Demon Eyes

Friday’s Any Questions broadcast from the London Muslim Centre aka the East London Mosque was part of the BBC’s strategy of embracing Islam.

After the recent C4 Dispatches programme that showcased the unpleasant side of the Islamic Forum of Europe, appeasing Muslims might have seemed a good move by the BBC, what with their desire to promote social cohesion.

The fact that Ken Livingstone was one of the panellists and Mehdi Hasan was another, guaranteed that the programme would be on message.
Predictably, halfway through came the question ‘Does the press demonise Muslims?’
Mehdi Hasan’s outburst was as astonishing as it was hypocritical.

He said the MSM erroneously represent the outpourings of Anjem Choudary as though they were the views of all Muslims. They do this merely because they seek sensational stories. He insisted that the majority of Muslims, including the Islamic Forum of Europe, are moderate and peaceful. He said Andrew Gilligan was a disgrace.

He thought the press has created Islamophobia, which has turned people against Mosques being built in their area because they believe all Muslims are terrorists making bombs.

These ideas might have resonance from an Islamic perspective. But from a UK perspective things look different. Many people who don’t want Mosques do not have a phobia. Their objection to Mosques is likely because they associate them with non-assimilated communities whose cultural practises are at odds with the UK, quite a rational fear one might say. Many people who are perfectly sane don’t wish to be subjected to calls to prayer over loudspeakers several times a day – heaven knows some people find church bells intrusive – and many people, completely right in the head, just don’t want people walking round their neighbourhoods wearing shrouds. Certainly some ordinary English people still hang on to traditional English customs, like monogamous marriage, free speech, as well as new-fangled concepts such as equality for women and tolerance of homosexuality, agnosticism, sex drugs and rock’n’ roll; some of them like keeping dogs, listening to music and looking at cartoons of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban.

Back at the BBC noticing that radicalised Muslims predominantly perpetrate terrorism is considered Islamophobic, as is expressing concerns about such things as the increasing demands from Muslims that we conform to their idiosyncrasies.

All the panellists on Any Questions played it by those unspoken rules, tiptoeing round the subject dutifully, to boldly taboo where no man has tabooed before.

If anyone does want a prime example of demonisation by the press, the New Statesman is it. But Mehdi Hasan’s New Statesman target is Israel, so in that case demonisation is fine.

Any demonisation of Muslims by the media pales into insignificance beside the demonisation of Israel that has been the norm in the MSM for decades.
Even examining areas where Islamic ideology is incompatible with UK ideals is unacceptable in BBC world, whereas decades of the BBC’s treatment of Israel has resulted in hostile hordes, ready willing and able to express their passionately misinformed, phobic opinions in the press.

Exhibit ‘a,’ is the Guardian, closely followed by the Financial Times.

Future generations are affected too. Postcards that were sent to the Israeli Embassy by Spanish children declare: “Jews kill for money,” “Leave the country to the Palestinians” and “Go somewhere where they will accept you.”

They probably didn’t get this directly from the BBC, but it’s indicative of the European malaise that the BBC at once reflects and creates.

Shhhh

I’ve been busy recently, but yesterday I started to write this:

*****

What with the election, the fuss about Lord Ashcroft, and the BBC falling apart, you’d think they would tell us about this.
The infiltration of the IFE into the British political system – I hear it’s not just Labour, — that’s news, isn’t it?
I mean it’s as significant and deeply troubling, if not more so, than this, wouldn’t you say?

*****

I didn’t post it then but having read this, I thought I’d better have another go.

Also, I was waiting for something to appear on the BBC, even a review of C4 Despatches, or some oblique mention, but so far nothing comes up when I search the BBC website. Please tell me if I’m wrong.

Even if I’m only a bit right, I am surprised and disappointed that the BBC has made little or nothing of this issue.
It may be that Andrew Gilligan is not the BBC’s favourite person, who knows, but the problem he lays before us is not something to be brushed under the carpet by our state broadcaster.
The BBC is in trouble at the moment I know, and its future is in flux.
But if, as they pledge, the quality of journalism is to be upgraded, how can they ignore something so central to the democratic political system we’re supposed to be so proud of?
Can things be so bad that they are afraid to tackle the subject?

In sharp contrast, they have chosen to promote, quite heavily, a long-awaited declaration by a Muslim leader that violence and terrorism are not quite the ticket. The obvious response would be ‘too little too late.’ It is a start, but the orchestrated political infiltration into the UK major political parties by an Islamist outfit is more pressing; a worrying trend that is beginning to look like another nail in Britain’s coffin.

Justifying Jihad?

I only had half an eye on Peter Taylor’s Generation Jihad last night – and also, until I noticed it on the website, I didn’t realise it was only part one of a series of three. So my impression that he was more sympathetic to his Jihadi interviewees than strictly necessary may be premature. He may have been coaxing them into letting their fanaticism speak for itself. But this episode strove to convince us that Islamist extremism wasn’t the real Islam, but as chalk to ‘moderate’ Islam’s cheese.
I was horrified to see him perpetuating the discredited tale of the Al Durah shooting at the hands of the Israelis, when the veracity of that has been exposed, at the very least, as dubious.

If Peter Taylor is sufficiently ignorant about the controversy surrounding that case to use it to illustrate justification for Jihad how does that make the rest of his programme look?

NAMP Sore Affronted

Muslim Police Say Islam Not to Blame for Terror Attacks.
Everybody’s talking about it except, to date, the BBC.
They tell us that the anti-terror Police need Muslims.
But the NAMP has, it seems, some dodgy friends.
Discuss.
Update.
That was a bit skimpy, sorry.
The Telegraph report is on the Front Page of the paper (tree version.)
A highlighted quote from the NAMP says: “Hatred against Muslims has grown to a level that defies all logic”

Unfortunately it doesn’t defy all logic at all. What does defy logic is that while the so-called peaceful majority of moderate Muslims fail to explain exactly where their religious faith differs from that of self-proclaimed “true” Muslims like Anjem Choudary or any of the myriad Jihadi martyrs, they expect anyone to accept this ridiculous sounding theory.

It’s all very well to say ‘”that’s not the real Islam.” So what sort of Islam is moderate Islam, and what good does it do?

The veiled threat in their statement amounts to: “If you don’t stop saying we’re violent, we’ll bash yer brains in.”

I presume the government will be suitably intimidated, and issue a statement that it’s the far right they’re really concerned about, and will re engage with the MCB for some more lovely advice. Oh no, they’ve done that already.

So what will Newsnight be saying about all this? Who will they bring in to pacify the NAMP? Or will they ignore it and hope it goes away.

Unbelievable

Here’s something that deserves to be aired on B-BBC.

Guantanamo Guard reunited with ex-inmates.

“But what were the pair doing in Afghanistan in 2001?
They explain that, being in their late teens and early twenties at the time, they had made a naïve, spontaneous decision to travel for free with an aid convoy weeks before a friend’s wedding, due to take place in Pakistan.”

If you believe that you’ll believe anything. The BBC seems to.
Harry’s Place shows the BBC sanitising radical Islam, and yet again meddling in an area that it shouldn’t.
An update includes a transcript of part of an interview on R5 where Victoria Derbyshire asks some questions, but eventually seems to give the Tipton Three the benefit of the doubt.

Foregone Conclusion

Who could have doubted the sincerity of the bushy bearded cherub innocently proclaiming his bafflement and perplexity over the actions of his former best buddy?
Not the BBC. They accepted it without a murmur.

Our friend Qasam Rafiq is now the spokesman for the Federation of Student Islamic Societies. Those cute little cupid’s bow lips are employed to invite a multitude of speakers who have supported the holy war and called for an Islamic Caliphate.
Now we hear that not only are we more complacent than ever about the number of Muslim extremists coming to the UK, we are gaily tolerating radical Islamic Societies in our own universities who invite speakers to come over and evangelise Jihad under our noses.

Malcolm Grant, the provost of UCL still won’t have it. He must be a Guardian reader and a devotee of the BBC. He’s chairing a review into violent extremism at universities. I wonder what the outcome will be.

The Elephant in the University

In yesterday’s mini round-up I began with the BBC interview with cherubic Qasim Rafiq, who appeared to be baffled by the behaviour of his best friend the baby-faced underpants bomber.
The BBC’s apparent assumption that the twosome’s association with the UCL’s Islamic Society was as good as a character reference was baffling too. They accepted it as a kind of alibi and seemed to be satisfied that for this reason alone he couldn’t have been radicalised while he was in the UK.

Robin Shepherd nails it again.

Con Coughlin has:
“even though Abdulmutallab is not even a British citizen, he was still allowed to be elected president of the Islamic Society at University College London (UCL), where he was then allowed to arrange debates on subjects such as Guantanamo Bay and “Jihad v Terrorism”. No points for guessing which side Abdulmutallab was on.”

It seems though, that the BBC is not alone in its refusal to confront the elephant in the uni. The events of Christmas day came as a complete shock to Malcolm Grant of UCL.
It’s freedom of speech innit?

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

OK, so it’s not the lead story and indeed one has to click across from the main newspage to even see it. I refer to the item curiously entitled “UK Muslim guilty of planning attack”. Mmmm – a tad innocuous but curiosity got the better of me so I went over and discovered that the actual story is that several Muslims have been convicted of planning mass murder over the Atlantic. So, “Jihad horror averted” might have been more accurate, or perhaps “Muslim plot to murder hundreds of British people”……but I guess “UK Muslim guilty of planning attack” fits the bill for the BBC.

ON A SWISS ROLE….

How very dare the Swiss confound media expectation and vote to ban the building of minarets! I caught the BBC news earlier this evening and the BBC reporter was quick to point out the hypocrisy of the Swiss for allowing Christian churches to stand whilst forcing Islamists to worship in private homes. It clearly escapes the BBC that Switzerland is a Christian country with a rich Christian heritage and has a perfect right to prevent creeping Islamisation. The BBC are’t happy about this.