The BBC has different narratives for different religions…..Whilst they insist that Islam is a religion of peace despite wars around the world in the name of that religion the BBC, in order to defend Islam, tries to paint other religions as violent in nature thereby trying to make Islam appear no more strange and dangerous than say Christianity or Buddhism…..
‘Historically, Buddhism has been no more a religion of peace than Christianity.’
The problem is that neither Christianity nor Buddhism are inherently violent, neither of their sacred texts demand their followers kill non-believers whereas the Islamic Koran does demand that Muslims fight and kill non-believers and those who threaten Islam’s dominance.
Anyone who has followed the BBC’s reporting closely about events concerning Muslims knows that the BBC plays down, or completely denies, any connection with violence to the Islamic religion. The BBC does not want you knowing that there is a problem with Islam because once you know that you might start asking for a solution to that problem.
An example of the BBC’s narrative of violence from other religions with Muslims as innocent victims is their reporting of events in Burma….as linked to above where they tell us that Buddhism is a religion of violence.
Here is another report from Burma that perfectly illustrates the BBC mind at work as the reporter turns Muslims into victims at the hands of Buddhist war mongers…..’Buddhist mobs’ as the reporter suggests.
It’s a very one sided tale…the Buddhist claims of Muslim violence dismissed as rumour and misinformation…
‘Rakhine Buddhists have a different story to tell. They repeat the accounts spread by word of mouth or through internet sites of gruesome Muslim atrocities, and occasionally bring out blurry photographs of mutilated corpses.’
What the reporter fails to emphasise is that the Muslims have been fighting a Jihad against the Burmese for over 70 years in order to annex this part of Burma to create a Muslim state, and indeed proclaimed one in 2012. He alludes to a massacre in 1942 but fails to be more explicit and explain that the Muslims killed 20,000 Buddhists in one attack and have been on that Jihad ever since….we know that the Muslims have been linking up with the Taliban and that outside Muslims have come to Burma to fight the Buddhists….
‘The long decades of isolation and chronic injustice imposed by Burma’s military rulers have left prejudice and resentment in Rakhine state to ferment into a poisonous climate of mistrust and misinformation.
Some Rakhine hark back to massacres in 1942, amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from the advancing Japanese imperial army. Back then Buddhist men often supported the Japanese-sponsored militia forces, while Rohingyas backed the British. Some go back even further, to the glorified memory of a powerful, independent Buddhist kingdom in Rakhine from the 15th to the 18th Century.’
It is an interesting exercise to compare the BBC’s reporting of the conflict in Burma where we have an ‘interloper’ Muslim minority surrounded by the majority Buddhist native population with that between Israel and the Muslims surrounding them.
In Burma the British colonialists imported Bengali Muslims to work in Burma and many came as illegal immigrants….the Burmese Buddhists have never recognised the immigrants as citizens. The Muslims are now fighting that ‘Jihad’ to establish their own state by annexing part of Burma.
The BBC’s reporting is very definitely a one sided bit of cheerleading for the Muslim ‘victims’.
Contrast that with Israel where once again the Muslims are considered the victims…once again the British were involved giving the nod to a Jewish homeland, subsequently endorsed and legitimated by the UN. The Muslims in Burma have no such legitimate claim to a state.
Israel has not been attacking but has been under attack for 70 years by the majority Muslim population surrounding it, not just the Palestinians.
However, whilst Israel’s and the Burmese Muslim positions might seem to bare some comparison the BBC sides with the Muslims in this conflict with Israel….on that basis the BBC should be supporting the Buddhists as they defend their land against a group of religiously inspired insurgents (Muslim Zionists?) who want to take over part of Burma….will the Muslim jihadists in Burma claim to be the new Jews of Asia as they claim to be the new Jews of Europe whilst ironically they persecute those same Jews?
It seems that whatever the circumstances the BBC’s default position is to promote the Muslim narrative of being the victims whereas in both cases it is the Muslims who are attacking….you may say that Israel has imposed itself upon ‘Palestinian’ land but firstly, as stated, the UN created Israel and the Bengali Mulsims have no historic claim to Burma as the Jews might to some of Palestine; and secondly, the UN at the same time also set up Pakistan as a Muslim state, annexing part of India in a move that resulted in a million deaths and millions of people being expelled from what is now ‘Pakistan’. If you object to Israel then you must object to Pakistan…a state which is a sponsor of terrorism, a state that has 300 terrorist training camps inside its borders, a state that set up the Taliban and used them to try and annex Afghanistan….never mind Pakistan’s own internal religious persecution of its minorities….and what of Jordan carved out of Palestinian land just as Israel was? Where are the objections to that State?
Just as the BBC has ignored the Muslim massacre of orthodox Christians in Bosnia just before the massacre at Srebrenica it ignores the jihad being fought by the Muslim ‘immigrants’ in Burma. Both crucial bits of history that put a different perspective on the narratives being peddled by those with an axe to grind about Muslim ‘victimhood’.
That claimed ‘victimhood’ is a valuable currency…it puts pressure on the media, on politicians and on the public, it gains the Muslim community enormous political influence and money to rectify that ‘victim’ status and the second objective of this tactic is to silence the critics of Islamic practices by claiming that this criticism leads to Islamophobia, hate crimes and racism and yet more of that ‘victimhood’.
That’s why its important to challenge the claims that Muslims are under siege or being demonised and marginalised….all false claims but ones made for political, social and cultural advantage, ones that they know few politicians will ignore because they always have to look like they are doing ‘something’….or ironically face claims of ignoring and marginalising the Muslim community. They also know that elements of the Media will give them enormous amounts of supportive and favourable commentary which is designed to back up their line.
And that’s where we come in.
