Today's Dateline London was a largely consensual affair, unfortunately. (Not entirely, but largely.)
Instead of describing it in detail, I'll just transcribe bits of it, to give you a flavour of it.
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However, in advance of that, here's a pre-warning...
Please watch out for Marc Roche doing the Guardianista 'society's to blame' thing to excuse young French Muslims for their anti-Semitism.
Please watch out for Marc Roche doing the Guardianista 'society's to blame' thing to excuse young French Muslims for their anti-Semitism.
Also look out for Herr Kielinger, with Gavin Esler's assistance, (repeatedly) giving Germany's Pegida movement a very firm 'thumbs down'...
...and for Yasmin AB doing her thing and outrageously equating UKIP with Islamist terrorists...
...and, thanks to the BBC's Gavin Esler and his panel, getting away with it...
...and, thanks to the BBC's Gavin Esler and his panel, getting away with it...
...and for the bit when Gavin and Yasmin get together to bring up Oklahoma and damn the hasty imputations of Muslim responsibility without reminding BBC viewers that there have been plenty of examples in the other direction (including from the BBC), and that the Oklahoma/Breivik example should, perhaps, be considered the exceptions that prove the rule.
And as for the final discussion on the party election debates, as they used to say on Jerry Springer..."Don't even go there!"
So, here goes.
And as for the final discussion on the party election debates, as they used to say on Jerry Springer..."Don't even go there!"
So, here goes.
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Marc Roche: I think, aside of anything, it shows that we haven't really got to understand why so many young Muslims, men, feel ostracised in Western society.
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Thomas Kielinger: Germany is a different kettle of fish already. The country, to me, looking from here, appears so...almost not part of the modern world. There are so many people in Germany which is still riven by xenophobia because they find living side by side with other cultures and religions goes against their Christian beliefs. Apart from a metropolitan area like Berlin, in many parts of the country they just do not accept the fact that we live in a multicultural environment and that we have to accept the toleration of other religions and so forth...
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Thomas Kielinger: The [German easterners] are so used to having their lives taken away from them and now...It used to be the communists and now they accuse Islamism of taking away their identity.Gavin Esler: Although in many of these areas there aren't that many Muslims!Thomas Kielinger: Absolutely, which is funny that they should suddenly carry the banner of "anti-Islamisation" and so forth, which is just so irrational, which to me just seems to reveal that there are sections of society which haven't yet accepted the modern world in which we live, and they have to really learn, they have to be educated the world has changed.
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Gavin Esler: We're no stranger to all of these things in Britain, are we?Yasmin Alibhai Brown: No, and I don't think we should give Germany a hard time, or even France. In a way I would say I think UKIP is reflecting the same longings....Thomas Kielinger: Yes.Yasmin Alibhai Brown: ...to go back to the 50's.Thomas Kielinger: Quite right. Yes.Yasmin Alibhai Brown: But what is interesting to me as a modern Muslim is that those jihadis are exactly the same, except they use violent means, which is very frightening. They can't accept the modern world either.Thomas Kielinger: Yes. Yes.Yasmin Alibhai Brown: They find multiculturalism a problem.
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Yasmin Alibhai Brown: There's a fantastic bit in the Koran which said...and I can't remember the word for word...'When people are disrespecting your religion in front of you, move away'. This is in the Koran, for God's sake! But they're not interested...It's part of hating modernism. As do the UKIP people. As do all the extreme-right-wing people. They have much more in common than we seem to know, than we seem to be imagining.
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Greg Katz: Unfortunately in the United States, assault rifles are generally available. So you get two or three people in a foul mood. They can get those rifles and they can attack a mall in St Louis.
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Yasmin Alibhai Brown: And anyway, in the United States the rogue gunman who bombs and brings down people is part of the culture. I mean, that's the truthGavin Esler: We saw that with the Oklahoma Bombing...Yasmin Alibhai Brown: Absolutely.Gavin Esler: ...where people jumped to the conclusion that it was Islamic terrorism but it wasn't.
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Marc Roche: It's very simple. If you say 'anti-Semitic' in France today, it's part of the young Muslim disenfranchised youths who see Jews as an example of success in French society. The only way you'll solve that is to get them out of poverty.
Some credit, perhaps, must be given to the almost-invariably-absurd YAB for pointing out, in contradiction to MR's old-fashioned leftist point about poverty and disenfranchisement being the root cause of Muslim anti-Semitism, that in the UK lots of comfortably-off Muslim families have dispatched family members to perform jihad [not that she quite put it like that] - and for really giving Saudi Arabia a good whacking.
However, she then lost some points for blaming the West's obsession with oil for exacerbating the problem. (Low oil price? U.S. Fracking?)
And, on the Saudi front, it's probably wise to bear in mind that she might, just possibly, have a sectarian interest, being a Shia Muslim.
However, she then lost some points for blaming the West's obsession with oil for exacerbating the problem. (Low oil price? U.S. Fracking?)
And, on the Saudi front, it's probably wise to bear in mind that she might, just possibly, have a sectarian interest, being a Shia Muslim.
The discussion is all over the place. UKIP, US gun nuts, a very sick reference to the Oklahoma City mass murder, all smokescreens. They're all just lashing out, because they're intellectually and morally at sea, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteThey did seem to be all over the place.
DeleteHaving Yasmin Alibhai Brown on though is always a recipe for intellectual sloppiness. She's a mass/mess of hysterical opinions.
Last week's edition was far more rewarding because they all came from very different starting points. This week's edition, in contrast, was a classic soggy left-liberal 'Dateline' near-consensus.
A very perceptive comment, David. They are aren't they?
ReplyDeleteBut why? They're clever enough people. It's not as though it's a lack of intellect that results in this confused ragbag of a discussion.
They simply don't want to face up to the fact that there is a resurgent, transnational pro-Sharia movement, exerting both violent and non-violent pressure on us...by us I mean non-believers across the world.
They just don't have the analytical framework which allows them to accept that reality. They won't accept it until it hurts them personally. We saw something similar in the 1930s. There were a lot of pacifists in 1933, not many six years later.
Dan Read
"They won't accept it until it hurts them personally."
ReplyDeleteThe savage attack on Charlie Ebdo came close. After all, here were fellow journalists of the left brutally gunned down by Islamic terrorists. Nearly fell off my chair recently when I heard a journalist on the World Service on 'The Newsroom' stating that Israel attacked Gaza in response to rockets fired from Gaza on Israel. She obviously never got the memo that it is forbidden on the BBC to report that Israel is justly defending itself against Islamic terrorism.
Could we be seeing a revolution in the ranks? Could it be that some at the BBC have become weary of continually pandering to radical Islam?
I note also that Frank Gardner's shooting at the hands of Islamists did not appear to have made the slightest dent in the BBC's overall appeasement of radical Islam. No doubt he himself has a considerable amount of bitterness towards his attackers since he is now in a wheelchair, but I see no evidence that he has come to see the error of the BBC's ways.
Alan Johnston's kidnapping by Islamic terrorists in Gaza for several months was also quite a personal attack on the BBC and yet it made no difference to the policy of appeasement. The BBC devoted a great deal of time and resources to free Johnston and on the day he was finally freed he cut his World Service interview short, breathlessly exclaiming that he had to go and have breakfast with the Prime Minister - no less a being than chief Gaza terrorist, Ismael Haniye.
We see that the BBC is quite capable of compartmentalising its various reactions to Islamic terrorists and that its 'journalists' are as deep in denial re the danger of Islam as it's possible to be.
However, it does seem that things might gradually change after Charlie Ebdo. There must surely be some at the BBC who would have loved to demonstrate solidarity with the surviving cartoonists and writers as they bravely showed radical Islam the middle finger and were joined in spirit by much of France and countless people elsewhere.
By the same token, they must be ashamed of the dhimmie capitulation of those at the BBC who make the decisions.
Some very interesting observations. I agree with the thrust of your remarks. I think the Paris murders (of the journalists, not the Jews) were a shock to BBC staff. Paris is a hop, skip and a jump away. Lots of BBC staff have been there on news jollies. And here was an attack that was difficult to interpret as anything but an act of murderous revenge by a religion with a Medieval mindset.
DeleteIt would be interesting to know what Frank Gardner really thinks about events. I suspect that because he was essentially a business person working in the Gulf (IIRC) he is likely to have started off as an Arabist type - similar to the FO mindset - who thinks he understands the "Arab" mind and can explain it to others. What strikes me is just how similar the behaviour of Arabs, Africans, Europeans, Persians, Asians and Australians is when they become convinced of the truth of the Koran and the Hadiths.
Dan Read
Dan Read
This all sounds good, but I sill have this sinking suspicion - based on evidence from Beeboid comments at B-BBC (the old John Reith days), on Twitter, and on air, that a primary factor in this whole sorry affair is their overwhelming belief that it's more important to fight against the BBC's arch-nemisis: the Far Right. It's a cartoon, pantomime villain, of course, but I remain convinced that this is a very strong impetus for them.
DeleteI'd also say that more Beeboids are upset at management for preventing the BBC from being more openly anti-Israel and more openly supportive of Hamas's cause. Paul Mason admitted that once, and we know he's not alone.
Until something changes at the BBC where the majority of those producing news and current affairs output learn somehow that what they're doing only makes it worse, and that their job is about more than just preventing a far-Right backash, the reflexive idiocy will continue.
Even Yabber accepts something very wrong is going on:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2909068/It-s-tragic-fellow-British-Muslims-turning-backs-freedom-writes-YASMIN-ALIBHAI-BROWN.html#ixzz3OpwORlJ4
She's really one of those people who should be a natural ally in the struggle against Sharia. More will join in the struggle as they see themselves come under personal threat from Sharia-promoters.