Birds of a feather……Jon Donnison thinks this is superb journalism from the great James O’Brien, the man who ‘masterminded’ the kangaroo court for Nigel Farage…..
Superb MT @AudreyCarville A masterclass in how to deal with people demanding Muslims apologise for #Charliehebdo http://t.co/ujJzB3csF8”
— Jon Donnison (@jondonnisonbbc) January 10, 2015
If that’s what Donnison calls a masterclass in journalism…well compared to his I guess it might be.
O’Brien is his usual smug, intolerant, incoherent and illogical self….very amusing to hear him as he preens and puffs himself up as the intellectual giant in the conversation. Sure the other guy is lost for words but then he’s an amateur not a ‘master’ of the medium as O’Brien is, well practised in dissembling and aggressive obfuscation.
Supposedly a journalist would be trying to encourage a caller to articulate what they mean, helping them make their point. O’Brien in contrast thinks it is his job, if you have views he doesn’t like, to belittle you and say things of such monumental stupidity that they stun you into a confused silence as you try to work out if O’Brien is really that stupid or is just acting the prat.
The caller suggested that perhaps Muslims as a ‘community’ should apologise for the terrorism in France done in the name of their religion.
O’Brien thinks not.
O’Brien makes a bizarre comparison and asks if all Geordies should apologise for something done by a Geordie, or, as the caller is called Richard, all ‘Richards’ should apologise for the shoebomber Richard Reid.
The caller seemed flummoxed…but that didn’t make him wrong of course, just startled and tongue-tied by O’Brien’s outlandish kookiness. O’Brien does what the BBC does all the time, ignore the ideology that the people follow and assume being a Muslim is just the same as being White for instance…..purely a feature of your physical identity with no ideology behind it, Islam being a ‘race’. Such a progressive intellect as O’Brien would surely recognise that skin colour cannot be used as an identifier of a person’s thoughts, actions or beliefs…such profiling is racist…but an ideology might, just might, indicate your beliefs and thereby your actions.
Being a Muslim is of course somewhat more meaningful than having a particular skin colour…there are rules. Don’t follow them and you’re not a Muslim. Follow them and you are.
Which brings us to the point…should Muslims apologise?
They choose to be Muslim, they choose to follow a religion that has some very obvious and unpleasant beliefs that fly in the face of a secular, democratic, liberal, progressive society.
Do they do anything to change that religion?
If not then perhaps they should apologise for what is done in their religion’s name using commands that come from the Koran itself.
They should perhaps acknowledge the problems inherent in their religion and spell out exactly what they are doing to change it.
When so many Mosques are known to be the source of so much ‘radicalisation’, otherwise known as following the fundamentals of your religion, and do so by quoting from the Koran and Hadith, the touchstones of Islam, then there is a problem.
If everytime someone criticises Islam and Muslims set up a hue and cry declaiming about Islamophia they are defending that status quo…and so should not complain when people say hang on, you’re defending the very verses and beliefs that are being used to give divine sanction to those who terrorise us….any wonder people might argue that Muslims should feel embarrassed by their religion and might consider apologising for acts done in order to further its interests…..especially when so many of those Muslims would be happy to take advantage of the benefits that come their way as a result of the terrorism as the politicians crumble and start making concessions to their religion… politically, socially and legally?
Happy to take the benefits reaped from terror but not the responsibility for the wrongs.
Some might say.
Interesting as well that O’Brien, for the purposes of his argument, has decided that there is no such thing as an overarching ‘Muslim community’. Funny how, when it suits, ‘Muslims’ are offended and insulted by cartoons…and ‘Muslims’ must be protected from Islamophobic attacks.
So ‘Muslims’ have no need to apologise, but ‘Muslims’ can be offended as a group?
The Metropolitan Police were labelled ‘institutionally racist’….why then is it not conceivable that Islam can be labelled ‘Institutionally’ a system of beliefs that creates the necessary mindsets that encourage acts of terror, or anti-Semitism or homophobia or misogyny? Not all police officers, hardly any in fact, will be racist, and yet they were so labelled. Hardly any Muslims are terrorists and yet……O’Brien would be outraged by the suggestion that Islam is institutionally terrorist, I suspect not so outraged about the police being labelled racist.
Guess this was just another ‘job interview’ for the BBC…I think he will have passed….sure to be appearing on Newsnight once again very soon.
Apologise? Who knows, but you could make a case for it, a better case than for not apologising….not responsible for the terrorist’s actions but responsible for upholding the teachings and beliefs that give sanction to their terrorism? But you have the problem of the lip-service Muslims, the cultural Muslims, the semi-practising Muslims. Just how Muslim would you have to be?
Best let sleeping dogs lie…however I profusely apologise for slavery (only practised by whitey), Christian sex abuse scandals, the potato famine, colonialism and One Direction….oh and not forgetting global warming!
Berk. By his ‘large apples vs. small oranges’ logic, HE should apologise for muslim terrorism as he is as much a member of homo sapiens sapiens as they are.
So, now we have established where the blame lies, what is he going to do about stopping muslim terrorism?
Anyone who considers this a masterclass in anything other than being stupid needs help. Zero logic in JO’Bs argument.
I would like to see how this lightweight would stand up to Douglas Murray.
All communities have their extremists. I have heard with my own ears – and this is quite true – British politicians speak out in favour of mass immigration and multiculturalism, which are clearly views that most ordinary people find abhorrent. It is up to the rest of us to speak up and say ‘No, not in my name’.
The Left have no problem in blaming an entire group; hence all whites are racist, all men are rapists and so on. So they can hardly criticise others for doing likewise.
Of course, all Muslims are not responsible. As with any group of people – and Muslims do not constitute a single, coherent body – the vast majority are primarily concerned with making a living for themselves and their families. It is a small minority that causes the problem, but that minority is determined and has Western political elites in their thrall and fear. But to say it is nothing to do with Islam is ridiculous. We may say that such people are wrong, or wicked, or unrepresentative. But when a guy fires a gun shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ or ‘The prophet is avenged’ then he believes that he is following Islam and we need to acknowledge that is his motivation.
You are right, I met someone at GAY in Soho last night who hates ABBA.
I’ve always found it par for the course that a vast amount of Muslims have no problem with the Holocaust.
The wife of a Jihadi terrorist is currently appealing sentence for refusing to cooperate with the Police when she returned from France from a visit.
Her legal fees are being covered by the Al Qa’eda front group ‘Cagedprisoners’ *and the Muslim Council of Britain.
I think the terrorism in Paris has a lot to do with a *lot of Muslims.
The Muslim precept of Taqqiya permits Muslims to drink alchohol and eat pork if it’s going to throw the infidel enemy off the scent at time of need, I think the condemnation of the Paris terrorism we’ve heard from the MCB should be viewed in that context when they’re faciliating the non-cooperation of a terrorists’ wife with the police.
European Guantanamo now.
I do not listen to programmes like this very often because the presenters drive me to distraction with their warped left-wing views on *everything* that seems important to me, and people like me, in the present day UK.
What I do wonder, having now listened to the excerpt you posted, and which led Mr. Donnison to label this extremely shallow denigration of a listener’s point of view as “a masterclass” …
… Well, I just wonder …
How many more callers, perhaps a little more articulate than the man in the audio clip, who are prepared to challenge the likes of James O’Brien, then fall at the first hurdle? I have never tried to phone such programmes but I am led to believe that anyone calling in must first go through a kind of “vetting” as regards their question(s), their thoughts, and other pertinent points of their call.
I suspect – though I have no proof – that anyone calling in who can “give as good as he gets” to the interviewer, is probably “weeded out” on his/her initial phone call and never gets on air?
I wonder if anyone here *has* tried to call these alleged “discussion” programmes and what has been the result?
Just seen the bbc’s warped views on ‘freedom of speech’…giving muslims in France the right to defend their right to air their views on the Charlie Hebdo cartoons? Absolute joke.
The bbc is as bad as nazislam in forcing their scum views on people who simply don’t want it.
Yes, I notice that many of their “reports”/”interviews”/”fact finding/”blah … blah … blah” programmes always seem to concentrate on the *POSSIBLE* anti-Muslim backlash.
Now, if they went back over all of their archives where they had expressed this fear in the past, they would plainly see that, *HOWEVER* bloodthirsty/bad/evil the original Muslim/Islamist atrocity has been, no one in this country has *EVER* perpetrated a serious backlash against the Muslim community, no matter how evil the Muslim atrocity was in the first place.
There may have been a few foolish examples, like throwing pigs’ heads at mosques etc., but there has *NEVER, EVER* been a bloodthirsty search for revenge comparable to Muslim/Islam atrocitities.
We need a backlash against Muslims talking about a ‘Muslim backlash’ after terrorist incidents.
Fears of a “backlash” against Muslims? That will explain why “5,000 police have been deployed to protect Jewish schools”. (Sky News)
James O’Brian the Marxist who thinks so much of himself always answers a difficult question with another question. He couldn’t even explain what Socialism is: saying that it was free schools and free hospitals. So it must be better than anything else. Awful man. Has a clever mouth but little else.
He certainly THINKS he’s clever .
But the truth is , he uses his little GCSE philosophy arguing tricks to belittle ONLY the inarticulate and the ill-informed ,the same as most L BC presenters do these days(ref. Ferrari, Hoskins etc).
Any well-informed articulate contributors are (if they are lucky enough to scrape through the various PC assistants who preface these radio phone-in shows) just allowed to make a short statement and then cut off ,as the presenters don’t want to be bested by people with more knowledge or insight .
How LBC has deteriorated since the good old days-it’s now on Aljabeeba’s wavelength,blatantly shops for the immigrant listeners, and is not worth listening to.
Other side of the coin….Comrade Donaldson would be horrified by this…
Book that interviewer for Radio 5 Live!!!!!
(I wish!)
Been good to stay away from the news these last few days.
Don`t need to see anything…only hear that “Western leaders” will march in Paris to show solidarite.
No-not the earth changing, life risking, wall smashing type of revolution that the mighty Lech and the Poles fought and died for in 1980-89.
But the Russell Brand satanic inverted. perverted parody we now have instead.
Riddle me this…did any “Western leader”-let alone any offshoot from the Champs D`Elysee prancing pervert retail therapy stroll leave those safe arrondisements where French law sill runs?
Did they set a foot into any of the Sharia-compliant zones where whitey don`t go…where the BBC never set a microphone…where basically, Islam reigns and the white liberals beg permission to wave a white flag under a black one?
Nah, course not-ponce down by the Arc De Triomphe on a cardbaord camel as their gay others blag a Cartier watch at our expense.
Bin Laden now proves to be right-the weak white horse of the West is snivelling around the Fray Bentos processing plant, hoping to be minced into a sustainably-sourced tin…and offering passing children that their Savilisation has yet to corrupt.
Not happening Bub…the BBCs “balls”-well playdo facsimiles…are on Salomes platter…we who know the one true God have nothing to fear…
Still eh?…Hebdo served the lilylivers as the carcass that might attact the blowflies of Islam….we`ll not forget how cheaply they were sold the mortuary pass to assuage the likes of Hollande and Sadiq Khan.
Note-not a peep from Labour over any of this…
A masterclass in debunking Alan.
Alan,
“[Muslims] should perhaps acknowledge the problems inherent in their religion and spell out exactly what they are doing to change it.”
Strange I don’t seem to remember you apologising for the actions of Anders Breivik. No, quite the contrary; you blamed Islam.
Upon his conviction your first words were; “There clearly needs to be a debate about immigration and Islam…”. Followed by a 5,000 word justification of Breivik’s ideology;
“….are they extreme…or mainstream? I would guess that the majority of British people hold similar views on immigration and Islam.”
You re-printed part of Breivik’s manifesto and referred to it as; “clear, logical and sensible”. Quoted a piece (against Muslims – so it’s okay) by the 19th Century, White-Suprematist, Anti-Semetic philosopher Ernest Renan.
And you excused Brevik’s murderous rampage;
“Remember one of the survivors of the shooting also stated that what Breivik did was the logical outcome of his views and how Norwegian society treated him and those views.”
“He therefore expressed himself in what he felt was the only way left to him”.
Strange how you and others on this blog can so easily find justification for killing when it suits, but proclaim moral superiority when other arseholes do exactly the same.
The problems with Islam go well beyond last week’s events in Paris: Boko Haram, ISIS, the Taliban, not to mention the repressive regimes in the Middle East and the spread of Sharia in Indonesia. Which Islamic idyll would be your choice for an alternative lifestyle, dezzz?
And that’s before we start on the problems we face with the separatist enclaves in this country that have virtually become mini-Pakistans or Bangladeshes or Somalias, all thriving on your enforced, undemocratic multiculti dream, Dez – our nightmare.
And you compare all that to one atrocity, one backlash by one individual against the deliberate destruction of his own country’s culture by a bunch of European left-liberal totalitarians who have brainwashed their youth into believing all cultures are equal and can live side by side, on terms which disadvantage the indigenous population?
Still, nice to see you’ve finally popped your head above the parapet again now that the BBC has firmly re-established its ‘this is nothing to do with Islam’ narrative.
After all these years Dez you still haven’t got the idea of this blog….it’s about BBC bias.
In Breivik’s case it was demonstrating how the BBC demonised him and his views whilst conversely trying to excuse Islamist terrorists.
And so let’s have a look at a couple of your cherry pickings…
‘ Quoted a piece (against Muslims – so it’s okay) by the 19th Century, White-Suprematist, Anti-Semetic philosopher Ernest Renan.’
Well yes…but it’s not against Muslims but against Islam and the small group of fanatics who create trouble for the ‘moderate Muslim’..sound familiar?
“Muslims,” wrote the philosopher Ernest Renan, “are the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels in the Orient that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain the others in the practice of religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him.”
And what of this from you:
‘You re-printed part of Breivik’s manifesto and referred to it as; “clear, logical and sensible”. ‘
Well have a read….and I think you’ll find it wasn’t my quote but a psychiatrist’s assessment…but you know that and told a little porkie didn’t you Dez.
‘Naturally, terrorists can wrap themselves around any religious ideology and twist it to suit their purposes. Islamism, certainly in the west, is not the predominant interpretation of the faith because many believe it involves a distortion of Islam’s true message. Nor does Islam have any monopoly on religious violence or fundamentalist intolerance.
Killing in the name of God has been going on for centuries, and within a multiplicity of faiths.
But Islamist terrorists are more than just disturbed freaks with an opportunist attachment to their religion. They are part of a global movement arising within Islamic civilisation, which is thoroughly embedded in the tenets and concepts of the faith.’
Sounds fair enough to me, and pretty multicultural in spreading the blame.
And then you go right off the deep end with this…
‘…you excused Brevik’s murderous rampage’
Really? I don’t think you will find anywhere where I excused the killing of 77 people by Breivik.
And if you were more honest Dez you would have quoted the whole thing…because it was a psychiatrist and a survivor of the shooting who made the assessments of Breivik’s political views…..
‘One psychiatrist brought on by the BBC told us he had read all the manifesto and found it ‘clear, logical and sensible’….if you held the views Breivik did. Remember one of the survivors of the shooting also stated that what Breivik did was the logical outcome of his views and how Norwegian society treated him and those views.’
You should then have quoted this but you didn’t:
‘The BBC condemn him but weren’t so judgemental when the Today programme brought on Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground, a self-described communist revolutionary group that conducted a campaign of bombing public buildings during the 1960s and 1970s in response to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and who said ‘it is part of the democratic process to bomb, if democracy is not very robust’.’
That illustrates why the matter was raised….comparing the BBC’s acceptance of Bill Ayre’s terrorism when he believed democracy failed him and he wasn’t listened to…the same belief that enraged Breivik…that no one was listening.
Here’s the post for anyone who is interested to read for themselves…I note you didn’t bother to link to it Dez. Reason for that? Such as your claims are about as seaworthy as the Titanic.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2905372/It-lazy-claim-Paris-terror-attacks-Islam-British-Muslims-need-tackle-extremism-says-minister.html. read this and.educate your james obrien,
I suppose it’s wrong but I hate people like him(regardless of politics, although they always seem to lean to the left)
He should come to a working-class pub, here in S. Wales, and talk like that. We’d give him a master-class.
BB C SENDS COMPETITIVE GRIEVING EXPERTS TO AID FRENCH
GOV ERNMENT ,ADVISES ISSUE OF BULLET-STOPPING T-SHIRTS TO POPULATION
i was going to go on a long rant against james leftist obrien,then again,why feed this idiots ego,the mans just a non entity and a bore.