You Can't Call Me 'Mo'

The latest batch of BBC Complaints appeals are out (for April). 

Among them I spotted someone complaining about having their comment 'moderated' off a BBC thread (on an article by Dominic Casciani entitled Analysis: Can extremism plan work?). 

Here's how the BBC describes what happened:

The complainant had posted several comments on the article. During a thread which was discussing Islamic State (IS), the complainant had posted a reference to a verse from Sahih Bukhari, a collection of sayings and deeds of Prophet Mohammed:

“Check your facts. Islam does allow killing of anyone who ‘offends’ - “http://www.sahih-bukhari.com/Pages/Bukhari_4_52.php - “Book 53 verse 271. The IS are simply doing what Islam tells them to.”

Another commenter had responded:

“As any Muslim or non-Muslim scholar who studied Islam knows, there are different interpretations of that verse.”

In response to this thread, the complainant had posted a further comment in which he abbreviated the name Mohammed and said he had authorised killing.

This comment by the complainant had been removed by the moderator.

The complainant then duly complained. And this is what happened next:

The Central Communities Team responded on 30 October rejecting the appeal and saying that the comment had been removed because abbreviating the name of the Prophet Mohammed is potentially offensive to some people. They also said that the comment was off topic for the article. 

The complainant took it further, but the BBC was still having none of it:

The Adviser then noted the response from the BBC Social Media Complaints Group which had drawn a distinction between using the abbreviated form of Mohammed and using it to describe others who share the same name and agreed that it:

“…was indeed likely to cause offence to some users of the site and a breach of our House Rules. The suggestion that referring to others who share the name Mohammed in this way would not cause offence was not considered to be a comparable analogy.”

On appeal to the BBC Trust, the trustees agreed with the BBC Social Media Complaints Group:

Trustees considered this was a reasonable interpretation of the House Rules for BBC message boards regarding offensive comments, and Trustees noted that the BBC had reserved the right to fail comments which breached house rules.

And that's when things were brought to a full stop.

The moral of this story is that if you call The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) 'Mo' on a BBC comments thread about Muslim extremism you are highly likely to be 'moderated' off the page. 

And the BBC will not back you up however much you complain about it.

Picture imperfect

Harry’s Place is featuring this funny clip. (We should be so lucky, if you know what I mean)

Sarah AB also draws attention to an article in the Daily Beast by Dean Obeidallah, which sets out to deconstruct the sketch, and tries to make some completely idiotic moral equivalences. He’s not arguing for the violent reaction, but he is trying to rationalise the Muslims’ right to be offended, while asserting that most Muslims are not.

Muslims are not the only ones who get offended, he opines, citing the opera “Klinghoffer”, which he reminds us, upset some Jews who considered it antisemitic. (with good reason)

“The libretto of “Klinghoffer” rationalizes terrorism, denigrates Jews and treats the plight of the Palestinians as morally equivalent to the Holocaust.”

Obviously the opera went ahead; there were no death threats involved and no-one’s freedom of speech was smothered, even though its message was factually deficient and morally obnoxious.

He also brings up Christian groups objecting to a film about a gay Jesus, and an anti-Catholic interpretation of an artwork that depicted the Virgin Mary dotted with elephant dung. Offence was undeniably taken, end of. (as they say on Eastenders)

The writer wishes to be seen to be tolerant of the Picture Perfect  sketch whilst accusing Pamela Geller of “demonizing Muslims for a living while masquerading as an advocate for freedom of expression” arguing that the many Muslims who responded to Geller’s antics with a collective yawn were a) in the majority, and b) to be applauded. Sure. Big round of applause for the Muslims who don’t kill cartoonists who depict Mohammed.

Of course, if the majority of Muslims merely responded with a yawn, the murderous minority might feel less motivated, and the taboo on merely ‘drawing’ the prophet Mohammed, let alone ‘insulting Islam’ would probably have less of a life-threatening element to it. So why don’t we get more sketches like that on UK TV?

I suggest that the BBC is so keen to normalise everything ‘Islam’ that they too regard depicting The Prophet Mohammed as justified, or legitimate, or understandable ‘provocation’, therefore doing so must be avoided at all costs.

At the same time they don’t respect the quirks and  idiosyncrasies of any other religion, never mind holding back on allowing other religions to be lampooned or ridiculed throughout the entire spectrum of their output.

There is of course a big difference between being deliberately insulting and breaking some religiously-rooted taboo. Steve Bell, the Guardian’s cartoonist is much more insulting than amusing, for example. His antisemitic cartoons are very offensive; I don’t know how many death threats he gets. 

The winning cartoon of the ‘Draw Mohammed “ competition didn’t insult Islam in the way Steve Bell insults his targets. It merely drew attention to irony of the  taboo from a freedom of speech angle.

As it happens I’d much rather comedy wasn’t based on bias, as in the Klinghoffer opera, and for that matter on the Jeremy Hardy school of pro-Palestinian / Israel-bashing, factually inaccurate cliche and innuendo. 

However, if that needs to continue in the name of freedom of speech, I’ll just have to lump it. But adopting the Islamic taboo on depicting their prophet because of a) misguided, selective, muticulturally  positive discrimination, or b) plain fear of being killed is quite another matter.