As it was in 2020, so it is in 2021

 

The World at One today ended with a piece of verse by Benjamin Zephaniah. It was full of rhyming platitudes and slogans and Black Lives Matter talking points, and included such lines as:

The time is coming when those who divide us will be judged by us. We will rise up and demand a true history, true democracy and true racial equality.

What interested me about it was what it says about Radio 4, for this is how Jonny Dymond introduced it:

On the anniversary of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech back in August, we asked the poet Benjamin Zephaniah to re-imagine that address for the time of Black Lives Matter. As we start a new year, we thought we would again bring you that message of hope for racial equality going forward.

So why did The World at One bring it back from last August and gave it such importance today, New Year's Day? Were they ostentatiously 'taking the knee' towards Black Lives Matter again? 

"Symbolically lowered"

 

A Grade II listed statue was illegally pulled down earlier this year by a far-left mob, then dragged through the streets and chucked into the Bristol Channel. 

The local, democratically-elected council, despite years of debate, had never voted for it to be removed and opinion polls had shown majority public support for its retention.

Well, that's one way of putting it. This BBC News website report, however, puts it rather differently: 

Campaigners spent decades calling for the statue to be removed and protesters at the Black Lives Matter rally took matters into their own hands and pulled it down in June. They symbolically lowered the statue into Bristol harbour.

It certainly sounds to me, from the language used there, that the BBC journalist who wrote this piece sympathised with that illegal act. 

I'm guessing he/she/whatever is one of those BBC activist types we've heard so much about. 

Off with the fairies

These topics have already been mentioned on the open thread and I’m not going to waste a beautiful sunny day writing about that stupid banner.

Personally, I couldn’t see exactly what was wrong with it - and so far haven’t heard an explanation for all the outrage and apologising, apart from “it’s racist”. 

Would it have been okay if it had said: “White lives don’t matter Manchester”? That certainly would have been obnoxious I suppose - as a banner! 

The fact that I heard a grovelling apology from someone whose name sounded like ‘Bend Knee” made it even more surreal. It turned out that the chap apologising was called Ben Mee.

The Panorama. 

I suppose if I’m going to write about it I really should watch it again. But d’you know what? I can’t spare the time. Well, it looked like a hastily cobbled together attempt to deflect our ire away from the left-wing/commie/anarchic chaos that’s being forced upon us by the media comprising, to date and in no particular order, Coronavirus, BLM, Antifa, unhinged knife-wielding Lybian asylum seekers, a left-leaning Conservative government and a woke, crazy mixed up BBC that’s currently out with the fairies.

Panorama investigates a global network of neo-Nazis whose aim is to destroy society and discovers that it is recruiting in the UK. Last year, a 16-year-old boy from Durham became the youngest person ever convicted of planning a terrorist attack in the UK, prompting reporter Daniel De Simone to delve deeper into this shadowy world. Police say right-wing extremism is the fastest-growing terrorist threat in the UK and that the coronavirus pandemic may be leaving young people vulnerable to radicalisation. As Daniel investigates the Durham case, he notices certain names cropping up again and again. Working with investigative journalist Ali Winston in the US, he tracks down some of the movement's most influential figures and reveals how the network operates across the globe. 

Should Panorama come to me for advice(!) I would suggest they apply a little more rigour to their woke propaganda. I’m afraid this programme was utterly laughable. Firstly Daniel De Simone was confused and inconsistent. Who were the bad guys again? Who were the good guys? Were we supposed to regard rioting protesters as ‘good’ and their opponents as Nazis? Does he know what BLM is all about?

The right-wing villains turned out to be pre-pubescent schoolboys. Yes, I know that age group can be dangerous if they get their grubby little hands on weapons, but it’s hardly a movement on the scale of the SS. 

And that 16-year-old boy. Was he real or an actor? How did they get him to appear? Were they trying to make him famous? The whole thing was a shambles. We’re told that the BBC is still trying to seduce the young. Was that part of their recruitment campaign? 

I keep misreading ‘Defund the BBC’ as ‘Defend the BBC’, but that really would be an unlikely campaign. Nobody would be that out of touch, would they? 

Double Jeopardy

A Guest Post by Arthur T

From the BBC News website:
... ‘Black Durham trainee vicar denied job at 'white' church’  

... ‘A black trainee vicar was rejected for a job by church bosses who said his potential parishioners were "monochrome white working class”. ... 

.... Mr Tanner-Ihm, who is from Chicago and is a Reverend Seminarian in the United States, applied for a role as a curate at a church in the south of England.’ ... 

This story is just what the doctor ordered for the BBC current narrative. It dovetails beautifully into the last two or three weeks’ BLM storyline. Or, does it? 

From a recent comment on Open Thread: 

... ’Black Lives Matter' is an imported conceptual tag from the USA. There, only white on black racism counts - not racism towards the whole BAME group - and definitely not racism pointed towards white people. The BLM form of anti-racism has been imported as a job-lot complete with suitable imagery of outrage, which are truly horrific. The BAME term is not used in the USA. 

Of particular value to the BBC weaponry is the anti-Donald Trump narrative in which, since the Munchetty affair and afterwards when BBC wisdom is 'President Trump is a racist', the BLM activism can allow easy sideswipes at the President. Furthermore, in the BBC narrative, anti-Trump sentiments are easily redirected as anti-Boris Johnson equivalents. 'Never let a crisis go to waste' is the BBC's byword. The racism narrative sits there in readiness. What the BBC haven't yet worked through fully is how to integrate their BLM reporting success into the BAME and more recent migration groups.... 

... 'Black Power! The Nation of Islam! The most racist outfit imaginable. Raised fists!.' ... hasn't yet become mainstream BLM/BBC coinage. There's far too much invested in the Christian Gospel roots of the slavery narrative to suddenly switch to 'The Nation of Islam'. Such a move might dilute the BLM anti-colonialism story. Tread carefully BBC! You wouldn't want one anti-white story to take the shine off another. An accusatory Christian association is more useful to the BBC as it has resonance with British colonialism across the globe. ... 

The above story about Mr Tanner-Ihm defines nicely the BBC’s fascination with US BLM politics. However, there is a glaring inconsistency with the BBC established ‘white on BAME’ racism they perceive to be around every corner in the UK. The Mr Tanner-Ihm story has many of the BBC preferred box-ticks - suggesting a strong identity with Gospel music and Evangelism (that might be right or wrong, but on past performance, it would be the obvious conclusion). 

It’s inconvenient for the BBC to entertain the idea of 'Black Power! The Nation of Islam! being imported on the back of BLM messages. That would potentially usurp the home-grown version. 

Their BLM narrative takes the BBC into a cul-de-sac whereby their attacks on white supremacist far-right groups does not transfer quite so easily to other BAME ‘victims’ supposedly under attack from the same far-right groups. Here is the double jeopardy. TR was shrewd enough to avoid the so-called ‘far-right violent protests’ in London. Repeatedly he is described as ‘founder of the EDL, but we should await the oncoming competition between the imported BLM and the home-grown BAME racism to see who can claim the prize of being the worse hated by the far-right. Tread carefully BBC!