Forgiveness; DIY

BBC Watch has blogged ‘walls’. We blogged them the other day as well. 

The matter of fact way the BBC describes walls constructed by various countries to separate their citizens from undesirables or illegal migrants differs in tone from the suspicious manner they adopt when referring to the security barrier, often called the apartheid wall. They imply that Israel’s ‘excuse’ is disingenuous; not really for protecting Israelis from intruders with malicious intent, they imply, but for land-grabbing. 

I’m only mentioning this again because yesterday the rev. Lucy Winkett delivered a ‘forgiveness‘ themed sermon on Thought for the Day.  She has a thing about walls.

I was wondering if I could truly forgive her for teaming up with the smarmy Stephen Sizer whose six month ban on anti-Israel internet activity must have expired by now.  

Could I forgive Stephen Sizer for being a manipulating sanctimonious antisemite? I suppose that would be the Christian thing to do, taking the lead from Vincent Uzomah who forgave his assailant because he’d very likely been brought up with violence and that was all he knew. Lucy was full of admiration for Uzomah’s Christian attitude.

I could say, Stephen Sizer, you’ve been brought up with antisemitism, and that’s all you know, so I forgive you. But how do I know how he was brought up? Perhaps he was educated by the BBC, in which case one might be minded to forgive all the antisemitism that has arisen from the BBC’s legacy of one-half-of-the-story reporting. Forgive them for they know not what they do.

I hadn’t realised Sizer was the inspiration behind Bethlehem Unwrapped. I thought it was Lucy’s project, devised in conjunction with that other chap whose name escapes me.  I was wondering if a nice girl like Lucy would have been so hopelessly open to persuasion, since she was described in, dare I say ‘excessively’ glowing terms in this radio 4 profile, which was, admittedly, constructed before the offending ‘Wall” stunt.

At the end of her sermon she said something like “in order to forgive, one must be able to forgive oneself” So Lucy, have you forgiven yourself for your politically inept, misguided collaboration with the antisemitic Palestinian lobby?  

Show racism the red card

A black supply teacher was stabbed by a 14 year old pupil.

It was a racially-motivated attack. The boy boasted of this on social media.

Vincent Uzomah

The BBC reported the incident, politely describing the perpetrator merely as a 14 year old boy; they described the victim as black.

Sky was more forthcoming. We now knew that this was not just a story about any old racist pupil, but a ‘Bangladeshi background’ pupil of Pakistani heritage.

The BBC decided to tackle the story on the Today programme. ( 0:2:10) They addressed it as a ‘racism in the classroom’ story, not as a ‘racism within the Pakistani community story’ and interviewed a supply teacher who had suffered racist abuse in the classroom,  Sagheer Afzal, author-come-supply teacher,  described by The Asian Writer as “The reluctant author”

“After a difficult day at work, where he says, he was routinely called names and found himself struggling to regain control of school children, Afzal found the writing process intense and addictive. “I would come home totally exhausted, unwind and then start writing.”

Well, supply teachers do have a notoriously tough time, and the toughness is not  necessarily racially motivated. 

However the BBC decided to ignore the sensitive issue (racism specifically within ‘Bangladeshi background’ society) and focus on racism in general. They brought in Laura Pidcock, education manager at Show Racism the Red Card to explain why racism needs to be explored and discussed rather than banned. (She appeared to be talking about bigotry rather than racism, unless immigrants are now officially a race)

By choosing Sagheer Afzal, who sounded extremely excitable and resentful, (and suffering from a massive chip on the shoulder) the BBC could emote that the issue was racism against  the Muslims rather than racism emanating from the Muslim community. 

The contrast between the reluctant author and the generous, philosophical, dare I say ‘Christian’ attitude from the victim, Vincent Uzomah, was striking

For some reason the Today Programme’s angle reminded me of that well-known enigmatic  composition:

Algy met a bear. The bear was bulgy. The bulge was Algy.