hope we don’t realise what is going on.  When Germany is facing the prospect of over 750,000 asylum seekers, not general migrants, and they will be mostly Muslim, you have to start asking questions about the effects importing large numbers of people with such a radically different set of beliefs and values into Europe will have on society.

That of course is the question the ONS and the BBC want to stop you asking.  They certainly won’t be asking it themselves.

 

 

Propaganda and Sponsorship On The Independent BBC

 

From the Mail:

BBC screens foreign ‘propaganda’: Corporation accused of breaking broadcast rules by showing programmes that promote charities and governments

The BBC has screened ‘propaganda films’ funded by foreign governments in a blatant breach of broadcast rules, an Ofcom investigation found.

The broadcaster has shown dozens of programmes designed to promote charities, NGOs and governments in what the regulator described as an ‘inherent risk to [the BBC’s] independence and integrity’.

The Ofcom probe revealed the BBC had bought the ‘sponsored’ films for as little as £1 from public relations companies.

Officials found 20 breaches of sponsorship rules by BBC World News, the broadcaster’s 24-hour news channel that is shown across the world.

One programme was made by a London-based media company which was given millions of pounds by the Malaysian government, The Independent reported.

The probe revealed the BBC had failed to declare which programmes were funded, leaving viewers unaware that they were watching ‘propaganda’ from foreign companies.

 

Here’s part of Ofcom’s decision….there is also a long write up about the BBC’s acceptance of sponsorship for programmes in the Ofcom document….

Ofcom noted BBCWN’s admission that, in hindsight, FBC was not an appropriate producer of the programmes investigated and that there had been a risk to BBCWN’s editorial independence by what it described as “the lack of knowledge” available to it at the time the programmes were broadcast.

Ofcom acknowledges that BBCWN was potentially misled by FBC in its pre-production and pre-transmission checks. However, broadcasters must always seek to apply the utmost rigour in investigating and documenting the relationship between producers and the interests featured in their programming. That third party interests might exploit their role in programming made available to a broadcaster at no charge may not have been inevitable, but its obvious possibility in this case should have been a strong indicator that better care was required.

It is essential that broadcasters take steps to ensure that content is not used as a vehicle to promote the interests of a third party, especially in current affairs content.

In circumstances where broadcasters have acquired programming, they should be able to demonstrate that they have taken adequate steps to obtain all information necessary for them to make appropriate independent editorial decisions. For example, they will need to ascertain how such programmes have been funded to assess whether a funding arrangement has influenced the editorial in a way that would call into question the programme’s editorial independence. We welcome the steps that BBCWN has since taken in this regard to strengthen its compliance procedures, as detailed above, and will invite BBCWN to attend a meeting with Ofcom to discuss further possible  improvements.

 

Here’s the BBC’s own guidelines about Ofcom:

19.3.1

Ofcom has certain powers to regulate the BBC’s licence fee funded television and radio services aimed at audiences in the UK, but not the World Service which is grant-in-aid funded.  Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code applies in the following areas:

  • Protection of under-18s
  • Harm and Offence
  • Avoidance of inciting crime or disorder
  • Responsible approach to religious content
  • Prohibition of use of images of very brief duration
  • Fairness
  • Privacy.

The Editorial Guidelines reflect the provisions of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code in these areas.

19.3.2

In addition, the BBC’s commercial services (whether broadcasting to the UK, or from the UK to our international audiences) must comply with the whole of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.

(See Appendix 1: Ofcom Broadcasting Code)

19.3.3

Where Ofcom finds a breach of the privacy or fairness sections of its Code, it may require the BBC to broadcast a statement of its findings.  Where Ofcom considers that the Code has been breached “seriously, deliberately, repeatedly, or recklessly”, it can impose sanctions, which range from a requirement to broadcast a correction or statement of finding to a fine of no more than £250,000. 

 

Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman

 

Woman’s Hour had a long love in with the Female leaders of Scotland’s political parties (I think the Tory one, Ruth Davidson, might have been mentioned somewhere in the piece.)

Woman’s Hour asked how is it that if there is so much success in Scotland for women why is that not the case in Westminster?

You may have thought that that would be the occasion when the BBC might take a look at the prospects for women in a reborn Labour Party, would they prosper under one of the new leadership candidates, two being women and one being a far left, sorry, as corrected by a BBC presenter the other day, ‘left’ politician, Jeremy Corbyn?

But no, instead of looking at Westminster they concentrated on the rise of women in Scotland.

You could be forgiven for thinking Jeremy Corbyn is irrelevant in Scotland…but you’d be wrong…as the Spectator spells out..

Jeremy Corbyn can fill a Glasgow hall quicker than Nicola Sturgeon. It’s time for her to worry

Strange things have been happening in Scottish politics of late, and Jeremy Corbyn’s speech in Glasgow on Friday was one of them. I’m a Labour supporter, and can safely say it was the most electrifying and energetic rally I have ever attended. 

Within two hours of tickets going on sale for Corbyn’s Glasgow event, they sold out. A frantic search for a larger venue began and the rally was moved to the Old Fruitmarket in the centre of Glasgow; capacity 1,500. Again, it sold out within a few hours. Corbyn could have filled a hall four times the size.

Scottish politics dramatically changed in last year. If Corbyn wins, it could do so again.

That didn’t merit a mention in the BBC interview which might seem odd as surely it would be of interest/concern to the new Scottish Labour leader.

There was a swift mention of the leadership candidates, and Jane Garvey homed in on Corbyn…but it was his desire to get rid of Trident that was her only concern asking Scottish Labour Leader Kezi Dugdale ”You didn’t discuss Trident with Jeremy Corbyn, I can’t believe that?’

Apart from that brief foray into what life might be like under a Jeremy Corbyn regime Corbyn was allowed to slip off into the shadows once again without the BBC turning the spotlight upon him.  Which is just as well really as with his dubious associations with Islamists you might be justified in asking how women like Dugdale would fare in his brave new world.

Nick Cohen asked such questions….

The British left has a lot to answer for. The Labour Party’s long-shot leadership candidate, Jeremy Corbyn, embodies the worst of it.

He has a purity and certainty his rivals, who must deal with the messy business of governing, cannot hope to match.

But then comes the rub. The tribune of the left, the indomitable defender of equality and decency, is also the greatest apologist for clerical fascism in the British parliament.

Corbyn indulges radical Islam, and by extension  all that comes with it: the subjugation of women; the judicial murder of homosexuals in compliance with sharia law; the racism, most evident in its anti-Semitic conspiracy theories; the denial of democratic rights, the demand to create a global caliphate must bring; and the denial of religious freedom the sharia-prescribed death penalties for blasphemy and apostasy do bring with miserable regularity.

Islamism is against everything the left pretends to believe in. But in Britain and elsewhere, leftists rather than conservatives are the first to defend it.

I could give you a dozen reasons why right-wing parties are winning elections everywhere here. But one ought to be obvious. Politically correct left-wingers say they believe in equality for women and gays. Everyone must agree with them apart from protected religious leaders, who can be as misogynist and homophobic as they please. 

The voters look on with jaundiced eyes. They mutter that political correctness is a sham and the left is filled with the most brazen hypocrites. The worst of it is, they are right.

 

The BBC just isn’t interested in Corbyn’s Islamist friends.

Why might that be?  Is it that they like the [Far] left wing candidate who favours the policies long peddled by the BBC itself...’There would be an end to austerity, higher taxes for the rich and protection for people on welfare’  or is it because he’s leading light in the ‘Stop the War Coalition’, again a cause the BBC has a lot of time for, or is it because the BBC also has a similarly benign and supportive approach to Islamist extremists and terrorists?

Curious how even the Woman’s Hour bunker can overlook Corbyn’s associations when they appear to be so strongly against the interests of the sistahood and indeed progressive politics as a whole.

The BBC does have a lot to say about Corbyn…but very little is critical, certainly none of it mentions his very dodgy friends and honoured citizens he applauds…..most is very positive and upbeat…

What is Jeremy Corbyn’s programme for government?

Where is Labour’s ‘Jeremy Corbyn mania’ coming from?

Labour risks ‘annihilation’ if Jeremy Corbyn is leader – Tony Blair

Jeremy Corbyn: It’s going extremely well

 

You may have thought that a man who seems to turn a blind eye to all of this ‘ the subjugation of women; the judicial murder of homosexuals in compliance with sharia law; the racism, most evident in its anti-Semitic conspiracy theories; the denial of democratic rights, the demand to create a global caliphate must bring; and the denial of religious freedom the sharia-prescribed death penalties for blasphemy and apostasy do bring with miserable regularity.’  would merit close inspection.

Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson were torn apart by the Leftwing media, BBC included, indeed the BBC leapt in to recruit LBC’s James O’Brien after his mendacious kangaroo court hatchet job on Farage, and Andrew Neil, of all people, shamed himself by trying to hammer Robinson with questions laid out by the Islamist Mehdi Hasan who thought the BBC was ‘going easy’ on Robinson.

It does seem that Jeremy Corbyn is untouchable…..and Owen Jones seems just as unconcerned as the BBC about Corbyn despite his proclaimed passion for equality and the rights of oohh just about everyone if there’s a book in it.

 

 

 

 

 

How Could We Have Got It So Wrong For So Long?

 

 

They’re right, absolutely right.  Owen Jones, Mehdi Hasan, the Cardiff stooges.  They’re all right.

The BBC is right wing.  The Guardian is just to the left of the Telegraph. The Pope is Muslim.  It’s all so obvious now.

Alex, when you stated…‘How can anyone possible say that the BBC isn’t massively biased to the left? It’s plain for all to see!’ in the comments, you too are wrong. So wrong.

I know this because my eyes have been opened.  A whole new world has been shown to me, a world where the Truth really does exist and the News is not manipulated by sinister vested interests for their own nefarious purposes.

Russia Today is now my news provider of choice.  A more upstanding, professional and ethical broadcaster would be hard to find.  Think not?  Here’s a couple of samples of their work that persuaded me without doubt that RT is, IS, the only broadcaster with integrity and the balls to take on the Establishment…

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqoIZxfT398

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p54hHhlLjRk

 

 

 

The BBC, pah,….faking chemical weapons attacks, whinging about Frankie Boyle making an anti-Semitic joke, not allowing comedians to make rude jokes about bankers and UKIP…the BBC’s a joke itself!

 

 

Infidelity

Songs of Praise sang forth last night to great joy.

We heard that there was a Sudanese migrant ‘called Daniel, who claimed to have fled the war-torn country after being persecuted for being protestant; he said he tried to cross the Channel every night ‘under trains’.’

Now as there are around 50 million Sudanese, North and South.  Is the BBC suggesting we re-home all these people…surely all must be suffering like Daniel in a such a war torn region?

Damien Thompson in the Mail notes ‘Sorry to sound cynical, but the script glossed over one rather inconvenient but unavoidable fact about the camp: it is overwhelmingly Muslim.’

Which echoes my own cynicism about Aaqil Ahmed’s motives which I noted earlier…

‘Ahmed is of course Muslim…far be it from me to suggest an ulterior motive, but I have yet to hear a Muslim in the public sphere who doesn’t use his job to promote Islam.  Mishal Husain said she would use her position on the Today programme to improve people’s perceptions of Islam and Baroness Warsi in her role as minister for faith promoted the idea of more influence and a bigger role for religion in society knowing that promoting Christianity meant the government would also be obliged to do the same for Islam and provide it with similar privileges and powers.  A slightly more sophisticated version of ‘my enemy’s enemy’.

Ahmed knows that many, if not the majority, of illegal migrants and those claiming to be asylum seekers are Muslim…any chance he has stitched together this programme to promote migration and thence to further increase the Muslim population of Britain?’

 

The Songs of Praise programme seems, on the surface, to be a nice, heartwarming tale about migrants keeping the faith in difficult conditions but the reality is that this is a hard edged political stunt by the BBC as it tries to make a powerful statement in order to influence immigration policy, and there is that subtext about Muslim migration….dismiss it or not, it’s there.

 

The BBC in an even more obvious attempt to intervene in the immigration debate with an attempt to prick our consciences with the usual arm-twisting guilt-inducing tear-jerking emoting that passes for journalism at the BBC tells us that the migrants are ‘wonderful and beautiful people’.

The BBC reveals that we should all be horrified by Calais and that we should all leap into action to help out:

Thousands of migrants are camped in and around Calais. A handful of British people can be found there too. What are they doing?  Matthew Wright grew tired of shouting at the TV.  “I got sick of hearing the excuses and the lack of action,” says Wright, 45. “This isn’t an immigration crisis – it’s a humanitarian crisis.”

Calais migrants making nightly bids to cross the Channel have attracted negative press coverage in the UK. Prime Minister David Cameron has promised the UK will not become a “safe haven” for them.

So painting Cameron as the nasty Tory denying them a ‘safe haven’.  Are they entitled to such a ‘safe haven’ anyway?

The BBC has the answer…and tries to twist the guilt into the credulous, they hope, reader….

But Wright believes the British public will do more and more to help the migrants: “I know how generous British people are.”

Then we have another volunterr who is ashamed of Britain…

“I used to have a quiet pride that Britain was more liberal than most countries, but now there is a worrying strand of xenophobia running through social media and the press,” he adds

So anyone who wants to control immigration is maligned as xenophobic….who’s the fascist?

Don’t forget how terrific all the migrants are..

‘Morphew-Hedges says she knew people who wanted to help the migrants, but many were too “scared of the unknown” to make the journey.

“You don’t know what you’re going to find. We have found wonderful, beautiful people and we really want to help.”‘

Never mind that they had just told us that the women don’t feel safe in the camp…why would that be?  Surely wonderful and beautiful people don’t go around raping and attacking women!

And those security measures…they are a danger to the migrants…much like the Israeli security barrier is a danger to terrorists…how awful!

‘Every night hundreds of migrants risk their lives to reach the UK via trains and ferries from Calais. Some say new security measures mean it is now too dangerous – though most still harbour hopes of crossing.’

And of course yet another BBC junket for Giles Fraser….the Occupy patron saint who is now wealthier than ever on the fertile fruits of his TV evangelising. Just think of all those hair shirts he can buy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUGAR SUGAR…

The BBC has been pushing this story hard this morning;

The number of people living with diabetes has soared by nearly 60% in the past decade, Diabetes UK warns. The charity said more than 3.3 million people have some form of the condition, up from 2.1 million in 2005. The inability to control the level of sugar in the blood can lead to blindness and amputations and is a massive drain on NHS resources.

It interested me because I am a type 2 Diabetic. But this interested me too and yet the BBC completely ignores it.

Doughnuts and pizzas on the NHS: £116million of gluten-free junk food was handed out in prescriptions in the past year

The NHS is a sacred BBC cow that must not be criticised and here we have the BBC pushing the “Diabetes epidemic”  overwhelming the NHS narrative whilst studiously ignoring NHS culpability

Blasphemy

 

The Now Show has been replaced by ‘Dead Ringers’ and the difference is marked.

By comparison Dead Ringers is entirely blasphemous attacking the taboo subjects and iconic shibboleths of the BBC without fear.

Mo Farrah?  No problem…which kind of begs the question why Jim Davidson has been pilloried by the Left for being ‘racist’ for his ‘Chalky’ routines when other comedians are applauded for their routines which use stereotypical voices and mannerisms of various ethnicities and regions?

Then there was the Labour Party, a subject that was considered untouchable by the Now Show.  Dead Ringers stepped right into the breech and had a shot.  My only complaint is that their suggestion that Corbyn would take Britain back to the 80’s must have been evidence of the visceral anti-Thatcher hatred still lurking in their heads….it was the 70’s that was the period of time in which the left dragged the UK to its doom before being rescued by Thatcher, why did they choose the 80’s?

When the show ended the BBC announced the upcoming ‘Any Questions‘ by saying that they would be asking ‘What’s driving the growing popularity of Jeremy Corbyn and how do we solve the migrant crisis?’……The BBC told us that people could ring in on the same number for both questions.

Yes, I thought, that’d be right….The two are related….how to solve the migrant crisis?  Elect Jeremy Corbyn and turn Britain into the wreck of the 1970’s economic basket case that rampant socialism conjured up for the UK and the migrants, all those ‘asylum seekers’,  would miraculously stop coming when there was no money, no hand outs, on offer.  Simples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Break In’ News

 

The Today programme interviewed David Cameron (08:10).  The main concern?  Cameron’s use of the word ‘swarm’.  Yes that’s still top of the BBC’s list of concerns never mind it being an old story that even when new was based solely on the faux, manufactured and highly political ‘outrage’ of a few lefties, the BBC included, intended to manage the debate on immigration and close it down or at least limit as much as possible the messages from those who oppose mass, uncontrolled immigration.

Justin Webb was quite insistent in trying to make Cameron apologise for using the word swarm, the BBC default position being that he is ‘guilty’ which just goes to show just how out of touch the BBC is with the rest of the population.  I imagine that the vast, vast majority have not the slightest concern about the use of the word swarm, and probably agree with the concept.  The BBC has really lost the plot on this if it thinks Cameron will lose any support over it….he may, like UKIP, actually increase his support…the BBC never seems to learn.

Indeed almost immediately the BBC was again on the attack, excitedly pointing out that Cameron in the interview had used the phrase ‘break in’ to describe how migrants are trying to enter the UK….it made the Front page quite prominently...Stop migrants ‘breaking in’ – Cameron.    Not an unfair description by Cameron when you look at what is going on.  However the BBC immediately jumped on this appallingly de-humanising phrase and began to shout it from the rooftops, the clear intent was to again try and whip up another Twitter storm of concerned lefties with some outrage to spare.

Other media then immediately picked up on this and began to mention it.  The BBC’s job was done…it had  manufactured some media outrage that was aimed directly at Cameron and his approach to immigration.

This was purely a BBC spin operation, a ‘black op’ aimed at discrediting David Cameron and his immigration policies.  The ‘storm’ over the use of the word ‘swarm’ had died down but the BBC decided to re-open the battle by trying to put Cameron in the stocks over it again.  The following BBC news throughout the day then headlined on this story and doubled up with his use of the phrase ‘Break in’.

It looks like this was the BBC deliberately and knowingly setting Cameron up and using its ‘news’ service to attack and undermine him.  Is the BBC out of control and a political force all of its own?  Is it not about time someone took notice and dealt with it?

One other thing of interest was Justin Webb’s suggestion that Jews in the UK are also outraged at Cameron’s use of the word swarm.  Firstly the BBC has shown not the slightest interest in allegations that the possible next Labour leader, and maybe even PM, is anti-Semitic or at least has close and knowing associations with hard line anti-Semites, only meriting a nod to the story in the ‘what the papers say’ section with a  quick mention, so rather curious they are now so concerned about what Jews think, second, there is this…

Israeli government to refugees: Go back to Africa or go to prison

As Europe struggles to stem a spring flood of migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to cross a deadly Mediterranean Sea, Israel has begun to toughen its stance toward refugees, telling unwanted Africans here they must leave now or face an indefinite stay in prison.

Israeli authorities are sending letters to the first of 45,000 Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, informing them they have 30 days to accept Israel’s offer of $3,500 in cash and a one-way ticket home or to an unnamed third country in Africa, or face incarceration at Saharonim prison.

Israeli leaders have proclaimed that their tough approach — building a fence along the country’s border, denying work permits for illegal migrants, forcing them into a detention center in the desert — may ultimately save lives by dissuading migrants from attempting a perilous journey. Critics of the Israeli policy counter that a country built by refugees should be more accepting of those fleeing war, poverty and oppression.

 

 

The BBC’s Very Own Trojan Horse Religious Programming

 

Aaqil Ahmed has claimed that sending Songs of Praise to Calais is entirely non-political…well, that’s obviously not true.

We looked at it in the last post but Ahmed has said a lot more in other places that suggest he uses religious programmes as political vehicles to carry a message, and indeed even  uses programmes officially classed as non-religious to spread that message.

Broadcast magazine tells us that ‘the topic of religious broadcasting – and its growing importance for any understanding of foreign affairs – has come back into the mainstream, after years when the TV world, politicians and regulators preferred not to think about it.’

Clearly then on that basis a programme from a highly controversial place such as Calais is not intended to increase knowledge of religion but to add pressure onto the government by saying that it is the ‘Christian’ thing to do to be welcoming to migrants….a different take altogether on a religious educational programme, using it to push a political message.

A paradox that the BBC, so antagonistic towards Christianity, should now co-opt it, under the guidance of a Muslim head of religion of all people, to further its own political agenda.

Ed Stourton told us that knowledge of religion and religious issues was important for understanding current affairs…however that should not be taken as endorsement for religion itself…

‘I do think that there is a problem with British culture… in the way that we treat religion as a sort of curious ‘ghetto’-like thing,” he told Press Gazette.

“And I don’t say that from the point of view of arguing that religion is a good thing – because very often it’s not.

“But it does damage our understanding and our ability to perceive stories accurately.”

Having worked in broadcast journalism for 35 years, Stourton suggested the British media’s indifference to religion is “deeply engrained”.

He added: “But it’s been perhaps made more apparent than ever by events since 9/11, because a whole area of quite complex religion has become very essential to the understanding of mainstream news,” he said.

The problem is that Aaqil Ahmed is not just informing us about religion but selling it to us as well, to him it is a ‘good thing’.

He tells us that although ‘Rev’ was not officially classed as religious programming he himself classed it as that, the same with ‘Citizen Khan’….he believes these programmes ‘help the population understand about religion and diversity in our community’.  I wonder how he classes ‘Father Ted’?

As for Citizen Khan I doubt that had the intended effect….watching it rather confirmed the notions you might have had about what Muslims think of non-Muslims and of Islam….as David Goodhart said, the more people understand about Islam the more ‘alien’ they realise it is…and the more we should speak up for our liberal, secular, democratic society.

Ahmed also tells us that the BBC’s ‘The Ottoman’s: Europe’s Muslim Emperor’s’ was a programme commissioned by his religion and ethics department and did not come from mainstream programming.  Clearly from the title Ahmed was intending to make a powerful political statement, one that tried to tie in Islam to Europe in order to spin us a narrative that Muslims belong in Europe and to tell a further tale of just how wonderful Islam was..is.  This wasn’t just history but a heavily politicised narrative with a message.

However the title is deliberately misleading…The Ottoman’s were Turkish and Turkey is not European, the Ottoman’s certainly ruled some parts of Europe in the Balkans but were not ‘European Emperors’ as Ahmed’s programme provocatively proclaims.

What is interesting, and controversial for the BBC’s narrative about the Islamic State, is the blurb for this programme which states:

Few realise the importance of Ottoman history in today’s Middle East. And why you have to know the Ottoman story to understand the roots of many of today’s trouble spots from Palestine, Iraq and Israel to Libya, Syria, Egypt, Bosnia and Kosovo.

If you understand the Muslim empire of the Ottomans you will undertand events in the modern day Middle East….the ‘roots of many of today’s trouble spots’.  You may think that would undermine the standard BBC line that all the problems in the Middle East can be traced back only to the Sykes Picot agreement and then to the 2003 Iraq War.  All history before then, and indeed much of it in that period itself that is unhelpful to that BBC discourse, is wiped from the narrative by BBC journalists ‘explaining’ issues such as the rise of the Islamic state….explaining them as the fault of the West.  However it was not long into the first episode until we got to the usual suspsects, and it wasn’t the Ottomans.  The British were set up as the guilty culprits, the cause of all the tension and conflict in the Middle East today.

This BBC description of the Ottoman Empire is somewhat more truthful than the template BBC statements on Islam and the Middle East we so often hear now and indeed than the BBC’s own programme on the Ottoman empire…

The Ottoman Empire was the one of the largest and longest lasting Empires in history.

It was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam, and Islamic institutions.

Why was it so successful?

Why was the Empire successful?

The recipe for success

There were many reasons why the Ottoman Empire was so successful:

  • Highly centralised

  • Power was always transferred to a single person, and not split between rival princes

    • The Ottoman Empire was successfully ruled by a single family for 7 centuries.
  • State-run education system

  • Religion was incorporated in the state structure, and the Sultan was regarded as “the protector of Islam”.

  • State-run judicial system

  • Ruthless in dealing with local leaders

  • Promotion to positions of power largely depended on merit

  • Created alliances across political and racial groups

  • United by Islamic ideology

  • United by Islamic warrior code with ideal of increasing Muslim territory through Jihad

  • United by Islamic organisational and administrative structures

  • Highly pragmatic, taking the best ideas from other cultures and making them their own

  • Encouraged loyalty from other faith groups

  • Private power and wealth were controlled

  • Very strong military

    • Strong slave-based army

    • Expert in developing gunpowder as a military tool

    • Military ethos pervaded whole administration

 

Did you spot these statements that never normally make it past the BBC censors?…

  • An empire inspired and sustained by Islam

  • United by Islamic ideology

  • United by Islamic warrior code with ideal of increasing Muslim territory through Jihad

 

 

So the religion of peace expanded its empire by utilising the ‘Islamic warrior code‘ and engaging in Holy, religiously inspired, war….Jihad!

Who’d have thought?!

I was also interested in this anodyne claim…’Encouraged loyalty from other faith groups‘….really?  Just how did they ‘encourage loyalty’ from non-Muslims?  History suggests that it was more at the point of a sword than gentle persuasion and mutual respect.

This claim is also of interest…’Highly pragmatic, taking the best ideas from other cultures and making them their own‘….so the Golden age of Islamic science was in fact standing on the shoulders of giants….a golden age which was actually based upon the science of other cultures and civilisations.  Which provides the answer as to why Islamic countries have been so backward for centuries…once Islam kicked in fully and imposed itself properly upon the nations its rigid, uncompromising, unintellectual approach to life, guided by the Koran, stopped all innovation and the spread of ideas.  They created a desert where thought, science, innovation and intellectual development were choked off by religious rules and certainties.

Once we understand that we can see that many of the BBC’s recent lines about Islam, that it is the religion of peace, that there is no connection between Islam and ‘Holy war’, that we should thank Muslims for all scientific progress, are somewhat less than true and are purely meant to persuade us that there is no problem with having a backward, unpleasant religion [to quote Mishal Husain] thrusting itself upon the European civilisations.

 

In the video at the top of this post, “God: TV’s Holy Grail?“, Roger Bolton from the BBC’s Feedback programme, states that programmes like ‘Rev’ are religious and teach us to care for all humans, that all human life is valuable however criminal or destitute and broken. He claims this revelation about humanity is one brought to us through religion alone and has nothing to do with the Enlightenment or being just part of the natural human condition and thinking…we are not naturally ‘humane’ or altruistic apparently…we need God’s self-appointed representatives on earth to guide us to the moral high ground.

That’s complete hogwash.  Religion is the most divisive and judgemental of any of the ideologies, if you’re not a Christian or a Muslim or whatever you’re going to Hell….so where’s the valuing all humanity regardless of sin or condition?  Not there is it?  Religions value only their own and to hell with all the rest…..which is a bit ironic when Bolton complained that it was the ‘liberal, secular elite’ dominating TV that had ‘a lack of basic understanding about religion meant faiths such as Islam were being oversimplified, leading to dangerous levels of ignorance.  The BBC had a responsibility to improve understanding about religion and not just for educational reasons. “It is also frankly for the safety of society,” he said.

You have to know about Islam and religion generally ‘for the safety of society’.  Go figure.

He rounded off by saying Muslims should get a sense of humour…‘Mr Bolton also said many listeners and viewers had written to the corporation complaining “that Christianity is unfairly treated: that other faiths do not have to put up with what Christianity has to put up with”.

He added: “What I do think is that Muslims in particular ought to be mature enough in this country to be able to take that humour and that Christians do have a right to say it’s about time that the satire which applied to them ought to be applied to others.”