'The Arabists at the Foreign Office'

The Channel 4 30 Minutes documentary, which is going to criticise the government's approach to Islamism this Friday, has been getting quite a bit of a trailing.

Nick Cohen's given his mate Martin Bright - who's behind the documentary - a plug, while the Mail on Sunday claims that the government has tried to censor the film which says there is a division in approach between the FCO and Number 10:

The Channel 4 documentary uses leaked documents to highlight a growing division between Downing Street and the Foreign Office - it says the FO is keen to form links with radical groups, while Downing Street wants a more cautious approach. 

But FO Permanent Secretary Sir Michael Jay is so incensed by the film - due to be shown in the 30 Minutes slot on Friday night - that he has demanded cuts.

One of the confidential papers highlights concerns about FO adviser Mockbul Ali, described as an advocate of links to groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami.

The FO denies it is trying to censor the programme but merely objecting to the naming of individuals such as Mr Ali as it could threaten their safety.

The circus surrounding Mockbul Ali for a considerable amount of time is something to behold. I've blogged about him before, and I still get a few visitors every week coming to that page from a Google search of his name.

This man is not famous. He is not high profile. He's just someone that works at the Foreign Office. He's 25-years-old. I doubt similarly positioned people have been subject to the kind of media coverage he gets. I'd imagine that there are ding-dongs about Foreign Office policy all the time without the amount of leaks this one gets.

It strikes me that the Muslim community is in a pretty sad situation where we've got so few people in influential positions, that when there is someone who is somewhere on the ladder, he's being sniped at. It's not as if he is civil servant Michael Israel Michaels who passed Whitehall nuclear secrets onto, well, Israel.

The Muslim community is so lame that we apparently need Bright to speak for us - he claims he's making the film because he wants to help us be free from our radical leaders. As Islamophobia Watch remind us though, he calls himself an "Islamophobe" because "there is a lot in Islam to be fearful of".