Islam’s Very Own ‘Charlie Hebdo’

 

 

 

The Russians and the Islamists crushing the civilised man in 1907…how relevant for today.

 


How Muslim Azerbaijan had satire years before Charlie Hebdo

An Azeri woman points to a building with windows, which is a prison, while on their right is a house of Muslim women with none. Picture: Courtesy of the Azerbaijan National Library.     In this cartoon, the magazine depicts a prison with windows and a house of Muslim women with none

More than 100 years before militant Islamist gunmen murdered journalists at France’s satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, another magazine very similar in style was playing an important role among the Muslim populations of both the Russian and Persian empires.

Azerbaijani weekly magazine Molla Nasreddin was revolutionary for its time, bravely ridiculing clerics and criticising the political elite as well as the Russian Tsar and the Shah of Persia.

Founded in 1906, it pulled no punches in tackling geopolitical events and also promoted women’s rights and Westernisation.

The editor-in-chief of the magazine was Jalil Mammadguluzadeh (known as Mirza Jalil), a famous Azerbaijani writer, who was also a well-known novelist.

In his book, The Dead, the main protagonist is a drunken atheist, treated as a madman for telling the truth about his backward society, where girls as young as nine are forced to marry 50-year-old men.

The magazine’s title, Molla Nasreddin, came from the name of the naive but wise mullah, famous throughout the Middle East for his anecdotes.

First issue of Molla Nasreddin magazine. 1906   First issue of Molla Nasreddin magazine. 1906

 

On the cover of the first issue, Molla Nasreddin is shown waking “the sleeping nations of the East”.

For more than 20 years, the magazine bearing his name would present the world to its readers through the medium of cartoons and text.

“The magazine’s first issue exploded like a bomb,” renowned writer Ebdurrehimbey Haqverdiyev recalled in his memoirs.

“Mullahs were saying that the magazine should not enter the house of any Muslim. If it does, they said, grab it with tongs and throw it down the toilet.”

“Keep the Holy Koran in a clean place” – the cartoon was describing a child, dogs and other creatures treated as dirt vs Koran in peoples' hands.    The cartoon describes a child, dogs and other creatures treated as dirt unlike the Koran in people’s hands.

 

Molla Nasreddin addressed uneducated Azerbaijanis, unlike other publications of the time, which were heavily influenced by Anatolian Turkish, Russian or Persian.

The texts were in simple language and the cartoons were easy to understand, often targeting clerics, which the magazine’s writers saw as the enemies of education and a secular society.

This cartoon from 1909 had a pretty short explanation: “Pilgrimage to Hajj”.     This 1909 cartoon, Pilgrimage to Hajj, had a pretty clear message

 

Mirza Jalil said his magazine was a product of its time, when the majority of the population was illiterate, ruled by the Russian and Persian empires and directed by religious leaders.

It was published in the Azerbaijani language (initially in Arabic script but later in Latin, with the start of the Soviet regime) but occasionally in Russian, too.

The following two cartoons are particularly forthright in the way they compare negatively the product of education at religious, “Asian schools” with the results from secular, European institutions.

The Asian school   Students enter an “Asian school” and leave as donkeys
The European school   Students enter a European school and leave as educated adults

 

 

Women were seen as having no rights in society or within their own families, and subject to oppression and beatings from their husbands.

The magazine clearly opposed the intervention of religion in the individual freedoms of a secular state.

In top cartoon a boy is born, in bottom a girl is born   In the top cartoon a boy is born, while below the father responds to the birth of a girl (1909)

 

But mocking clerics and campaigning for women’s rights came with its own risks.

Mullahs in Persia issued a fatwa calling for Mirza Jalil’s death. He was attacked in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, where the magazine was published, and constantly threatened. The city was then the cultural capital of Russia’s South Caucasus.

“Had I published the magazine not in Tbilisi but in Baku or Yerevan [capital of modern-day Armenia where Azerbaijanis made up the majority of the population at the time], they would have destroyed my office and killed me,” Jalil explained.

For many of its readers, the magazine opened a window on world politics, but in satirical language.

The cartoon below shows the Ottoman sultan, who was fighting to recover the island of Crete from the Greeks, being given a shower by the “Great Powers”.

"The Crete issue. No need to get too hot."   “The Crete issue. No need to get too hot.”

 

 

Mirza Jalil was influenced by Russian writers, including Gogol and Chekhov.

He had a team of great cartoonists, such as Oskar Schmerling, a German who lived in Tbilisi, and an Azeri, Azim Azimzadeh.

There were also satirical poets, including Mirza Alakbar Sabir, who would promote education and women’s rights in his poems, and many other bright minds.

The magazine played an important role in the foundation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918, which lasted just two years before the Bolshevik victory.

“Most of the ministers of the Democratic Republic were readers of Molla Nasreddin,” says Azerbaijani media expert Zeynal Mammadli.

1929 cartoon showing British Consul   This 1929 shows the “English Consul and his wife: in England (L) and in Iran (R)

 

 

The magazine campaigned for women’s rights and played an important part in women in Azerbaijan being granted the right to vote in 1919, at around the same time as women in the UK and US.

Sifting through old copies of the magazine in Azerbaijan’s National Library, it becomes clear how daring the writers and illustrators of Molla Nasreddin were.

In a 1929 edition, a cartoon was published of the Prophet Mohammad, although without depicting his face.

By this time Azerbaijan was a Soviet state and publication was taking place in the capital, Baku. Nevertheless, the majority of the population were still conservative Muslims.

The cartoon features a dialogue between Jesus and Muhammad and shows people drinking at Christmas.

It clearly poked fun at Muslims who drank, despite their religion prohibiting consumption of alcohol.

But the magazine was not to last.

By the early 1930s, the authorities told Mirza Jalil to change its name to Allahsiz (Godless) and follow the principles of Soviet ideology.

Unable to accept Soviet censorship, his relationship with the magazine came to an end.

The Ayatollah’s Feminist Streak

 

 

 

How soon the BBC forgets…

Execution of a teenage girl

On 15 August, 2004, Atefah Sahaaleh was hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka.

Her death sentence was imposed for “crimes against chastity”.

The state-run newspaper accused her of adultery and described her as 22 years old.

But she was not married – and she was just 16.

In a town like Neka, heavily under the control of religious authorities, Atefah – often seen wandering around on her own – was conspicuous.

It was just a matter of time before she came to the attention of the “moral police”, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, whose job it is to enforce the Islamic code of behaviour on Iran’s streets.

Secret relationship

Being stopped or arrested by the moral police is a fact of life for many Iranian teenagers.

Previously arrested for attending a party and being alone in a car with a boy, Atefah received her first sentence for “crimes against chastity” when she was just 13.

Although the exact nature of the crime is unknown, she spent a short time in prison and received 100 lashes.

 

 

 

Who knew?  The Iranian Islamic Revolution has freed women from their enslavement.

Craig at ‘Is the BBC biased?’ has a look at our old friend FOOC…

From this morning’s From Our Own Correspondent:

Kate Adie: Has the Ayatollah’s revolution in 1979 eventually helped Iranian women rather than hindered them?
The answer from FOOC was ‘yes’, it has helped them.

‘Quite apart from overthrowing the corrupt and brutal regime of the Shah, the revolution introduced education reforms which have been of particular benefit to women. Amy Guttman’s been underground in the Iranian capital to see what can be learned about the lot of women in Iran today.’

 

Having to go ‘underground’ says quite a lot about Iran doesn’t it!

Did education help these women?

 

The Bahai Martyrs

 

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, teaching school may be hazardous to your health, if you are of the wrong religious faith. One would hope that in the modern world the horror stories of Christians being fed to the lions and Jews and Muslims being tortured on the rack would be a thing of the past. In Iran, the nightmare world of religious persecution is alive and well.

These young women of the Baha’i faith were convicted of the crime of teaching in a Bahai religious school and hanged in Shiraz Iran on June 18, 1983.

The women, ages 17 to 57, were led to the gallows one after the other. As there is “no compulsion in religion” under Islam, it is interesting that authorities were apparently hoping that as each woman saw the others slowly strangle to death, they would renounce their own faith. A rather persuasive argument of the superiority of Islam. But according to eyewitnesses, the women went to their fate singing and chanting.

 

 

How about this?….

International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

Iranian Women Do Not Have the Right to Control Their Bodies

Since President Hassan Rouhani assumed office in August 2013, there has been a marked increase in state policies by hardliners in the government directly infringing upon the most basic rights of Iranian women.  These hardliners, who dominate Parliament and are ensconced in the security, intelligence, and judicial branches of government, have focused in particular on two issues, both of which concern women’s bodies: the observance of “proper” hijab (Islamic dress) and the availability of family planning and women’s reproductive health services.

 

Possibly reliable Wikipedia suggests the BBC isn’t being totally honest either…

 

Women’s rights for Iranian women and their legal status has changed during different political and historical eras.

The Persian Constitutional Revolution

Iranian women played a significant role in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11, which became a turning point in their lives. They participated in large numbers in public affairs and held important positions in journalism and in schools and associations that flourished from 1911 to 1924.[1] Prominent Iranian women who played a vital part in the revolution include Bibi Khatoon Astarabadi, Noor-ol-Hoda Mangeneh, Mohtaram Eskandari, Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, and Qamar ol-Molouk Vaziri.

 

Shah’s era

The shah’s government began its “White Revolution” in 1962 and ratified important women’s rights measures, including suffrage and the Family Protection Law of 1967, later amended more heavily in favor of women in 1975, which ended extrajudicial divorce and restricted polygamy.[3][4] It also raised the minimum age of marriage of girls to 18 that had been 13-15.

 

Women and the Iranian Revolution

Women participated heavily in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that toppled the shah.

Not withstanding this, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini severely curtailed rights that women had become accustomed to under the shah.[5] Within months of the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the 1967 Family Protection Law was repealed; female government workers were forced to observe Islamic dress code; women were barred from becoming judges; beaches and sports were sex-segregated; the legal age of marriage for girls was reduced to 9 (later raised to 13); and married women were barred from attending regular schools.

Almost immediately women protested these policies.[5][8] The Islamic revolution is ideologically committed to inequality for women in inheritance and other areas of the civil code; and especially committed to segregation of the sexes. Many places, from “schoolrooms to ski slopes to public buses”, are strictly segregated.

 

The BBC is right that women in Iran have more access to education now but that comes not from the ‘Revolution’ but from reforms to the regime of the Revolution.

The BBC is being disengenuous here and is trying to paint the Islamic Revolution as a glorious thing for women when it wasn’t.  Previous eras provided just as much momentum for women’s rights if not more…and the Shah’s regime was not merely a ‘corrupt and brutal regime’ as the BBC painted it….and it’s not as if the present regime is any better.

 

How happy is this woman to be under the protection of the Islamic Republic as she is about to be stoned to death for adultery?

stoning

 

 

And what about gay rights?

Sistas Doing It For Themselves

 

The BBC are very concerned about the welfare of three Muslim girls heading off for a spot of Jihad.  You just wonder how sympathetically concerned would the BBC be if they were heading off to join, ooh say, a ‘Fascist State’ war machine in central Europe.

Actually we might have the answer as yesterday I heard one BBC presenter (was it Campbell?) suggest that going off to join ISIS to ostensibly fight Assad might be compared to those going to Spain to fight the Fascists….Fascists of course being the bad guys in Spain

So ISIS are like cuddly friendly Communists…those Communists who killed so many millions and caused so much terror and misery around the world with their political, social and economic policies?  Maybe Campbell had a point.

I imagine not a lot of sympathy for Nazi war brides.

 

The BBC though, as said loves the Jihadi brides….their correspondents almost in tears..

In a few months’ time, perhaps even weeks, you might remember the story, but will you remember the names? Kadiza Sultana, 16; Shamima Begum, also 16; and Amira Abase, 15.

All three London schoolgirls said they were going out for the day and now it is thought they have left the UK, gone to Turkey and slipped across the border to join Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.

Their names are important to me, because they focus my mind on them as individuals, as young girls, with a promising future ahead of them, with friends, siblings and parents.

 

I alughed at this even more…

Building a state

We should, I suppose, remember it’s a “state” that is being created. And it needs loyal subjects, not just fighters.

 

What ever happened to the joys of immigration and the benefits that open borders and freedom of movement brings to the world?

Surely Muslim girls should be free to elope with an extremist and breed for Allah and his warriors.

Isn’t the Islamic State everything that the BBC journalists tell us would lead to a better world?…..no nation state, no borders, a society based on an ideology of peace, tolerance and love not on the colour of your skin, a society that puts God before all else, one in which materialism and degenerate behaviour like singing and dancing is frowned upon, one in which an authoritatarian communalism is enforced and everyone is equal in the eyes of God.

I’m sure Justin Webb is packing his man bag right now and heading off to the desert to be a Jihadi Bride.

 

 

 

 

Ancient Hatreds, Modern Delusions

 

Things you wish you’d never asked.

Mishal Husain on the Today programme took a direct hit this morning that seemed to put her completely off her stroke.

Husain was interviewing Sir John Sawers, ex head of MI6. (08:36)

She asked him a question about radicalisation…

There’s a lot been said about how people are radicalised and we hear a lot about the internet.  A lot less is heard about why people are radicalised.  Why do you think young British Muslims appear to be vulnerable in this way?

 

Interestng word that ‘vulnerable’.  Are the extremist headchoppers sad ‘victims’ in her mind, unable to make informed, conscious decisions?

Sawers’ answer wasn’t what she expected….

There are two main answers.  One, people in this country are not as integrated as we would like them to be.  Other religions, whether Hindu, Sikh or Jewish, are very well integrated into this country.  Muslims are less well integrated and there are a number of social and economic factors related to that.

The second problem relates to Islam itself.  There are many competing branches of Islam, there are schisms, Shia and Sunni, different branches of Sunni Islam, many of these going back to doctrine and interpretations of doctrine in the first century of the religion.

The Islamic religion as a whole is not well geared to reviving and modernising itself so that it meets the values and needs of a 21st century society.

 

Paradoxically Sawers then swerved in the usual kneejerk genuflection that people make towards political correctness and claimed that Islam was perfectly compatible with other religions.  Note his claim about the lack of integration….due to social and economic factors.  He is contradicting himself there as Hindus, Sikhs and Jews integrate and must have faced the same problems…the defining difference is Islam.  Most Muslim ‘radicals’ are in fact highly educated and from comfortably well-off families…Jihadi John being a computer studies graduate, the pro-ISIS ranter on the internet the other week being a first class honours graduate with a good job at a successful law firm. Again the defining characteristic is that they are believers in the teachings and doctrines of Islam which have very particular commands about Jihad and ‘defending’ other Muslims and Muslim lands. Muslims may be ‘integrated’  in a limited sense in that they have jobs or go to university but Islam teaches them that they are separate…Islam creates the ‘Them and Us’ attitude that is so dangerous….I’m certain you remember Mehdi Hasan preaching about the Kufar, those immoral, ignorant cattle.

Sawers goes on to say that there is a big political challenge that can only really be taken up by leaders in the Muslim world.  Husain then goes off the tracks it seems and makes some confusing points by mentioning the BBC survey that said 20% of Muslims believed Western Liberal Democracy was incompatible with Islam….Husain seemed to suggest that the problem was with the Democracies, that it is up to the liberal Western World to deal with that incompatibility and not Muslims.  In other words the West must adapt to Islam not Islam adapt to the West.  Very Tariq Ramadan.

Husain then wanted to know if the three ISIS recruits were victims or intelligent people making informed decisions.  Sawers again made the swerve and to Husain’s quiet delight proclaimed them ‘victims’.

 

After the interview, which was quite wideranging and covered more ground than just radicalisation, we had the news bulletins and their take on his words….and note that immediately following the news about Sawers’ comments there came a report on Pegida in Newcastle.

What we were told was that Sawers believed that Russia posed a growing threat to Britain, not a word about his very significant answers to the question about why people are radicalised and no link at all to Pegida and its demonstrations.

That question about radicalisation is after all the one that is on everybodies’ lips…why are Muslims being radicalised?  And yet when the ex-head of MI6 gives us what he believes to be the answer the BBC omits to headline it.

Here is the BBC’s headline for the interview…

Sir John Sawers, ex-MI6 chief, warns of Russia ‘danger’

 

In a long report the overwhelming part of which was spent on discussing Russia they tacked on a small bit at the end that mentioned his comments on Islam in the UK.

Islamist terrorism and efforts to enforce the Islamisation of British Society are clear and present dangers and yet the BBC downplays the problem and doesn’t like the answers that Sawers gave as it put the blame squarely where it should be.

Here is another headline relating to the same interview..

‘Jihadi John’: Ex-MI6 chief defends security services

 

Again nothing about radicalisation and Islam.

And another headline..

Former MI6 chief: ‘Russia always an issue of concern’

 

All Russia and no Islam.  Where is a similar report that singles out his words on Islam?

 

And then we have then news reports on Pegida using odd language that seemed to celebrate the counter-demonstration…the BBC telling us that Pegida was ‘dwarfed’ by the UAF.

Craig at ‘Is the BBC biased?’ has noticed the same in the BBC reports of the demonstration.

The BBC’s opening lines tell the tale of the BBC’s preferred narrative…

More than 1,500 protesters have demonstrated against the first rally in Britain by a group opposed to what it calls the “Islamisation of Europe”.
Supporters of the UK branch of German group Pegida gathered at Newcastle city centre’s Bigg Market.
Critics claimed they were anti-Muslim and had come to “promote expression of hatred”, which they denied.

 

Submission

 

 

“In a very few years, perhaps in a very few months, we shall be confronted with demands with which we shall no doubt be invited to comply. Those demands may affect the surrender of territory or the surrender of liberty. I foresee and foretell that the policy of submission will carry with it restrictions upon the freedom of speech and debate in Parliament, on public platforms, and discussions in the press, for it will be said–indeed, I hear it said sometimes now – that we cannot allow the Nazi system of dictatorship to be criticized by ordinary, common English politicians. Then, with a press under control, in part direct but more potently indirect, with every organ of public opinion doped and chloroformed into acquiescence, we shall be conducted along further stages of our journey.”

— Sir Winston Churchill

JIHADI JOHN – BLAME MI5

Well then, the BBC is a curious one. Firstly it names the Islamic State decapitator-in-Chief, Mohammed Emwazi. Fair enough. It then proceeds to ponder is he really a victim of a bungling MI5. It also calls him a “militant” when he is by any definition a terrorist – cutting the heads off innocent people IS terrorism, dear BBC. The BBC have taken the same approach with the three teenage Jihadi brides from the East End of London who legged it to hook up with Islamic State. The question was how had the State failed. where were the Intelligence services. At no point does the BBC choose to ask the most penetrating question of all – why do some Muslims living in Britain appear to have a greater loyalty to our enemies than to our country? I guess that might open up all sorts of tricky issues so better say nothing and just blame MI5?

Bordering On Madness

 

 

 Net foreign immigration is 352,000.

 

The borders remain open to one and all and the massed hordes of immigrants are still ‘flocking’ to Britain.

The BBC told us today that immigration made the economy successful and it is this economic success that brings the immigrants. I’m certain you could all pick holes in the BBC’s pro-immigration propaganda.

 

Net immigration is stated as 298,000.

But that doesn’t give the true picture, nor the true scale of problems to come.

The truly interesting number is one that tells us how many non-British citizens come here net of British citizens’ movements in and out of the country.  This would reveal the disturbing fact that non-British citizen immigration is huge and means that the native British population is gradually being thinned down as the ratio of foreign immigrants grows in comparison.

The net migration figure for non-British citizens entering this country was 352,000, around 140,000 Brits left and 88,000 returned.

The ratio of Brits to foreigners is gradually being eroded and you have to ask how long before Britons are strangers in their own land?

Such a question is important for many reasons.  Diversity does not bring stability, trust nor peace and mass immigration and open borders will bring about the end of the ‘Welfare State’….for example the NHS is already heading towards crisis point as the population grows beyond capacity with the potential that the NHS becomes insurance based and not free at the point of delivery.

The BBC is always telling us that faith in politics has been eroded and no one trusts politicians.  The reason for that is down to two policies in  the main…immigration and Europe…whilst the majority of the population want to limit both, the political and media class have sought to suppress and ignore such concerns as Peter Hitchens tells us…

‘As diversity increases, democracy weakens. Faith in democracy declines when people see they cannot make a difference., and mass immigration, a policy clearly and consistently opposed by most people and yet which no mainstream politician will speak against, has shaken the public’s trust in politics. Since politicians will not listen to people’s concerns, they come to the conclusion that politics is pointless’.

‘All the arguments for multiculturalism- that people feel safer, more comfortable among people of the same group, and that they need their own cultural identity – are arguments against immigration, since English people must also feel the same. If people categorised as “White Britons” are not afforded that indulgence because they are a majority, do they attain it when they become a minority?’.

 

Immigration and Europe…..any wonder UKIP gets so many votes?

The reality is that ‘politics’ isn’t broken, in the main things trundle along reasonably well except for these two major issues which could change the game radically this election.

I did enjoy listening to a BBC interview with Yvette Cooper when she was allowed to get away with this:

“[Home Secretary] Theresa May’s obsession with the target has led her to target valuable university students, who bring billions into Britain whilst doing nothing to make the labour market fairer for local workers, preventing undercutting by exploitative employers or putting in place proper border controls so we can count people in and out to enforce the rules,” she said.

 

You probably already know that Labour aide Andrew Neather long ago revealed that Labour introduced its mass immigration plot with complete disregard for the effect it would have on the working classes’ lives…

He acknowledged that “nervous” ministers made no mention of the policy at the time for fear of alienating Labour voters.

“Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.

“But ministers wouldn’t talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn’t necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men’s clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland.”

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think tank, said: “Now at least the truth is out, and it’s dynamite.

 

Labour lied and the BBC still doesn’t like to raise that revelation and crucify Labour for its policies.

 

Enjoy…..by John Ware in Standpoint

Jihad Central

The number of British jihadis far exceeds the total for the rest of Europe. Yet still we puzzle over why Britain became the jihadi capital of  Europe.

One man who thinks he does is the American political scientist and historian, Robert Leiken, a director of the immigration and national security program at the Nixon Centre in Washington. His latest book, Europe’s Angry Muslims, finds the main ingredient is Britain’s approach to immigration ……..Above all, the underlying explanation for so many British Muslims falling under the spell of jihadists like Omar Bakri (twice granted asylum) was Britain’s desire to grant Muslims autonomy in the name of “diversity”.

 

Time to Wise Up to the Muslim Brotherhood

Steven Merley, a former financial trader turned investigator of extremist movements, has probed the Brotherhood for over a decade. It is particularly active in Britain and according to Merley, its strategy is to “create mischief” with a heavy emphasis on Muslim victimhood including the charge that the West has been waging a war on Islam. This has been a powerful radicalising factor in young Muslims. 

The Brotherhood’s tactic to advance this strategy, says Merley, has been to establish a dizzying number of organisations and initiatives which create the impression of broad-based support. In reality, the sponsors are the same individuals and groups whose leaders have not changed over decades. 

The Plot to Islamise Birmingham’s Schools

The roots of the Trojan Horse agenda predate Gove by at least a generation. They go back to the creation of the main umbrella for Muslim schools, the Association of Muslim Schools UK (AMS UK), the International Board of Educational Research and Resources (IBERR), and the MCB. Tahir Alam and some of the Park View Brothers have been associated with or held positions in these bodies, which have been inspired by a broad global Islamist movement that has morphed from the original Cairo-based Muslim Brotherhood. That movement sees no distinction between Islam as a spiritual faith, a way of life and a political ideology. Some say that following the collapse of Communism, Islamism is history’s next big idea.

Inside The World Of ‘Non-Violent’ Islamism

The Muslim Council of Britain’s secretary-general, Dr Shuja Shafi: He has said he has “no idea” why young people become radicalised.

With Islamist terrorist plots now running at more than one a month, the UK counter-terrorism effort can deal only with the crocodiles that are bumping against the boat. So the Home Office is setting up a special unit that will analyse the effectiveness of government measures aimed at “draining the swamp” as the Prime Minister has put it.

The Extremism Analysis Unit (EAU) will be the first of its kind in government to gather empirical evidence about the behaviour and ideologies of extremists.

It will also explore the relationship between integration and extremism. 

Many Muslims in Birmingham, Luton, parts of London and the old northern mill towns seem resistant to integrating into the liberal mainstream. More British Muslims have gone to Syria and Iraq than there are Muslims in the British army. I understand that officials have been unable to demonstrate that any initiatives by this government or the last to promote integration have had any beneficial impact.

The EAU will attract controversy because while it will, of course, analyse all sources of extremism, its principal focus will inevitably be on Islamist extremism, because this will pose the greatest threat to national security for the foreseeable future.

Future of the BBC

Chart showing the decline in the BBC's share of viewing figures

 

 

Culture, Media and Sport – Fourth Report
Future of the BBC

 

 

No long-term future for BBC licence fee, MPs say

 

The TV licence does not have a long-term future and is likely to be replaced by a new levy within the next 15 years, a group of MPs has said.

The fee is “becoming harder and harder to justify” given changes in the media, according to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

The MPs suggested every household could pay a new compulsory levy instead.

The BBC does not agree that the fee will have to be replaced, but accepts it will probably have to be modernised.

Committee chairman John Whittingdale said: “In the short term, there appears to be no realistic alternative to the licence fee, but that model is becoming harder and harder to justify and sustain.”

In light of changing technology and audience habits, the committee said “we do not see a long-term future for the licence fee in its current form”.

Any “profound changes” – such as abolishing the licence fee – should not be rushed, the report said. But it did say the BBC “must prepare for the possibility of a change in the 2020s.

The best alternative to the licence fee, the report concluded, would be a compulsory broadcasting levy paid by all households, regardless of whether they watch TV, or how they watch.

Such a system was introduced in Germany in 2013 and would do away with the need to detect and prosecute those who avoid buying a TV licence, the committee said.

“We recommend that as a minimum the licence fee must be amended to cover catch-up television as soon as possible.”

It should also no longer be a criminal offence to avoid paying the licence fee, the report said.

Other proposals made by the committee include:

  • The BBC Trust should be abolished because it has mishandled crises like the Jimmy Savile scandal and is too close to the BBC management
  • Instead, a new Public Service Broadcasting Commission should monitor the corporation’s performance, with an ultimate sanction of being able to withhold some funding from the BBC
  • Media regulator Ofcom – not the BBC Trust – should be the final arbiter of complaints about the corporation’s impartiality and accuracy
  • Part of the licence fee (or future broadcasting levy) should be used to support non-BBC public service broadcasting, such as local news and children’s programmes
  • The planned BBC One +1 channel does not represent “public service value”, and the airwaves should be used for something else
  • The BBC should no longer attempt to offer “something for everyone” and should not stray into areas that are well catered for by commercial broadcasters
  • The BBC World Service must remain strong to ensure the UK does not lose ground to countries like China and Russia in the “global information war”

Muhammed Was Not A Muslim Says BBC

 

 

You have to understand what the root cause of radicalisation is in the Muslim community. Here’s the maths….

British Society is increasingly intolerant of Islam, that intolerance is being fostered by a sensationalist media that fuels prejudice, the intolerance and attacks on Muslims leads them to become angry, alienated and marginalised,  under such a siege they understandably feel the need to fight back and defend their prophet and their religion against these Islamophobic attacks.

 

Only its not true.  It’s the BBC narrative.  It’s the Muslim community’s narrative, it’s the radical’s narrative.

But it’s not true.

The BBC is charged with ‘sustaining citizenship and civil society’ by its Charter and it has decided that in order to do that it must lie to its audience.  Not just turn a blind eye to the truth about Islamic radicalisation but to actively work to suppress the truth, to maintain a fiction that Islam is the religion of peace, love and tolerance. They do this because they have a belief that to allow the truth to be told would see the Muslim community and Islam come under such extreme scrutiny that it would expose it irrefutably as an ideology that is incompatible with a Western, secular, liberal, democratic and humane society.

And then what?

So instead the BBC has decided that a bit of ‘collateral damage’ is acceptable…the BBC has decided that in order to maintain that fiction about Islam it is willing to sacrifice, not just that very precious liberal, free, democratic society that is increasingly the victim of creeping Islamisation, but it is also prepared to see dead bodies, non-Muslim ones, in the streets as the necessary murders that are the price to be paid for ‘peace’.

Dramatic stuff, but true.

There is a war being fought and it’s not just with guns, bullets and bombs.  The Media, far from being prejudiced against Muslims, is the weapon of choice for those who seek to make Islam the dominant religion and political force in Britain, and the BBC is at the forefront of the charge.  And, this is the important thing to note, those who are ‘fighting’ this media war are not the obvious ‘radicals like Anjem Choudray, they come dressed in western suits and talk of reform and tolerance but always blame Muslim ‘anger’ on British society on that phantom menace, ‘Islamophobia’.  Of course what is even more frighetening is that these men have not just managed to position themselves as authorities on questions of Islam, its place in Western Society and ‘radicalisation’, as Media spokesmen of choice but have also inveigled their way into the heart of Government advising it on matters of religion and radicalisation.

For instance Islamist Tariq Ramadan sits on the Foreign Office Advisory Group on freedom of religion or belief which is intended to ‘advise FCO Ministers and staff on how to build on the active approach they already take to promoting and protecting the right to freedom of religion or belief worldwide.’

Ramadan’s boss was Baroness Warsi whose credentials are also highly questionable in that nearly everything she does and says seems to support the Islamist outlook….the most obvious of which was her belief that Israel should be disarmed and terrorist group Hamas armed.

Warsi is well known….just days ago Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph wrote this article denouncing her and the government’s foolish policies, Islamic ‘radicals’ at the heart of Whitehall, and in which he noted that ‘Baroness Warsi gave official roles to people with links to Islamist groups’.  She was also an outspoken critic of the anti-radicalisation ‘Prevent’ project and supporter of the Islamist student organisation Fosis.

Gilligan says..

Entryism, the favourite tactic of the 1980s’ Militant Tendency, is when a political party or institution is infiltrated by groups with a radically different agenda. Since Militant’s Trotskyites were expelled from the Labour Party, the word has rather fallen out of fashion.

But now, according to one Muslim leader, Islamic radicals are practising entryism of their own — into the heart of Whitehall – courtesy of a woman who was until recently a government minister.

 

Baroness Warsi then, a very controversial person with a highly dubious reputation, and yet another ‘goto’ spokesperson for the BBC on issues of Islam in the UK. An example of the dangers in employing these ‘radicals’ as government advisers is this from Jihadwatch…Sweden’s “Islamophobia” expert joins the Islamic State.

Despite Gilligan’s article just a few days ago the BBC chose to ask Warsi for her opinions  (08:10) about how the Muslim community in Britain feel about their place in Society based on a BBC poll which, part of its on ‘war on Public (false) perceptions about Islam’, which the BBC trumpeted as a glowing testimony for Muslim attitudes in Britain claiming…Most British Muslims ‘oppose Muhammad cartoons reprisals’

At no time was she asked about the allegations made by Gilligan which you might think the BBC’s premier current affairs programme, with its elite interviewers in the saddle, might have broached.  Instead we had Justin Webb doing an imitation of an over-ebullient Spaniel about to go out on a walk…Warsi threw him a few balls which he eagerly chased, enjoying the game immensely, rushing back to the mistress for her to throw him some more. Webb failed to challenge Warsi at all on her claims and bought into her narrative so much that he even started to add his own derogatory comments about other faiths being as bad as Islam in their extremism.  Even Warsi had to bring him to heel on that one.

Before she came on we heard a report from one Muslim community that in essence, as laid out above, blamed the rise of radicalisation on British, non-Muslim society, which we are assured, has attacked and marginalised Muslims egged on by an Islamophobic Press.

However one message to take away was that, yes they were extremists, extreme in their love for their prophet and for their religion.  Curiously the BBC didn’t think that an important factor in any Islamist radicalisation…because of course, as we heard, the ‘radicals’ weren’t real Muslims.

Warsi was able to articulate the same old prejudices and blame anyone but Muslims and their religion for the dangerous situation we find ourselves in.  She claims there is no evidence that can indicate why Muslims become radicalised and that of course 27% of Muslims may support killing people for drawing Muhammed but she explained, you have to look at their reasoning behind such decisions before you denounce them.  In other words she too thinks the Charlie Hebdo killings were justifiable….and an interesting turn of phrase from her…that it was unfortunate that Charlie Hebdo led to the death of ‘civilians’…..is she saying other, non-civilian, targets would have been acceptable?  And again Warsi blamed the Media for whipping up anti-Islam prejudices.

The BBC is not alone in excusing Muslim terrorism, the Guardian here giving a perfect example of the thinking that ‘understands’, and thereby justifies, murder….

Charlie Hebdo attackers: born, raised and radicalised in Paris

 

The Guardian tries to erase Islam from the picture and chooses to look for other causes for radicalisation saying..

What the three had in common was growing up on the margins of French society

 

The article is a very long one, nearly the whole body of the text builds on the narrative of the alientated, disenfranchised and marginalised young men driven to radicalisation by such factors.  Only at the very last paragraph do we get a clue that that is rubbish…

“People say simply discrimination plus social malaise equals terrorism, that’s not true.”

Of the families she had recently spoken to she had seen children of educated parents, including doctors, or youngsters leaving medical school, and many from non-Muslim backgrounds. The profiles of jihadis radicalised and self-radicalised in France were increasingly complex and nuanced.

 

But even that is not true…for it has long been known that the majority of those radicalised came from the ranks of the educated and well-to-do….not marginalised, not ignorant and not poor….what they do all have in common is being Muslim.

 

Dan Hodges in the Telegraph has a completely different take on the BBC poll….

Over a quarter of British Muslims have sympathy for the Charlie Hebdo terrorists. That is far too many

This morning the BBC published details of a major poll of the attitudes of Britain’s Muslims. The headline on the front of the BBC website linking to the research states: “Muslims ‘oppose cartoon reprisals’”. This of course relates to attitudes within the Muslim community towards the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks.

It’s a reassuring headline. It’s also wrong.

Below the report is an article by BBC Today program reporter Sima Kotecha. It begins: “Islam is a religion of peace and love – not violence.”

That statement – and those sentiments – are simply not compatible with the BBC’s own research.

We are going to have to start to reassess what we mean by “moderate Islam”.

The BBC is wrong. Many Muslims have sympathy with the Charlie Hebdo killings. Far too many.

 

 

The BBC is of course spinning its poll for reasons of maintaining ‘civil society and social cohesion’ but other research by the BBC, not really intended for domestic consumption, went out on the World Service and was not given a high profile in the UK….

Jihadist violence: The devastating cost

Human toll

The findings are both important and disturbing.

In the course of November, jihadists carried out 664 attacks, killing 5,042 people – many more than, for instance, the number of people who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks.

 

So the report tells us that its findings are ‘both important and disturbing’ and yet the BBC all but ignores them.  It fails utterly to challenge Warsi’s narrative about Muslims being the victims of huge discrimination in Britain when we know that the UK is one of the best places in the world for Msulims to live and practise their faith and the BBC fails to press her on these figures that paint a completely different picture of what the cause of radicalisation and its effects are.

The report goes onto outline the future….

While comparisons to earlier periods are difficult, the overall picture is that of an increasingly ambitious, complex, sophisticated and far-reaching [Islamist] movement.

The project tells the story of a movement in the middle of a profound transformation – one whose final outcome is impossible to predict.

Our immediate focus, however, was the terrible human cost: with, on average, more than 20 attacks and nearly 170 deaths per day, jihadist groups destroy countless lives – most of them Muslim – in the name of an ideology that the vast majority of Muslims reject.

If anything, this highlights the movement’s scale and ambition, but also the long-term political, social, ideological, and military commitment that will be needed to counter it.

 

Note that last line…’the long-term political, social, ideological, and military commitment that will be needed to counter’ Islamic extremism.

The BBC’s idea of countering Islamic extemism is to ignore it, or if forced to admit it occurs, then blame it on British society…anything but the truth….which of course is a hard to come by commodity when the BBC employs the likes of Mehdi Hasan, Tariq Ramadan and Baroness Warsi as spokespersons on Islam.

Until the BBC changes that narrative about foreign policy, ancient and modern, and its continual acceptance of Muslim grievances as justification for terror, and has an honest exploration of the real causes of radicalisation, then there can be no solution.  If you don’t know what causes a problem, or don’t admit it, you aren’t going to solve it.

As said, the BBC is all too ready to accept the occasional terrorist attack on the streets of Britain if it means the Muslim community and Islam are not subject to intense and genuinely critical scrutiny that would raise some very awkward questions once people started to realise the truth about Islam and what it teaches its followers and how that plays into the real narrative about radicalisation and Jihad.

According to the BBC’s narrative Muhammed would not be a Muslim as his whirlwind and extremely violent campaign across the Middle East to impose Islam upon the land and its peoples has remarkable similarities to the ISIS blitz….and as we know, ISIS are not ‘real Muslims’.