Following recent events in the news you might have been hearing a lot about Islam and maybe the term ‘Islamophobia’ – but what does this mean?
The UK is full of people who follow lots of different faiths and religions.
Most of the time they all get along and people are free to live the way they want to.
However, some groups are targeted because of their beliefs, and because of events that people blame them for – even if this is incorrect.
Islamophobia is when Muslims are the victims of attacks just because of their religion.
It is something that worries a lot of people.
Many people think Islamophobia is created when a person doesn’t properly understand what Muslims do or believe, and that the best way to combat it is to have a better understanding of Muslims and Islam.
In fact as David Goodhart points out as people understand and get to know Islam they realise it is totally alien and contrary to their own beliefs and values and they would become less tolerant of it….
The gulf between conservative Islam and secular liberal Britain is larger than with any comparable large group….for those of us who value an open, liberal society it is time to explain why it is superior to the alternatives.
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.
Trevor Phillips, that well known Islamophobe, will tell you that there is a wide and ever-growing gap between conservative Muslims in their ghettoes and Britain and its democratic, liberal values.
The BBC’s piece on Islamophobia, rushed out after the attack in London on Muslims, is naive and simplistic and is designed to hide the uncomforatble truths about Islam and the beliefs about Britain that many Muslims hold…no such articles from the BBC rushed out in the wake of Manchester and London Bridge or Westminster telling Muslims to stop being anti-British.
To face Islamist terror, we must face the facts about Islam’s historyIt is not surprising that politicians have tried to avoid this debate by spinning a lie. The world would be an infinitely safer place if the historical Mohammed had behaved more like Buddha or Jesus. But he did not and an increasing number of people — Muslim and non-Muslim — have been able to learn this for themselves in recent years. But the light of modern critical inquiry which has begun to fall on Islam is a process which is already proving incredibly painful.
We have spent 15 years pretending things about Islam, a complex religion with competing interpretations. It is true that most Muslims live their lives peacefully. But a sizeable portion (around 15 per cent and more in most surveys) follow a far more radical version. The remainder are sitting on a religion which is, in many of its current forms, a deeply unstable component. That has always been a problem for reformist Muslims. But the results of ongoing mass immigration to the West at the same time as a worldwide return to Islamic literalism means that this is now a problem for all of us. To stand even a chance of dealing with it, we are going to have to wake up to it and acknowledge it for what it is.
Perhaps now after this latest example of Far-Right ‘radicalisation’ and anger we will have ‘Baroness’ Nick Griffin made chair of the Tory Party in order to appease the angry youth of the Far-Right community, maybe Far-Right extremists will be put in charge of the Prevent programme or used to advise government action on tackling the social and cultural discrimination that mean the Far-Right become alienated and angry and then become ‘victims’ of extremist Far-Right recruiters who pervert Nationalism and hijack the Union Flag for their own poisonous purposes. Maybe millions if not billions will be poured into Far-Right communities so that they are not ‘left behind’, marginalised and disaffected. Maybe the government will work to create a pro-Far-Right narrative across the media and political spectrum..with police officers, local councils and the likes of the BBC roped in to spin a message about the Far-Right being essentially a peaceful movement that loves Britain and British values…more so than anyone else in Britain in fact. Just remember …..’Fascism’…is the political ideology of peace.
Maybe we should keep the borders to the EU open….is this why so many Muslims voted for Brexit….white Catholics who know and speak the truth….who will the Polish kids believe…the BBC or their parents?…..
The BBC will absolutely hate this…wonder if they will be producing their own counter-video as they did when ‘Muslim Demographics’ went viral on Youtube?….
Laugh at the hypocrisy of those who voted for the terrorist supporting Corbyn, the Corbyn who looks the other way when anti-Semitism rears its ugly head in his Party, the man who supports Muslim terrorism and loves Islam….his supporters are outside Downing Street complaining, ala Mishal Husain, about religious horrors of the DUP…
One organiser led chants of ‘racist, sexist, anti-gay, the DUP has got to go’. [‘away’ surely?]
There are even Muslims in amongst the protestors…lol. DUPophobia?
Over 500,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the Tories not to do a deal with Northern Ireland’s DUP.
The poll hosted by Change.org also calls on Theresa May to resign as Prime Minisiter following the General Election which resulted in a hung parliament.
“Theresa May should resign. This is a disgusting, desperate attempt to stay in power,” the petition reads.
I’m sure the person who created the petition would be quite happy for Corbyn, who got less votes than May, to form a government in coalition with say the SNP in a ‘disgusting attempt to take power’ no doubt’?
The Guardian is reporting the protest and suggests that we should forget the religion[written by an academic not a Guardianista journo]…the DUP won’t foist Protestantism upon us…hmmm…we’re essentially a Protestant country if ‘lite’….
The ultra-conservative DUP will strike a hard bargain with Theresa May’s Conservatives but won’t foist militant Protestantism on Westminster
Funny how religion is seen as an issue at all here when ‘conservative’ Muslims can take senior positions in Labour and Corbyn happily sides with Muslim terrorists and it’s not an issue…or it’s an issue we are definitely not allowed to talk about…as Boris found out when Mishal Husain told him to shut up.
The BBC are reporting approvingly anti-DUP comments from others….quite extraordinary hypocrisy from people who would never say these things about Muslims…Jon Snow and the deputy editor of the Guardian Paul Johnson….
And the BBC continues its attack in a way it never did with Corbyn…just amazing how the gloves come off when it is someone the BBC hates…and they’ve always hated Unionist groups in NI whilst loving the IRA…The BBC lists the sins of the DUP in a way it never would with the MCB or any Muslim political group….
The DUP website crashed on Friday morning after a surge of interest, and DUP was also one of the most searched terms on Google.
Basically, they are pro-union (not Europe but UK), pro-Brexit and socially conservative.
The party, which returned 10 MPs to Westminster, has garnered a bit of a reputation for its strong and controversial views.
It opposes same-sex marriage and is anti-abortion – abortion remains illegal in Northern Ireland, except in specific medical cases.
Then there’s the party’s historical links to loyalist paramilitaries.
DUP East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson, a devout climate change denier, was once Northern Ireland’s environment minister. [What the hell is a ‘devout climate change denier’?…note the use of ‘denier’ as well]
The DUP was a wholehearted supporter of Brexit and got heavily involved in the Leave campaign.
The BBC’s quota filling Muslim on the Today show, Mishal Husain, can answer that, calling them as she did a couple of months ago in relation to their Christian based ideology, ‘Backward and unpleasant’.
Coming from a Muslim who supposedly follows a religion that is unchanged from its barbaric 7th century origins, hence all the head chopping, killing of gays, killing of apostates, chopping of limbs, stoning, lashing, crucifying of those who don’t follow the teachings, that’s pretty rich….and of course had anyone said the same about Islam she’d have been outraged…and the BBC would have been outraged on her behalf.
The same Mishal Husain who told us that she was glad to get the job on the Today show because she could use it to promote the beauty of Isam and foster understanding.
Trouble is the more people know of the real Islam the less they like it.
In fact maybe the ‘Muslim’ Mishal Husain doesn’t really like the real Islam….she won’t wear the hijab and ‘She drinks alcohol and doesn’t fast at Ramadan.’
She says she has ‘has employed her knowledge of Arabic and insight into Islamic issues, during interviews with controversial clerics.’
If she has that knowledge of Islam then she knows that what IS does, what the Wahhabis and Saudis do, is based upon the real Islam…and there is only one Islam, an Islam based upon the literal word of the Koran, unchangeable and timeless, and the actions of Muhammed himself.
She therefore knows that this plea from her …“I would really like to see much more of the counterpoint from a theological perspective, with scholars taking to social media to refute the awful arguments we see put forward in those videos.”…is nonsense….how can Muslim scholars argue against the Koran?
She also says…“The emphasis on what you wear on your head or how many times you pray, on the outward things rather than what’s in your heart and the way you treat people, I find slightly misguided,”…again she must know that is wrong…wearing certain clothing and acting in particualr ways, ‘as Muslim’, indicates an adherence to that ideology, it’s an outward expression of your faith and in many cases a deliberate political statement of ‘being Muslim’. Just look at how many Muslims suddenly became more devout and began dressing in ‘Muslim’ clothing after 9/11, Osama’s call to arms to Muslims aroound the world. That’s a political statement by those Muslims saying we’re Muslim first and it also shows they condone what Bin Laden did and stood for.
Remember what David Goodhart said…..
The gulf between conservative Islam and secular liberal Britain is larger than with any comparable large group….for those of us who value an open, liberal society it is time to explain why it is superior to the alternatives.
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.
“Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) hath Allah promised good. But those who strive and fight hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward,” Quran Chapter 4: The Women, verse 95. [From MPACUK]
Lesser jihad
Most Muslims are not pacifists, and believe it is justifiable to struggle to defend Islam, for justice, or in self-defence, and to use force if necessary. If all peaceful means fail, a Muslim should be ready to fight to defend the ummah against aggression, to defend the oppressed, or to combat injustice. This is lesser jihad.
Are ISIS members, or indeed any Muslim so-called ‘extremists’ or ‘radicals’, ‘perverting’ the true religion of Islam?
You may argue about the way they kill people, or their choice of target, but you cannot argue that they are not following the teachings and obligations of Islam as they attack Western countries.
The ‘extremists’ say that they are defending Islam and Muslims from attack by the West….how do we know that Muslims and Islam are under attack? Because the likes of the BBC also promote that very narrative. We had the BBC’s very own Middle East Editor, Jeremy Bowen, deliberately saying exactly that in the last couple of weeks in a series on the Middle East. He blamed Western interference in Muslim countries for creating the chaotic catastrophe that is so much of the Middle East today. This is the extremists’ and the terrorists’ own narrative. It is of course, as just a little knowledge of history would show, a completely false narrative….but the BBC continues to peddle it in a continuation of its lefty 1960’s white guilt cringe about the supposed evils of the British Empire…the Muslim empire seems to get a bye on this though…it apparently has been entirely benign and the consequences of its creation are not relevant apparently…other than of course its magnificent contribution to science and Western development!
Muslims in Palestine are being oppressed and are unable to resist this oppression. In this case, the obligation falls upon the countries next to and around Palestine. However, non of the neighbouring countries are fulfilling their duty to protect this section of the Ummah. Therefore, this obligation becomes a Fardh Ayn and it now becomes obligatory on every man, woman and child to protect the Ummah from oppression. In this sense, Jihad is an obligation upon us all.
The Prophet (pbuh) has said, “He who dies without having fought in the way of Allah or without having felt it to be his duty, will die having a trait of hypocrisy”. [Sahih Muslim]
This powerful hadeeth leaves no question that to be a Muslim today, one should be ready to do everything it takes in the cause of Allah. Thus, we cannot actually call ourselves “practising Muslims” unless we are taking an active part in Jihad.
Then you have to ask what is meant by ‘Jihad’…..yes it can mean some sort of inner struggle to improve yourself but it does also mean Holy War…in defence of Islam and Muslims…’defence’ can be interpreted as when under actual attack…or as a pre-emptive attack on someone you think is about to attack you…and that again can be stretched to include anyone who isn’t Muslim and therefore is a threat to Islam, their mere existence being a potential threat…thus ‘defence’ can in fact be an excuse for attack…hence Muhammed’s ‘defensive wars’ managed to conquer so much territory that was in no way Muslim to start with. It’s the same tactical excuse Hitler used and the same one Putin uses as he ‘defends’ Russians living in the Crimea or Ukraine.
The BBC generously provides us with the definition and the proof that these Jihadists are not ‘perverting’ Islam…they are following its commands as they believe, as told to them by the BBC itself, that Islam and Muslims are under attack by the West….this is what the BBC is teaching Muslim children in its GCSE Bitesize….
Most Muslims are not pacifists, and believe it is justifiable to struggle to defend Islam, for justice, or in self-defence, and to use force if necessary. If all peaceful means fail, a Muslim should be ready to fight to defend the ummah against aggression, to defend the oppressed, or to combat injustice. This is lesser jihad.
So when you have politicians grandstanding after events like London Bridge telling us how the attackers do not represent Islam, theirs is a perversion, a poisonous version, of Islam, they are mistaken, or lying. Which is unfortunate because it means they will never come to grips with the threat if they do not , or refuse to, understand it….and blaming the internet companies for the attacks is beyond parody…Khan knows full well the origins of the Jihad ideology and that it is rampant within the Muslim community…a heady mixture of the Koran and dangerous and dishonest tales spun about Western foreign policy and Israel. May also blames the internet companies also ignoring the truth…both ignore one of the major sources of the extremist narrative, one which gives it so much credibility to it and neuters any effective response to it… the BBC.
Sidiq Khan:
We need to work with communities, the Government and others to tackle extremism in our midst. This perverse ideology is overwhelmingly despised by every community across London — of all faiths and none. By working together we must deprive extremism of its oxygen and not exaggerate its support or alienate communities in the process. Followers of a perverse ideology who murder innocent Londoners and visitors are an utter desecration of Ramadan and a rejection of the true values of Islam. I want to send a crystal-clear message around the world: the sick and wicked ideology of these evil extremists is no form of Islam that I recognise. I unequivocally denounce them and their twisted beliefs.
We have to make it harder for extremists to radicalise young people online. It is too easy for people to access extremist propaganda on the internet — with websites and videos glorifying their evil ideology just a click away. After every terrorist attack we rightly say that the internet providers and social media companies need to act and restrict access to these poisonous materials.
Theresa May:
First, while the recent attacks are not connected by common networks, they are connected in one important sense. They are bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism.
It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam. It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth.
Defeating this ideology is one of the great challenges of our time, but it cannot be defeated by military intervention alone. It will not be defeated by the maintenance of a permanent defensive counter-terrorism operation, however skillful its leaders and practitioners.
It will only be defeated when we turn people’s minds away from this violence and make them understand that our values – pluralistic British values – are superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate.
We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step towards the attainment of their national ideals together.
The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through: we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.
A map marked with crude chinagraph-pencil in the second decade of the 20th Century shows the ambition – and folly – of the 100-year old British-French plan that helped create the modern-day Middle East. Courtesy of the BBC
Really?
‘None of the most notorious post-Ottoman borders were drawn by Sykes and Picot…even the ones they did sketch out were jettisoned after the war.’
Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East editor and master story-teller. Who would have thought that this somewhat short tempered, tubby, egotistical Napoleon of TV and Radio could produce such sublime, experimental and artistic narratives to inform and entertain us? Who knew that he was capable of such avant-garde productions, new and original thinking, cutting edge experimental techniques and ideas that probed the world and over-turned stale truths in the search for a genuine understanding of the underlying facts that shaped the Middle East? Who knew?
Nothing is written…that can’t be rewritten… the Bowen mantra.
The BBC narrative on events in the Middle East has always been that Britain, and actions Britain has taken over the last century, has been to blame for events today….this narrative takes on more urgency for the BBC as the refugees flee the Middle East and head for Europe…the BBC needs to pin the blame for the war in Syria on Britain in order to induce guilt about the plight of the refugees and make them our responsibility…after all we ‘carved up the Middle East’ in a secret agreement with the French, didn’t we? We’ve looked at this several times on this site, here for example, and the BBC’s remarkable ability to ignore the actual facts and make up their own account of history to suit their own agenda.
Nothing has changed of course, Bowen is still the puffed up, pompous, self-regarding and economical with the truth story-teller that we know and disdain…so wrapped up in himself and his own self-importance that he has produced a new series on the BBC about the ME…which you may think as being about the Middle East but is in fact about Me, Jeremy Bowen…
Over these 25 programmes, Jeremy reflects on the present and the past of the Middle East, after reporting from the region for more than a quarter of a century. He combines first-hand accounts from the front line with an in-depth look into the region’s history. In that time, the past has always been present, providing motivation and political ammunition . Bowen has made headlines himself and he has paid a personal price, coming under fire and losing a colleague in the course of reporting – on the worst day, he says, in his life.
If the first programme is anything to go by then it will be an incredibly dishonest, misleading and dangerous account of history, Bowen taking us on a journey fraught with historical clichés and false narratives that are so often his stock in trade. This is history ala Stalin. This is history rewritten to manufacture a narrative, to spread a message, to spin a great big shining lie…..that Britain is to blame for everything that is happening in the Middle East. This is dangerous stuff from the BBC feeding as it does directly into the Muslim grievance industry, the victim mentality, which provides a conveyor belt of willing recruits to radical and violent Muslim groups who are eager and committed to take on the West not only in the Middle East but in Europe and America as well…..aiming to Islamise both.
Bowen’s history is a flagrant distortion of real events as he bends and twists the facts to make a deadly trap for the less alert, the less aware, the less critical. Bowen approaches this from only one perspective and even then doesn’t get that right…naturally it is from the ‘Arab’, or Muslim, perspective to whom all the events are a catastrophe…no doubt a word chosen carefully by Bowen knowing full well that the Palestinians use the word to describe what they call their own ‘Holocaust’…ie Israel.
The whole thrust of Bowen’s narrative is that it was the ‘duplicitous British that did not keep their word whilst the Arabs did.‘ Hence all that is happening in the Middle East today is the result of British scheming in World War One…always surprising how the BBC can focus in on exactly one point in time and say...’that’s the one and only cause of this disaster’.…no thought that the invention of Islam and the subsequent conquest and colonisation of so much of the Middle East and North Africa is the real root of the problems today or at least a major contributory factor?
But no, it was the Great Powers who are the problem and especially, as he tells us, ‘two Grandees [Sykes/Picot] who created, and some say cursed, the Middle East today when they carved up the Ottoman Empire’ [again..no thought that the Ottoman Empire might have been the problem…as the Arabs wanted to escape from it and so joined the British war effort?]…and of course the other problem was the Zionists and the British promise to them which was completely at odds with Arab wishes…a deadly contradiction we are told…er…see top of post….‘The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.’
However, Bowen tells us that the Balfour Treaty was apparently a ‘milestone on the road to catastrophe for Palestinians.’ Guess we now know exactly where Bowen is coming from….the Palestinian side of the argument.
That narrative, of the West attacking countries because they are ‘Muslim’ or of Islam under attack is the widespread narrative that Muslims in this country, not just the ‘extremists’ or ISIS followers, but the majority in the community, believe in and this creates the underlying atmospherics, an anger and feelings of hate for the West, that leads to radicalisation and then for some, joining ISIS or carrying out a terror attack in the UK. The majority may not believe in violence but they certainly believe the narrative, believe Muslims should be angry and should ‘protest’ in some shape or form.
This is the narrative that the BBC pushes, as illustrated perfectly by Bowen. It is ultimately the terrorist narrative, one that feeds the anger and the Islamist cause. It is also an entirely false narrative that you would expect a professional journalist, the BBC’s expert on the Middle East, to know is false and to counter given the importance of that narrative to the Islamist cause and its deadly consequences…but instead what we have is a man determined to support, nurture and spread that dangerous narrative giving untold help and encouragement to what are terrorists.
The BBC prefers to lay the blame for the rise of massive unrest in the Middle East, the disaster that is Syria, the rise of ISIS, on the doorstep of the Americans and Blair after Iraq 2003….which is odd really…as the BBC told us this:
“We had a clean revolution [In Tunisia]. The former president turned out to be a coward. He just ran away. Not like the others – like the poor Libyans, or in Syria – but it lit the fuse to all the other revolutions” Wassim Herissi, radio DJ
The downfall of Tunisia’s President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali inspired pro-democracy activists across the Arab world.
I mean…Bowen should know the truth….he wrote the book on it….‘The People want the fall of the regime‘..not ‘The British Empire wants the fall of the regime’ then?….remember that time when the BBC were cheerleading the Arab Spring [and the subversive, anti-regime nature of the internet and social media…now hated and blamed for Trump and Brexit]….
What is going on in the Middle East and now across the world as Muslims build communities within other countries is that the 1400 year old religion of Islam is having a renaissance, a back to the fundamentals rebirth…it has had several of these over the centuries but this latest incarnation is one that grew out of the deserts of Arabia in the 18th century not the 20th….
‘This alliance formed in the 18th century provided the ideological impetus to Saudi expansion and remains the basis of Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today.’
It grew from the union of the Sauds and the Wahhabis which intended to create a strict Muslim state, hence they joned forces with the Allies to defeat the Turks and the Ottoman Empire…this was a willing union, one negotiated at length and one in which Sykes-Picot ultimately had little to do with [The Arabs knew of Sykes-Picot before the Soviets ‘exposed’ the deal…they were negotiating around its terms before then as revealed by Lawrence of Arabia in his letters…if only Bowen had read them]…the layout of the Middle East was in the end the result of long negotiations post-war involving all sides including Turkey…Turkey which insisted the Kurdish areas were to be part of Iraq so that no Kurdish state would be created. The local leaders welcomed the British to maintain an ‘interest’ in their countries, helping to keep order and build infrastructure, knowing that the agreement was the Brits would leave in several years time. This was not an ‘occupation’ nor a tyrannical imposition by a colonialist master of borders ‘crudely drawn with chinagraph pencils’ that ‘carved up the Middle East’.
In March 1921, Lawrence travelled to Cairo with Churchill, to create a new settlement. With the Arabs they created a new order. Feisal, recently banished from Syria, received the throne of Iraq and British troops were removed.
Feisal’s brother, Abdullah, received the throne of Transjordan. Lawrence was convinced this settlement gave the Arabs all Britain had ever promised.
Finally, his long war was over. ‘
Lawrence himself said in letters to trusted friends…..
‘The settlement which Winston (mainly because my advocacy supplied him with all the technical advice and arguments necessary) put through in 1921 and 1922 was, I think, the best possible settlement which Great Britain, alone, could achieve at the time.’
‘As I get further and further away from things the more completely do I feel that our efforts during the war have justified themselves and are proving happier and better than I’d ever hoped.’
The Sunday Telegraph had a book review of ‘Baghdad’ by Justin Marozzi…it tells a much more rounded tale of the history of the Middle East….
Baghdad, long portrayed as the centre of the Muslim ‘golden age of science’ had, of course, a much more chequered history, most of it soaked in blood…and much of that ‘science’ being inherited by the Muslim conquerors fom the previous civilisations and kept alive by Christian and Jewish scientists and scholars….‘much of this was in spite of Islam, not because of it.’
What it also says, which is of interest here, is that after WWI the British took over and ‘busily set about improving things, from sanitation, bridge building and road repairs to irrigation, constitutions and government’….also stopping cruelty to animals and abolishing slavery that was still rampant there.
History is not what the BBC so often likes to portray. Which brings us onto Mardell’s Britain ‘greedy for oil’ comment with which he pins the blame for the Middle East’s troubles on.
Oil played little part in the thinking. The only known oil was in Iran at the time. Iraq was suspected to have oil…only found in 1927, and the Brits, so greedy for oil, gave Iraq independence in 1932.
The Arabian peninsular was also known to have areas where oil was seeping from the ground and yet was not added to the Imperial ‘want list’, being allowed to form its own government.
Another book, this time in the Sunday Times, reveals the BBC’s anti-British narrative…..here’s what the Times said about that ‘infamous carving up of the Middle East’ narrative favoured by terrorists and the BBC….
ISIS proclaimed itself as the Islamic State caliphate with two propaganda videos, one of which was entitled ‘The End of Sykes-Picot’.….a gunman in the video said ‘This is the so-called border of Sykes-Picot. We don’t recognise it, and we will never recognise it……Inshallah we break other borders also but we start with this one Inshallah.’
The Sykes-Picot agreement is thus an integral part of ISIS’s philosophy of hatred and resentment…..‘feeding people’s own narratives of themselves as playthings of outsiders.’
However, ISIS’s Sykes-Picot narrative is a myth, as the historian Sean McMeekein has persuasively argued in his book, The Ottoman Endgame.
ISIS’s propaganda ‘bears little resemblance to the history on which it is ostensibly based. The partition of the Ottoman empire was not settled bilaterally by Britain and France in 1916 but rather at a multinational conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1923’. Neither Sykes nor Picot played a significant role at Lausanne where the dominant figure was Kemal Attaturk, the Turkish nationalist leader.
‘Even in 1916,’ McMeekin points out, ‘Sykes and Picot played second and third fiddle to Russian foreign minister Sergei Sazonov who was the real driving force.’
‘None of the most notorious post-Ottoman borders were drawn by Sykes and Picot…even the ones they did sketch out were jettisoned after the war.’
In short, the ISIS myth about the Sykes-Picot agreement might animate its followers profoundly, but historically it is simply bunk.
Simply bunk….the ISIS/BBC/Bowen narrative, simply bunk. Dangerous bunk but bunk.
The BBC encouraging and feeding the Jihadist line….more recruits…terror in Syria, terror on the streets of Britain.
Hilariously the BBC told us that…
The creation of the Middle East editor’s job in 2005 had “significantly improved the BBC’s coverage of the ‘Arab world’.”
If the BBC saw the above they would surely be outraged and fill the airwaves with tales of Far-Right hate speech as they did after Brexit….question is would they if it was done by one, or many, of Corbyn’s stormtrooper supporters?
Barnett asked Corbyn today if he knew what the cost of his childcare policy would be…he didn’t know….apparently this was akin to the Jewish Barnett bombing Muslim children in a Gaza hospital…or so it would seem judging by the Fuerhious abuse she has received for having the nerve to ask the Leader a simple question that he should have been able to answer without problem….Guido reveals…
Back in 2014 Barnett herself revealed the truth about the New Europe and the Left’s response…
Where is the hand-wringing from the liberal Left about this new wave of anti-Semitism? To Mira Bar-Hillel, and others, I’d say this: British Jews aren’t scared to talk to each other about the situation in Israel. We’re becoming scared to talk at all.
The BBC has been very quiet on this, reluctant to dig too far into those anti-Semites in the labour Party itself and not ascribing the real cause of the rise in anti-Semitism that is sweeping Europe again…Barnett in her Telegraph piece was not so shy….
Many [Jews} are just scared – scared not just about events in Gaza, but events in Europe. These include reports about gangs of Muslims chanting “death to Jews” on the streets of France, and attacking synagogues and setting fire to Jewish-owned stores. Eighteen people were subsequently arrested in the suburb of Sarcelles, just outside Paris, where this particular outpouring of violence happened. The stunned local mayor says the Jewish community is now living in fear.
Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Germany, too. In Essen, 14 people have just been arrested, accused of plotting an attack on a synagogue. Protesters at a rally in Berlin turned on two Israeli tourists (identifiable by the man’s skull-cap) so viciously that they had to be protected by the police. The city’s authorities have also had to ban pro-Gaza protesters from chanting anti-Semitic slogans and are investigating a sermon last week by Abu Bilal Ismail calling on worshippers at Berlin’s Al-Nur mosque to murder Jews. Jews, not Israelis.
It has often been pointed out that the real threat to the West is not Islamic violence, the Hoy War ‘Jihad’, but the cultural Jihad in which Islam slowly builds a dominant position through a process of demographic change, population increase, the cultural cringe of those afraid to ‘offend’ and not stand up for their own values and culture, a fear of the ‘native’ Establishment of being called racist/Islamophobic and thus refusing to challenge Muslim behaviour as well as granting special, favoured status upon Muslims….ala Rochdale or Rotherham or where they are promoted to positions, such as the Chair of the Tory Party, that are only given because of the supposed need to appease and placate the Muslim ‘community’. Then there is the practice of Muslim lawfare and media Jihad where Muslim activists launch endless legal challenges to any laws or regulations or inhibitions placed upon them that restrict their desire to practice their religion completely as they like as well as an orchestrated campaign of intimidation against media organisations in order to scare them into not publishing or broadcasting anything that reflects badly on Islam and Muslims.
Yet again it is the Daily Politics, Jo Coburn this time, the female Andrew Neil, that asks the hard and ‘controversial’ [for the BBC] questions.
The MCB naturally doesn’t complain about the airwaves being filled with a relentless stream of pro-Islam programmes from the BBC or the more usual constant reassurances the BBC serves up about the ‘religion of peace’ as well as the excuses and downplaying of Islamically inspired terrorism and the support for the Islamist narrative that Muslims are victims of the West and that all the problems in the Middle East and further field [Manchester] can be traced back to ‘duplicitous British’ activities over the last century…as Jeremy Bowen tells us.
As Boris said medieval ‘Islam’, not violent Jihad, may well be the actual problem…incompatible as it is with Western, progressive, liberal values.
Sara Khan demonstrates the problem…she’s not violent, she’s not ‘radical’, she in fact campaigns against such things…an yet…and yet…she still adheres strongly to the ‘Faith’….a faith that has some extraordinarily unpleasant and violent commands which just aren’t part of other religions. Does she consider herself Muslim first or British? An important consideration and test of identity when it comes to foreign policy….do you oppose ‘British’ foreign policy because it, in your opinion, impacts badly upon Muslim countries…and oppose it solely on the basis of those countries being Muslim? You have chosen your dominant identity then…Muslim first…your loyalty is to the ‘Ummah’ not Britain. Which could be a problem.
The BBC’s programme ‘Muslims Like Us’ was very instructive and showed the reality….even the ‘westernised’ Muslims were Muslim first and held strong views antagonistic to British foreign policy and culture…. ‘British values for me are colonialism, institutional racism and theft, and genocide.’ What it also showed was how a minority of extremists could dominate the community as the less ‘radical’ and less determined backed away from confrontation and let the radicals dominate and control the house.
The programme of course wasn’t meant to develop like that…as I’ve said before...’Far from turning people’s perceptions about Islam and Muslims on their heads this programme just reinforces them’…..It shone a light, unexpectedly I’m sure, onto some dark secrets that need to be discussed….and that’s where the likes of Douglas Murray come in saying the ‘unsayable’ unless the MCB gets their way.
From the Spectator…Douglas Murray and Haras Rafiq [not Mehdi Hasan as in the photo]….note Rafiq saying the problem stems from within those Muslim ‘community leaders’ and groups who have access to the ‘Establishment’ and thus have the influence to ensure the narrative is theirs, and who are homophobic, anti-semitic, who create the victim mentality, the otherisation…it is not Al Qaeda or ISIS that radicalises Muslims, they merely tip over the edge Muslims who are under the sway of those ‘community leaders’ who thrive on identity politics, those who create the ‘prism’ that so many Muslims see the world through such as the West is bad and the cause of all the Muslim world’s problems..and ISIS says ‘thankyou very much’….which is pretty much what we’ve said and urged the BBC to consider…the root cause is ‘Islam’ and the values it instils and the identity and loyalty it creates…not all Muslims are terrorists but most terrorists right now are Muslim…because of that command in the Koran to ‘defend’ Islam and the false belief that Islam is under attack.
Who was right…The EDL’s Tommy Robinson who argued we had to combat Islamic extremism or Lord Hall whose organisation worked relentlessly to cover up and excuse that extremism and present it as a ‘normal’ British way of life whilst vilifying and demonising Robinson?
Nothing ‘normal’ about this attack on the British way of life…..
These are some of the Muslim practices that the ‘moderate’ and most representative Muslim organisation in Britain, the MCB, demanded in 2007 that schools adopt in what turned out to be its ‘blueprint’ for the Trojan Horse plot…it’s based around blackmail…adopt Muslim practice or Muslims will become alienated and, left unspoken, the threat is…they will become radicalised….music is the devil’s work….Manchester was chosen because of its cultural implications…young people out freely enjoying themselves, boys and girls together enjoying a music concert…it’s not just violent extremists who object…..Muslims should not give up or compromise any of their beilefs or values…it is for the British to do that….
Failure to recognise and affirm, or even worse the creation of situations involving conflicts of belief or conscience is likely to have an alienating effect where pupils may feel that they are not valued and may give rise to inappropriate assumptions that in order to progress in society they will have to compromise or give up aspects of who they are, and their religious beliefs and values.
Schools are asked to respect these views and principles, which are held sincerely on the grounds of conscience, and to honour parents’ wishes by not placing pupils in situations of religious and moral compromise. Whilst Muslims have no wish to constrain the freedom of others, they would urge schools toorganise and manage physical education so that pupils can choose other acceptable formsof activity, for example, athletics, games, gymnastics, outdoor and adventurous activities andswimming within the curriculum.
“All forms of music that may include the use of obscene and blasphemous language, encourage or promote immoral behaviour, arouse lustful feelings, encourage the consumption of intoxicants and drugs or contain unethical and un-Islamic lyrics would be considered objectionable. For this reason some Muslim parents may express concerns in the way music is taught in school and the extent to which their children may participate in it. Some Muslims may hold a very conservative attitude towards music and may seek to avoid it altogether, not wishing their children to participate in school music lessons. In such cases the school can show great understanding by providing alternative musical learning opportunities.”
It is also important, in schools where there are no Muslims, for all pupils to learn about Islam.
It is not permissible for Muslims to actively participate in non-Islamic acts of worship.
Girls should be covered except for their hands and faces, a concept known as ‘hijab’.
The most suitable sportswear for boys and girls that respects the requirements of Islamic modesty is a tracksuit and in addition for girls a headscarf tied in a safe and secure manner.
Any decision by Muslim pupils to manifest their religion by growing a beard should be respected by their school.
School makes arrangements for their Muslim pupils who wish to perform daily prayers in school.
School allocates a regular place for the daily prayers that fall within school time.
School ensures washing facilities are available, preferably in close proximity to the prayer area.
School builds or adapts a washing facility in the toilet areas where pupils can conveniently make ablution which includes washing of the feet.
Schools can recognise and celebrate the Eid festivals by highlighting the importance of the message of Eid through collective worship and assemblies. Schools may want to share sweetsamongst all children to mark this event. In addition, schools may make the normal school mealsa special Eid meal for all the children
Some sports involve physical contact with other team players, for example basketball and football. Most Muslim parents would find it objectionable for boys and girls to play such sports in mixedgender groups. Schools can respond positively to this concern by making sure that contact sports are always in single-gender groups.
Given the choice between mixed or single-sex swimming, Muslim parents would always opt for a wholly single-sex environment for swimming.
Dance is one of the activity areas of the national curriculum for physical education. Muslims consider that most dance activities, as practised in the curriculum, are not consistent with the Islamic requirements for modesty as they may involve sexual connotations and messages when performed within mixed-gender groups or if performed in front of mixed audiences.
Sex and relationship education (SRE) is taught in single-sex groups, by a teacher of the same gender.
The use of sexually explicit videos, pictures and objects are avoided as aids for the teaching of SRE.
School takes account of Muslim sensitivities and sensibilities with respect to sexual morality and includes Islamic moral perspectives when teaching SRE to Muslim pupils.
Schools should consider giving Muslim pupils the opportunity to study Arabic and/or other languages relevant to their family background.
I haven’t watched the BBC’s three part series on the events in Rochdale, I know what happened and why…and I know why the BBC has produced this programme as it comes so late to the party….Do we need pious, self-serving BBC shows to teach us anything?
The Authorities, and that includes the BBC, buried their heads in the sand for years as hundreds of white girls, maybe up to 2,000, were abused by mostly Pakistani men….the reason? Maybe because first they just didn’t care about what they undoubtedly saw as ‘poor white trash’ and second they baulked at having to tackle something that had obvious undertones of race or religion….they would rather see these girls get raped and abused than have to ‘upset’ the Muslim community…this of course has resonance now in a parallel scenario as the BBC has a similar cultural cringe in regard to Muslim political violence and its connection to Islamic teaching.
Now the BBC has leapt nobly to the girls’ defence and has brought their plight to our attention…years too late. What is the point of this programme now? It is little more than some kind of perverse entertainment, a horror show exploiting the very real abuse and suffering those girls went through. It is in reality a ‘political’ programme as the BBC presents itself as an exposer of abuse and Establishment indifference and cowardice, holding Power to account….neglecting to mention that the BBC was part of that itself.
The Sunday Times believes the BBC is ducking the issue of race and is indeed engaged in massaging the truth for the ‘good of the community’….it also doesn’t think the programme was particularly brilliant, ITV’s ‘Little Boy Blue’ being better….‘superior for having sharper pacing, more efficient use of characters and more obvious moral knots’.
As said not seen either of these but maybe you have…comment below.
The Times goes on…
‘As a document it was noble; as a drama, a little dull. Three Girls left me morally uneasy…placing the story of the victims front and centre but the other key aspect of the case, the profile of the abusers, remained secondary. Only at the end of the final episode did we see a somewhat stagy face-off between members of the local Pakistani community. The reason this case was exceptional was because the culprits were exceptional too. This was what made your eyes twitch, your mouth tighten, whenever you read about it, regardless of your political persuasion. By sidelining the race issue the show also sidelined a whole community: the British Pakistanis, good and bad, remained peripheral yet agaiin. I’m not sure this helps anyone in the long run.
This was very much Auntie placing a calming hand over proceedings. She couldn’t stomach anything else, for now.’
Auntie always the same…Islam ‘The Religion of Peace’….ducking the issue….until it is forced upon you…and then what? No good producing a programme showing how it all went wrong when the Extremists have won and now rule the roost.
The BBC, most recently in the shape of Mardell and Bowen, disregard history and context at will in order to push a particular narrative of events in the Middle East. They should realise that the ISIS blitz is an echo from the past…a modern day recreation of the first Islamic conquests by Muhammed…..the difference being that ISIS are unlikely to succeed long term considering the number and power of its opponents should they have the will to combat them.
Last night Channel 4 broadcast a deep and seriously important programme. ‘Isis: The Origins of Violence’ was written and presented by the historian Tom Holland and can be viewed (by British viewers) here.
In a nutshell he posed the question ‘Why do Isis, and groups like Isis, do what they do?’ And he answers this with the only honest answer anybody interested in truth could possibly come back with – which is that although they may be inspired by many things, their most important inspiration is a version of Islam whose roots can be traced to the origins of the religion, its foundational texts and the behaviour of Mohammed.
In a profoundly moving sequence, picking his way up a demolished street, on the lookout for explosives amid the rubble, Holland speaks to camera. What he said needs thinking about:
‘There are things in the past that are like unexploded bombs that just lie in wait in the rubble, and then something happens to trigger them. And there are clearly verses in the Koran and stories that are told about Mohammed that are very like mines waiting to go off – Improvised Explosive Devices. And they can lie there maybe for centuries and then something happens to trigger them and you get this.’
The documentary will doubtless have many detractors from the many people – non-Muslim as well as Muslim – who want to cover over those IEDs. Holland’s documentary profoundly and carefully reveals why this is such a terrible mistake, and why from London and Paris to Istanbul and Mosul, the effects of failing to be honest in our assessment of the past has such serious repercussions for our present and future.
Finally it is worth saying that Channel 4 deserve a huge amount of credit for having the commitment to public broadcasting demonstrated by their commissioning and airing of such a documentary. Meanwhile, I see that the BBC has commissioned Nadiya Hussain, from the Great British Bake Off, to present a documentary about the wonders of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (where of course non-Muslims are forbidden to go). I wonder whether during that documentary Nadiya will make any acknowledgement of the IEDs of her faith? Or whether the BBC will continue to ignore the vast leaps forward in public knowledge demonstrated, and led, by Channel 4 and a few brave individuals like Tom Holland.
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Recent Comments
Rob in Cheshire May 1, 2024 at 11:57 am on Midweek 1st May 2024Lessons will be learned.
Rob in Cheshire May 1, 2024 at 11:55 am on Midweek 1st May 2024I do look back in anger. Does that make me a bad person? I do hope I don't incur the...
Rob in Cheshire May 1, 2024 at 11:54 am on Midweek 1st May 2024I don't think the establishment is afraid of her now, she is bought and paid for. The one thing you...
Rob in Cheshire May 1, 2024 at 11:52 am on Midweek 1st May 2024"The Party of Public Sector Paper Shufflers, Work From Homers and Diversity Managers" is longer, but more accurate.
tomo May 1, 2024 at 11:49 am on Midweek 1st May 2024Standard BBC fare ain't it? poop 'n scoot with the agenda - less than .001% of the listeners (left) will...
Docmarooned May 1, 2024 at 11:38 am on Midweek 1st May 2024Tomo - of course the vile racist muslim has no decency.
Fedup2 May 1, 2024 at 11:37 am on Midweek 1st May 2024I think the identity will be withheld - mental issues - trial - plead diminished responsibility - gets away with...
MarkyMark May 1, 2024 at 11:34 am on Midweek 1st May 2024"The BBC brought human rights lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie onto the Today Programme this morning to chat about the first voluntary...
Fedup2 May 1, 2024 at 11:34 am on Midweek 1st May 2024Not BBC - YouTube - if you appreciate good free films - try ‘12 o ‘clock high’ ….. it’s about...
MarkyMark May 1, 2024 at 11:32 am on Midweek 1st May 2024Mental Health Lone Wolf? Run.Hide.Tell.
