Something about the picture in this article reminds me of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s the utopianism I think.
So, as multiculturalism (and lifestyle choice) becomes religion, religion becomes problematic, though, as Ritter points out, Sir Iqbal and Mr Jones get different treatment.
And no, it’s not just the media treating the two cases differently. There’s no mention of Mr Plod actually knocking on Sir Iqqy’s door.
According to the Daily Telegraph, Sir Ikky is going to be investigated by the police. At the time of writing this comment, the BBC is not reporting this on their website but it may be breaking news for them. It will be interesting to see how quickly this gets picked up.
They are mentioning it now – it just got linked to by Laban Tall’s site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4603474.stm
“In the interview Sir Iqbal said he was guided by the teachings of the Muslim faith, adding that other religions such as Christianity and Judaism held the same stance.”
Ah…the classic rebuttal. He uses moral equivalence to try and justify the savagery of his faith.
As far as I am aware, Jews and Christians do not stone homosexuals to death, nor do they crush them under walls or throw them from buildings. Jews and Christians tend to avoid this sort of thing because they have tempered their interpretations of their Biblical texts and embraced modernity, separation of church and state, liberal values, etc..
Unfortunately, Sacranie fails to point out that the Qu’ran is quite clear on the punishment for men who have sex with other men: death. And those societies where Islamic law holds punish homosexuals by killing them because that is what Allah commands. Allah’s words, as stated in the Qu’ran, are immutable.
Sacranie cannot condone homosexuality. Islam and homosexuality are irreconcilable.
If the BBC had any balls it would quote the Qu’ran at him and ask him if he disagrees. If he disagrees with the prescription of death for homosexuals, he is directly contravening the word of Allah. If he agrees that homosexuals should be put to death because Islam demands it, maybe the public will gain an insight into the medievalism of this belief system called ‘Islam’. The BBC won’t, leaving that to the brave souls (Spencer, Warraq, Bostom, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, et al) to expose it instead.
Instead, he has made a mealy-mouthed comment about being tolerant because he has to do so, living as he does in an Infidel land. He does this because he doesn’t want a knock on the door from Inspector Monkfish of the Yard.
‘At the time, Peter Tatchell, of gay rights group OutRage!, said: “It is tragic for one minority to attack another minority.”‘
Indeed. How on earth can minority victim groups pull down the rest of society if they are fighting each other? It’s difficult to focus on and whip up imaginary grievances when your ‘brothers in arms’ are stabbing you in the back.
Long may it continue.
On this topic, i’d say, i am worried that our freedom of speech has now been destroyed.
Iqbal, should be entitled to his view, and long may he view it..
OT
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/1ee7b3bc-8311-11da-ac1f-0000779e2340.html
This is major news for British Aviation and Technology industry, and yet i cannot find any such articles on BBC.CO.UK
This project means alot to increasing jobs, skills and equipping the RAF. Its about time too Tony …
I must say though, it does make me laugh how No.10 now tries to show how interested it is in Defence, i.e. JSF, The New Aircraft Carriers, Eurofighter etc..when for the past 8 years it couldnt give a damn..
I suppose the saying better late than never rings a bell..
“Why is it that black people who have succeeded against the odds are so invisible to the wider society?”. (I think that in this context “the wider society” is shorthand for “the media’s presentation of QUOTE society UNQUOTE” rather than the real world.)
The answer is simple. The BBC has no use for the black middle class. The black middle class is not useful to the BBC; it does not suit the BBC to portray black people as anything other than craven victims of Thatcher’s bully-boy police or, conversely, hyper-successful media stars. The thought that black people might be just getting on with their lives does not fit the BBC’s view of Britain. I imagine the average BBC employee would be horrified to think of black people as real human beings rather than as special effects.
The BBC has a double disadvantage, as its political viewpoint is reinforced by its media viewpoint, which holds that social groups do have a middle. Women are either low-paid and harassed or shoulder-padded ultra-executives; immigrants are either the broken victims of the authorities or extremely successful businessman (despite their “disability”). Normal everybody boring people cannot be used to illustrate a dramatic story and are thus barely represented in the media.
The same impulse drives the BBC’s coverage of all other social groups. The BBC and other left-wing organisations only care for the poor and the weak insofar as the poor and the weak can be used. Just as the government uses Alex in “A Clockwork Orange”. Anti-war protestors only care about the victims of foreign wars as a means of attacking the US; they fell on the little kid with his arms and legs blown off as if he was manna from heaven, because they could use him for their own ends. Now he is no longer of use to them. I am reminded of the awful post to the Daily Kos a while back about Cindy Sheehan, whereby the poster wanted to manage her media appearances and call her “Mother Sheehan”; the left wing is not interested in people, it wants unsoiled cold stone icons, which is why left wing people love statues and monuments to themseles.
The BBC only cares about the poor as a means of attacking or shaming the BBC’s enemies. The BBC’s employees would not otherwise mix with the poor, except for a thrill, just as barristers and city gents like to hang out with gangsters, because it makes them feel hard and down-to-earth to do so. To these people the poor and weak are tools.
In pictures: Muslim goat fair
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4602492.stm
Fascinating. See any women anyone? Glad to see they are staying at home where they belong.
As someone once said, “hand-wringing is the most pleasurable sensation know to man”. And if that means keeping certain groups in servitude by telling them every day that they are victims, then so be it.
“Does the average person in the street know the head of the Royal College of Surgeons is a black man”
…I didn’t even know there WAS a Royal College of Surgeons.
Thanks for the BBC laugh!
call Polly Toynbee, we need to pin this on Bush!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4606002.stm
OT
Our friend Bill Thompson has a new “Essay” on the Beeb online. Wonder if he will have a go at the US in this one….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4594498.stm
Yep…
“Although given the US government’s approach to global warming, this might only encourage them.”
I think he disapproves of market forces this time.
Are there no limits to the BBC’s efforts to shove Islam down our throats?
“Hajj stampede: Are you affected?
Were you or people you know there? What can be done to make the Hajj safer? Send us your comments and experiences.”
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=715&&edition=1&ttl=20060112142635
Once could be an
accident, twice a coincidence, but three times is a trend.
The full sorry tale of Hajj tragedies can be read here:-
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/880EED3B-84B7-4823-AD27-1F81D0C501BF.htm
“1994 – Stampede near Jamarat Bridge in Mena kills 270.
1997 – Fire kills 343 pilgrims at camp in Mena.
1998 – Stampede near Jamarat Bridge kills 119.
2001 – Stampede near Jamarat Bridge kills 35.
2003 – Stampede near Jamarat Bridge kills at least 14.
2004 – Stampede near Jamarat Bridge kills at least 251.
2006 – Collapse of Makka hostel housing pilgrims kills 76.”
“Does the average person in the street know the head of the Royal College of Surgeons is a black man”
Does the average person care what colour he is, as long as he’s a good surgeon? Nope.
BBC, quit your shit-stirring and actually report some news.
“ full sorry tale of Hajj tragedies can be read here…
Eamonn, don’t forget the 1987 riots:
“Iranian pilgrims later rioted in July, 1987, during the hajj, clashing with Saudi troops and ending with the death of more than 400 people.”
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0832430.html
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=buddhist+stampede&btnG=Search&meta=
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=christian+stampede&btnG=Search&meta=
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=muslim+stampede&btnG=Search&meta=
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=jewish+stampede&btnG=Search&meta=
..1979, anyone?
It is true, that the BBC consistently seems to bend over backwards to convert Britain to Islam.
Why? Because the present government is so scared about the backlash of Iraq..it is now trying to look “muslim friendly”.
And as a result over doing it just a tad. Christianity has been undermined completely..
What i am equally concerned about with this site in particular is: the monitoring by certain ‘powers that be’ either security services or police on behalf of the No.10 spin machine…
via hacking into email accounts and what have you..so beware everyone out there…big brother is watching you all…
BTW I wasn’t trying to criticise the BBC reporting of these (avoidable?) tragedies, but the way they do it – as with “Have your Say”.
Ashley,
Excellent post, which chimes with my own view that leftism is a personality disease. It is not a coherent and consistent worldview. The left serially favours certain minorities over others and discards them when they cease to be useful.
The left used to love women, gays, and the lower classes. Now it invites woman-hating homophobic bigots to Britain, because the bigots in question are Muslim, a group whose victim points trump those of blacks and gays. And no-one sneers harder at the white working class, whom it calls “chavs”, than the left.
“Islam Online” continues:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4605334.stm
I wonder if the box contains a toy stick to “discipline” Fulla.
From the above link, courtesy of Eamonn:
“The surge in sales of Muslim girls’ toys, including the veiled Fulla, comes amid new enthusiasm among Muslim women for wearing the veil.”
Dhimmitude running riot here. Has anyone at the BBC asked whether the ‘new enthusiasm’ may be related to acid and knife attacks?
Ian,
In the Evening Standard last night and the Telegraph today there was an article about London’s Globe Theatre. Dominic Dromgoole, its new artistic director (i.e. head pseud), made a couple of observations which sum up the luvvie mentality – and thus the al-BBC mentality – completely.
The first was that he intends to run lots of new plays, including one which (paraphrasing) will ask searching questions about Christianity.
The second was that the Globe has made a profit every year since it opened. Ole Dom considered it astonishing and extraordinary that a theatre should manage to survive on what it can earn at the box office.
Both these attitudes are utterly typical of the left. Christianity is the religion that most urgently needs searching questions asked of it; the default state for a theatre is to lose money, and be bailed out by the taxpayer, so luvvies can carry on producing what nobody wants to watch, breaking off occasionally to suck hard on the welfare tit.
One wonders why Dominic has not yet thought of bringing in a Theatre Licence, whereby we all pay him 126 quid a year and are then allowed to watch plays staged at other theatres. It cannot be long coming, given that his attitudes to both his output and his funding echo the BBC’s to the letter.
Al-BBC shares precisely the same massive sense of entitlement to other people’s money, as though making stuff people are prepared to pay for is some sort of weird aberration.
The RSC produces plays nobody would pay to see at the full cost of making them. The taxpayer has provided subsidies and kickbacks to help make crap Britflicks nobody wants to watch (who can forget Sex Lives of the Potato Men)?. And likewise the BBC makes crap news and TV which nobody who had the choice would pay for – but, breathing in as they do the recycled farts of the Yarts lobby, it seems wholly natural to the average BBC Bedouin that they should get their handout too.
The BBC report on the US trade deficit.
Despite the smaller deficit, the trade gap is still at a record level for the year, hitting $661.8bn after 11 months.
The size of the deficit has raised concerns among analysts.
They have warned that a ballooning of the deficit may unbalance the world’s largest economy, as well as weighing on the value of the US dollar.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4606438.stm
The BBC have resisted the temptation to refer to the US’s “twin deficits”, the other being the Fed govt budget deficit.
I wait to see if they have noted the following fact & will avoid future reference.
After rising sharply in 2003 and 2004, the deficit declined in the fiscal year that ended in October, falling from $412 billion, or just under 4 per cent of gross domestic product the previous year, to $331 billion, about 2.7 per cent. (this is of course despite Bush’s tax cuts)
This now compares favourably with the UK
Chancellor Gordon Brown has been reprimanded by the European Commission for breaking targets on borrowing.
The UK has borrowed more than the EU’s debt limit of 3% of national income for the second year running.
and of course with Euro members who are treaty bound to restrain borrowing, to whom the BBC coyly refers
Other nations which have broken the growth and stability pact in recent years include Germany, France, and Italy.
That is “recent” as in the past few years, this year, next & probably longer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4601428.stm
“full sorry tale of Hajj TRAGEDIES..”
Sorry, but I do have a problem with the word tragedies in this context. Once or twice it’s a tragedy. Half a dozen times in ten years sounds suspiciously like evolution in action to me.
The extract on the US budget deficit is from The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-1981126,00.html
Good post Will, another common feature is such economic illiterate focusing on the budget deficit, seemingly ignoring the fact that the US economy, particularly compared to Europe, is absolutely roaring ahead despite the defecit. Perhaps, they might want to consider whether the deficit is all that damaging at all.
Good points above.
OT, watch out next time for the Education correspondant, a woman, who as it happens looks remarkably similar to Ruth Kelly, any coincidence there i wonder? 🙂
Just how politically motivated is the BBC when it comes to delivering Govt policy?
hold the front page…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
I have the impression that few posters here like the BBC. Look at their problem, they exist by Royal Charter much as The East India Company did – a form of incorporation preceding The Companies Acts and which makes the organisation susceptible to the whim of Parliament as to whether it is renewed – unlike a Plc or a Ltd it has a finite existence in need of renewal.
The spread of mutichannel TV has left the BBC to plead its case rather like an Established Church would if it depended on government for its income – so it preaches Social Unity through Diversity because this is the song the government likes to sing.
Trouble for the BBC is that Pakistani viewers get Zee TV on satellite, and Poles, Serbs, etc watch their own progs on Astra or Hot Bird, or Copernicus………..so the BBC is left with the Afro-Caribbs as their pet project and they are busy ignoring the pensioners who are the only ones who sit doggedly in front of the screen from sheer lack of mobility.
The BBC is a feature of government and this particular regime is so full of TV producers like MacShane, Gordon Brown, f/Mandelson, and people like Ben Bradshaw, and a whole coterie of TV types that it is almost fused into the trite dogma of New Labour Vacuity.
As for Sacranie, I don’t think Eddie Mair has any right to play entrapment games on BBC – it was a deliberate stunt and it was insidious and disreputable. If they want to play this game put hidden cameras in the BBC boardroom or ask BBC journalists about their drug-taking, or their acts of gay sex on Hampstead Heath………….but I see no reason for any Muslim, Christian, Jew, Alawite or whatever to be interrogated about their fundamental religious beliefs – this is not the European Parliament – nor is it the Volksgerichtshof and Eddie Mair should not pretend to be Roland Freisler or Andrei Vyshinsky.
BBC meeting unions over job cuts
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4605822.stm
“The NUJ said it could strike….”
“Amicus said it would ballot for a strike if the BBC insists on compulsory redundancies.”
I hope they do strike. What with 7 million on Freeview & 8 million on Sky, maybe people will wake up to the fact that we don’t need the BBC!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4607110.stm
Prescott can “forget to pay his council tax” yet a vicar who holds back 10% in protest is jailed for a month.
Prescott should be demoted, its outrageous that he screws the poor whilst he gets away with tax evasion..
Are you seeing a pattern?
Do as i say, not as i do?
Always the way with Labour government’s
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4606002.stm
I know this has been mentioned above, but I haven’t been on here for a while. Last time was during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath when the bile-filled spoutings of Matt wotsisname was irritating everyone. That was a natural disaster and the BBC spent the whole time shouting about why wasn’t Bush doing more to prevent this kind of thing.
With the Hajj stampede, which has precisely nothing natural about it and is caused entirely by humans, there is none of that shouting and screaming and crying in the streets for the poor underprivileged Muslims.
What’s that all about?
The second was that the Globe has made a profit every year since it opened. Ole Dom considered it astonishing and extraordinary that a theatre should manage to survive on what it can earn at the box office.
One has to wonder how long it’ll stay that way after his new plays start hitting the boards.
…but I see no reason for any Muslim, Christian, Jew, Alawite or whatever to be interrogated about their fundamental religious beliefs
OK, it was underhand, but as a redress for previous arse-licking of the MCGB I thought it was a welcome change.
Prescott should be demoted, its outrageous that he screws the poor whilst he gets away with tax evasion..
This Blair Regime has been using Animal Farm as a script
$100 for the first sighting of a Multiculturalist blaming America for the Hajj carnage.
Eamonn | 12.01.06 – 2:39 pm | #
well, it would certainly be my hajj whinge…
…if anyone asked.
It was Bush’s fault! Now send me $100.
I would Allan, but having looked at you previous posts I am unconvinced as to the integrity of your Multi-Culti bona fides!
OT: Meanwhile two men are charged with trying to spread official secrets yet two Labour MPs (including the boss of one of the accused) who did exactly the same thing are not….also note the two main points from this article in the Guarniad:
“The two MPs decided in October 2004 to reveal the key information in the transcript to John Latham, a Democrat supporter living in San Diego, California. They hoped to influence the impending 2004 US election, Mr Kilfoyle said. ”
“But it was decided not to write to US newspapers at the time. It is understood Democrats feared Mr Bush’s behaviour, if exposed, might win him votes, rather than lose them. As a result, the facts remained secret for more than a year”
So, if any Americans try to interfere in our elections all hell breaks loose. Yet here are two Labour MPs including a deputy DEFENCE MINISTER who surely met many Americans during the course of his duties and he does THIS, trying to influence their elections?
How come nowt on the Beeb lads and lassies? Hmm?
Article http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/story/0,12123,1682991,00.html
Mike – Good observation.
The Hajj tragedy – a case of fanaticism combined with incompetence ad ignorance. But doubtless whatever conclusions are drawn it wont be the fault of Saudi, Muslims etc.
Welcome!
OT – with apologies
Tonight’s Newsnight carried a feature on the disgusting witch-hunting of a maniacal African fundamentalist preacher, who operates in London.
While applauding Newsnight’s (rare) courage in exploring one of the problems caused by the apparently uncontrolled African migration to the UK in recent years, how on earth can the corporation possibly justify not explaining to us on what basis this demented monster and his congregation of superstitious halfwits was allowed into the country in the first place?
Presumably, this is a question no BBC staff member would ever think of asking? Or are they not allowed to?
dave t
On the article’s quote, “…if exposed, might win him votes rather than lose them.”
Damn straight! I voted for Bush anyway but that certainly would have pushed me further! He should have had the BBC in mind while he was at it! 🙂
Ritter
BBC meeting unions over job cuts
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/enter…ent/ 4605822.stm
“The NUJ said it could strike….”
“Amicus said it would ballot for a strike if the BBC insists on compulsory redundancies.”
Where can I vote? Lets hope its a long strike, very very very long.
J.G.
Just tried your link to the NUJ strike – got a page not found error: have the BBC removed the page already?
In any case, the question that I’d like to put to the NUJ and Amicus if they elect to strike is, “And just who’s THAT going to inconvenience?”
Cheers.
Hamza attacks ‘enemies of Islam’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4605726.stm
Anyone notice how the IBC manages to refrain from criticising my special friend “Hook” for any of his statements in this piece?
Well, I guess I’m an enemy of Islam because I stand for everything Mr. Hamza doesn’t. My bet is that he won’t get more than five years in his own private mosque.
‘Abu Hamza al-Masri ‘
anagrams to
‘I am lush bazaar am.’