Why is Martin Amis still viewed as a serious commentator? Here he is in an interview with Johann Hari regurgitating nonsense about Muslim birth rates and how they pose a threat to Europe.
Despite this, he was on This Week chatting on the sofa with Andrew Neil about the US primaries. Mind you, they also had Jade "poppadom" Goody on the final segment of the programme, so maybe some researchers were having a bit of fun.
Strange story on the front page of the Scotsman today. They've got Samantha Power, one of Barack Obama's people, calling Hillary Clinton a "monster":
"We f***** up in Ohio," she admitted. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win.
"She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything," Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.
Now to me, that comment should be off the record. The Scotsman put in an explanation at the bottom of their article saying that this disclaimer only works if it's stated at the beginning of an interview that this will be the nature of the conversation. However, in practice I've seen it work plenty of times that a conversation is fully quoted but if someone wants to go off the record for a moment - and they say it quite clearly - that this is respected.
I suspect that if this had been a Scottish politician, the Scotsman wouldn't have gone to town on it in quite the same way. The fact that they will not be getting regular access to the Obama camp anyway led them to take the decision they did.
One of the rising stars in the media is interviewed in the Independent:
Hasan believes that television is less hostile towards Muslims than the print media, and is keen to lay the blame for Islamophobia at the door of ignorance rather than racism. "Over the years, at the BBC, ITV and Sky, I have worked with countless producers and reporters who had never met a Muslim before they met me," he says, "or if they had, it was invariably an unrepresentative and loony extremist who they were interviewing or profiling for a story."
Hasan calls for more moderate Muslims in Britain to abandon traditional career paths towards medicine or engineering and to instead join the media and help influence the industry's coverage of issues such as terrorism and integration. "I see people like myself – who happen to be both a professional journalist and a practising Muslim – as a bridge between the Islamic community and the media, and by extension between Muslims and wider society," says Hasan.
The BBC has decided to cancel Planet Relief, which as it sounds was a planned night of campaigning similar to Comic Relief, but for the environment. The decision appears to have been prompted to avoid criticisms of bias. Which is a bit like them cancelling Lenny Henry et al with the rationale that there are people that blame those suffering in the less developed world for their own plight.
But let's say for argument's sake that the climate change sceptics have a point. I think that Pascal's Wager applies to this scenario. There is too much to be lost by carrying on the way we are, and nothing to lose by being greener. Actually, everyone wins by changing course. There is nothing at all wrong in saying that we want to clean up the world, have more breathable air, and conserve energy. All of these things are noble pursuits, regardless of how important you think it is to do them.
The Herald butchered my letter today, taking out any meaning, which was to complain about their outrageous front page coverage of the Siddique trial yesterday. Their edited version took out the criticism of their coverage. Here's the original letter:
Sir, I was taken aback to read your front page feature this morning talking of “Islamic terror”. This oxymoronic phrase has long since left the discourse in virtually every other newspaper in these isles.
The adjective is just wrong, there is nothing Islamic about terrorism. The Muslim community is constantly asked to disavow these acts, and we are not helped when this kind of language is used linking us right back to it.
I’m no lawyer, but Siddique was not convicted with any crime of “Islamic terrorism” as your article stated, just offences related to terrorism pure and simple. Although as Siddique’s defence team highlighted, arguably only a Muslim would face the Terrorism Acts for what he did.
Mustafa Arif has shown himself very confident in his lawyers and the steadfastness of his internet hosts by publishing the front page of the Sunday Times that News International demanded I remove from my site. He says:
Why have News International decided to pick on Osama? One can only assume they didn’t appreciate the criticism. Surely, a large multi-national media company ought to be thicker skinned than cry foul over the musings of a minor blog?
I like to think of this as more than just a "minor blog" but thanks anyway Mustafa!
News International have been in touch to complain about me using copyright material in this post.
The material in question was an image of their front page that day, which accompanied the expose of how poor their lead story was.
I'm not an intellectual property lawyer, and don't want to go to the expense of pushing this, so all other News International front pages have been removed from this website.
I will add though that we live in a sad state of affairs where they can be up in arms about further publicity of a front page which has already been seen up and down the country, while there is no recourse on their rank rotten journalism.
UPDATE: Shouldn't grumble too much, we also live in a country where people are prosecuted for telling the public that the government wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera, with no action against those that actually wanted to do the crime.
I was psyching myself up for a demolishing of the Daily Express's latest Islamophobic tirade, but found that Five Chinese Crackers has already done it.
Given the abject lack of bloggers who ever put forward a decent view when it comes to Muslim affairs, the find (hat tip to Islamophobia Watch) is a welcome one.
The topic is the MCB's report which contains eminently sensible proposals that would help integrate Muslims better into the state school sector. With all the fussing over faith schools it is forgotten that 97.5% of Muslim kids do not actually attend Islamic schools. The guidance will only help teachers in dealing with issues that inevitably arise. As the report says:
However, other [schools] have not been responsive to legitimate and reasonable requests ... such as collective worship, communal changing, swimming, halal meat and sex education. Unfortunately, Muslim pupils are sometimes placed in situations where they feel pressured into acting contrary to their beliefs and conscience, and also experience Islamophobic sentiments and comments.
This is a sentiment that chimes with me. Despite this, the government has found fit to dismiss it, no doubt to the pleasure of the BNP who don't have to provide commentary when linking to Daily Express articles.
It seems from this episode that the right-wing want to have it both ways. They don't want Islamic schools, and they don't want recognition of Muslim beliefs and practices in other schools either. Contrived dramas like this from the Express again only reinforce the fact that significant elements of this country have moved on from condemning Al-Qaeda to a witch-hunt against the Islamic faith itself.
Criminals who happen to be Muslims can't just be criminals today, they have to be "Muslim criminals".
Take the tragic deaths of Caneze Riaz and her four young daughters who were killed by their husband and father Mohammed Riaz. He doused them in petrol and set them ablaze while they slept in Blackburn last year before jumping in the fire and killing himself.
A father and two year old daughter went swimming only to find that they couldn't get in because there was a private booking there. It seems that the council were to blame for having the wrong information on their website:
Mr Williams, 34, bitterly criticised Manchester City Council yesterday after it admitted that advertising for the session, on its website and on leaflets, had been misleading. 'I can understand why Muslim women need to have this kind of session, but the council should not be advertising it as parent and toddler,' he said.
The Daily Mail however blames Muslims:
The incident is the latest in a series of rows between local authorities and the public over swimming lessons for ethnic minority groups.
Except no one was actually rowing with the council over hiring the pool out to a third party.
Yesterday's Channel 4 Insider programme was most illuminating. Zubair Mulla exposed that there is a chemical in this country that is killing 60 people a day - a daily toll equal to the 7/7 bombings. Doctors and ambulance people are complaining that 60-70% of their time is being taken up dealing with the effects of it.
Worse still, the government is afraid to do anything about it because the people contaminating the country with it are such a powerful lobby.
The programme was talking about alcohol.
It’s been bigotry to the fore on Channel 4 this week. On Monday we had a range of bigoted comments made by Muslims who didn’t know they were being filmed. Then we had Jade and Co on Celebrity Big Brother who knew full well they were on camera.
I’m not a follower of CBB, but what has been remarkable is the half-baked attempts at defending Jade. They range from pointing out that Jade herself is mixed race, as if only white people can be racist. That she was angry when making her outbursts or the fact that she is bullying Shilpa is obvious. To say it’s not racist despite the racist words because she would find something to pick on anyway is ignoring the point that she is indeed using racist language. Her angry bullying is aggravated by racism.
Racism needn’t involve feelings of racial supremacy, though it can obviously by argued that using racist formulation of words does betray such an attitude. The fact of the matter is that phrases such as “I’m off to the Chinky” (Chinese takeaway for the uninitiated) are still common in this country. In politically correct circles they are out, but most of the country doesn’t necessarily hang out there – as we’ve seen this week.
The reaction back in India – burning of effigies and the like – reminded me of the controversy surrounding the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad last year. This time though the subject of prejudice was something everyone else could agree as being holy. No one leapt to defend Jade’s freedom of expression.
Quick comment on the Sunday Times article about my supposed comments on Islamophobia and the Holocaust last week. Under the headline Treatment of Muslims 'echoes Jews under Nazis', the newspaper averred that:
ONE OF Scotland’s most prominent Muslims has compared the treatment of Asians in Britain with that of Jews in Nazi Germany.
Except I didn't, and as Martin Sullivan at IW pointed out, if you read my actual comments in the article, you'll see I didn't. The headline of the article contains quotation marks, but again, as you'll see, there is no such quote contained therein.
The Sun have been particularly active with the Muslim stories of late. One of their favoured themes has been halal meat, which they say involves animals being "bled to death" - see the stories about halal food in Reading schools and about McDonalds planning halal "Big Meccas" (the proper Arabic name of Makkah would have been even better here).
From the former article:
Islamic law insists on halal meat, produced by slashing an animal’s neck with a single cut. Animals are not stunned beforehand.
Parents are furious at the revelation. One said: “I have nothing against halal meat — especially for religious reasons — but my daughter is Christian not Muslim.”
Emmm your point then mate? You want meat slaughtered according to Christianity?
I don't know where the Sun coined this "bled to death" phrase, but it tends towards an interpretation where a minor incision is made while mad mullahs stand around waiting for the animal to die writhing in pain. In fact, the meat is not halal unless the animal dies instantly. If it suffers then it simply isn't, pardon the expression, kosher.
The Daily Mail discovers that life is not great in Bethlehem:
The town's Christian population has dwindled from more than 85 per cent in 1948 to 12 per cent of its 60,000 inhabitants in 2006.
There are reports of religious persecution, in the form of murders, beatings and land grabs.
Meanwhile, the breakdown in security is putting off tourists, leading to economic hardship for Christians, who own most of the town's hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops.
The situation has become so desperate that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, are to lead a joint delegation to Bethlehem this week to express their solidarity with the beleaguered Christian populace.
The town, according to the Cardinal, is being "steadily strangled".
They identify the problem, but its cause?
The sense of a creeping Islamic fundamentalism is all around in Bethlehem.
Let me say this. The head of the CoE and the Catholic Church better not be going over there only to condemn "Islamic fundamentalism" and to ignore the wall running through the living room. There have been all sorts of strange pronouncements from both churches regarding Islam in recent months, but such an act would be simply beyond the pale.
Got this reply from the BBC regarding my complaint that they used a backdrop of the Dome of the Rock for a purely Israeli political story:
I was sorry to learn you feel it was inappropriate to use a shot of the Dome of the Rock as a backdrop during reports from Jerusalem.
We are well aware of the controversy surrounding this area. In the past we have regularly reported on it and pointed out that Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. It annexed the area in 1981 and sees it as its exclusive domain. Under international law the area is considered to be occupied territory. We were not attempting to make any kind of political point with the backdrop. Quite simply Richard Miron was reporting from the area and this was simply used a backdrop to where he was reporting from.
The Muslim stories have calmed down a bit.
But the BBC for one have persisted, with the story of the 70 airport workers in Paris who have been suspended for suspicion of terrorism. The headline however says "Paris airport bars Muslim staff" i.e. signifying that they have suspended staff for being Muslim. They've done nothing of the sort.
A few years ago there was a debate about whether the oxymornic term "Islamic terrorist" was apt - how can you describe a terrorist as Islamic? They are terrorists pure and simple. Now it seems to be simplified to just calling them Muslims.
I hope questions are being asked in France though as to the likelihood of 70 people being involved in a terror plot either coordinated or unlinked. The BBC reports: "Airport officials say some of the workers had frequently visited Pakistan and Afghanistan the previous year". It seems that the smoking gun these days as far as accusations of terrorism are concerned is a visit to Pakistan. For your information, I haven't been since I was two.
Still, at least France didn't just bomb the airport. A few days ago the Pakistani government bombed an Islamic school (also known by the evil word madrassah) in their country killing 80 people. All, without any arrests or trials, were terrorists apparently. The danger for the Pakistani government, given how the country is viewed in the West as a hot bed of terrorism, is that the approach they took on this school could be taken on their entire country.
You may have heard of this story by the real outrage it represented - that Prince Charles had to change his travel plans because of it. Camilla meanwhile has being coming under fire from the Daily Express for one for not wearing a poppy. Yesterday they declared "'Islamic' Camilla dumps poppy", because it was chaffing her "Muslim scarf".
Today, they are moaning that "she is wearing one but you can't see it under Muslim scarf". As you can see from the picture, she is wearing the traditional Pakistani daputta. This is a Muslim scarf how? The Express would do well to remember before stoking this Islamophobic and racist nonsense that tens of thousands of soldiers from the sub-continent laid down their lives in WWI for their British colonial masters, and if they're sincere about commemorating the war veterans, then let's focus on that.
David Aaronovitch wrote last week in the Times:
I not only think that Jeremiahs such as Liddle, and Melanie Phillips, of the Mail, are wrong, I think their approach could lead us into utter disaster. For a fortnight now we have been discussing veils — so just how many veil-wearing teachers are there? Ten? Five? Just Ms Azmi? What’s the problem for the rest of us once we have (rightly) taken the decision that she cannot teach while looking like a Dalek? Why should a Muslim cab- driver who is (also rightly) being sued for not carrying a guide dog make it to the banner front page of the London Evening Standard? Or a single Muslim chemist who refused to prescribe a “morning-after” Pill get half a page in the Telegraph?
In each case where a minister or an opposition spokesthing has given an opinion on matters Muslim in the past two weeks, I have agreed with much of what they have said, while wishing that they had spread the news more evenly over the national agenda. The interventions in the space of a fortnight, from at least four members of the Government and David Davis, have helped to create an atmosphere of assault. Mr Davis has said, for example, that “there is a growing feeling that the Muslim community is excessively sensitive to criticism”. Maybe, but if everyone says it every day for a week, the sensitivity becomes justified. Try it at home if you don’t believe me.
Unfortunately it came in the same article as this unsubstantiated stat about 12-year-old girls:
...... there are several communities that practise Islam, and in some of them up to one tenth of the girls of school age go missing between primary and secondary school. They’re back in Pakistan getting betrothed ......
On the spate of Muslim stories, Unity and Sunny at PP had good write-ups on the recent story where the Sun claimed that "Muslim yobs" had daubed "F**K OFF" outside the door of British soldiers. Turned out that no Muslim had done anything of the sort. Alarm bells should have been ringing from when the story was first published in the Sun though. Their evidence:
Sources inside Windsor’s Combermere Barracks — where the officers are based — confirmed Muslims had made calls threatening the men.
When someone makes threatening and abusive calls, how on earth do you decipher what religion they are? “Oi soldiers, F*** OFF! By the way, peace be upon you, I’m a Muslim”.
And this week the Scotsman expressed the outrage of Scotland's leading bigoted QC Donald Findlay that a trial was deferred to a later date because two Muslim witnesses were celebrating Eid.
I've now spoken with some lawyers, and indeed trials do get deferred for a lot less. In any case, it is not going to bring down civilisation as we know it, no matter how alarmed readers of the Scotsman get about the "Islamisation of the UK" (their letters page can be a scary place). We're a big country with bags of tradition, we can be relaxed about this.
The reporter did not tell me that one of the Muslims in question was a terror suspect. I stand by my comments in the original article regardless - it is like asking a Christian to come into court on Christmas. It's up to others to determine how much they want to treat Muslims like untermenschen in insisting that they come in regardless.
Absolutely astonishing reply received by Lenin from the BBC as to why they failed to report the story of the BNP bomb factory.
The BBC, the country's leading news broadcaster, said they hadn't heard about it.
It's funny how the most trivial of stories can make it to the top of the news agenda. Just a few days ago we had the non-story of PC Basha who wasn't stationed at the Israeli embassy being lead story. Difference in this BNP case is the police didn't see it fit to leak it to their favoured organs.
John Ware has responded to points made at Pickled Politics again. This time though he's not included any of my serious criticisms of his documentary.
Maybe he sees it as part of the "personalised invective" against him. I don't think I was personal - I'd attack any lazy journalism. Maybe he just can't answer the points.
Undeterred, hopefully the BBC themselves will finally speak about this soon, rather than just Ware and Panorama defending their work.
Joan McAlpine picks up on the issue of there not being enough Muslims in Scottish newsrooms. Whose fault is it?
So what of the Scottish media? I believe it will have learned from this sorry tale. It will be reminded of the need to "assume nothing" and ensure basic fact-checking, something that requires the manpower to canvass a wide variety of sources. The media must also improve and extend its links with the Muslim community at every level. This point is made by Osama Saeed, whose blog – www.osamasaeed.org – offers an interesting Islamic perspective on a range of current events.
You heard it here first folks.
From the beginning, the friends and relatives of the people at the centre of this have been saying that there is more to this than was being reported.
Even looking at Louise’s own statement from Tuesday is was clear that this was not a case of kidnap as was being portrayed. The fact that Misbah’s own siblings were helping her and their father should have provoked some kind of thinking independent of lazy racism.
I was being told that the family’s side of the story could not be properly told due to media rules. At the same time, there seemed to be no compunction in circulating the cheap-shot accusation of a forced marriage just because the father was Pakistani. I hope the Daily Record particularly are feeling stupid - because they look stupid.
Still, despite Misbah’s insistence that her name is not Molly, and it certainly isn’t Campbell – Louise’s boyfriend’s name – the media are still insisting on not using her real name. It’s still only two syllables, it should not be this difficult.
Continue reading "Misbah speaks - and leaves the media with red faces" »
The Evening Standard has run a story claiming that the Guardian's comment editor, Seumas Milne, is set to get the boot.
This has been greeted with delight by Harry's Place, who along with a number of pro-war, pro-Israeli and right-wing blogs, have had him constantly in their sights over the last few years. They are not used to seeing opinions in the papers other than their own.
The Guardian is unique among British newspapers in that it does give voice to comment that doesn't get aired anywhere else. This is why "leading figures" are gunning for Milne.
John Ware has apparently replied to my criticisms of his Panorama film about Interpal. This was posted on the Pickled Politics thread on the topic:
Osama Saeed and I may well look through the telescope from different ends. But the gap between those like us is always going to be unbridgeable if even the most basic facts can’t be agreed. Categorically we on Panorama did not “mock up” the classroom scene at the orphange. The class that we filmed was most emphatically not arranged at our request. We don’t do “mocking up” on Panorama. Neither I nor the producer Tristan Quinn would ever be party to that kind of stunt television. The relationship between Osama’s other “we-now-know” assertions about the programme and the facts is equally non existent.
If this is indeed his reply, then I'm astonished. I really doubt he would accept this kind of answer from someone he'd put questions to.
The "telescope" has nothing to do with it, but it is interesting to see he's admitting a bias on the topic, rather than some kind of objective observer status. The fact is that I've put some rather serious points to him that his documentary, which claimed to show that Interpal had helped build Hamas, actually did nothing of the sort.
As well as saying he mocked up a scene, I've said that that the BBC has been used as a mouthpiece for Mossad propaganda - the film would have been nothing without them (they should complain that they weren't given "special thanks" in the end credits).
He additionally needs to demonstrate why Interpal were uniquely singled out for criticism, when the Palestinian institutions in question have been funded by a host of other (non-Muslim) European and US charities.
Ware also got it very wrong about the songs and about the Hamas flag. He may well say "we-now-know", but he should have known this before he broadcasted.
John Ware has responded to some of the criticisms leveled against him after his documentary about Interpal. It took in points made by AIM magazine, Sunny at Pickled Politics, the MCB and myself.
The main thrust of his film is, as he puts it, that “we showed that some of Interpal's money had gone to charities like the al Khalil al Rahman Young Girls' Society and that over the years this had helped build Hamas into the popular movement it is today”. As such, they are preposterous grounds for a documentary. It is something intangible that nobody could know or prove. Ware has consequently had to clutch at various straws – songs, flags, attitudes - to try and construct a case. He has also employed some very questionable methods.
However, the main point I would put to him is that his documentary was Mossad-inspired propaganda. It depended on material provided to him by the Israeli secret services. He tried to dismiss the links by saying:
John Ware has issued a response to some of the criticisms levelled against him after last month's Panorama film about Interpal.
His response took in points made by AIM magazine, Pickled Politics, the MCB and myself. The whole thing can be read at AIM, but I've pasted the pertinent points below.
6) Sunny Hundal wrote in Pickled Politics: "We didn't bring anything new to the table."
We did - at least according to Kenneth Dibble, Executive Director of the Charity Commission's legal services: what he himself defined as possible "collateral activities" - e.g. those promoting or glorifying terrorist activity - amongst the Islamic charities in the West Bank and Gaza to which Interpal distributes funds. For example, the video of children at the Al Khalil Al Rahman Young Girls' Society being encouraged by adults to sing songs celebrating their deaths and the deaths of Israelis through suicide bombings. This was the same material Sunny himself later describes as "quite disturbing".
Mr Dibble accepted that this "collateral" conduct was not something the Charity Commission had previously taken a view about. But he also said it was "...an issue that you are raising now and if I may say so is quite a pertinent issue."
7) Sunny quoted approvingly from MAB's Osama Saeed who wrote: "Ware's goading of young boys in an orphanage as to how many of them wanted to be fighters was sick beyond words."
Actually, my question to those boys was: "Who would you like to be. Who is your big hero? It's hard to see how that constitutes "goading."
Jon Snow, considered one of the more thinking broadcasters, has said that Muslims are not integrating in a Sunday Times article.
His evidence is that we are practising our religion more:
We were attempting to delve behind the results of the most comprehensive survey to date of Muslim opinion in Britain. Conducted by NOP for Channel 4’s Dispatches, one of its most startling results suggested that Muslim integration into British society has effectively come to a halt.
Immigrants have usually tended to become more secular and less religious than their parents by the second generation. But the survey shows Muslims have gone in precisely the opposite direction.
Melanie Reid has hit out at Fergal Keane's reporting for the BBC in Lebanon yesterday, in an extraordinarily heartless article in the Herald:
There was one particularly ghastly example of Keane as emoter-in-chief last week, when he followed the plight of a Lebanese family wrenched apart while fleeing their country by sea. In the turmoil of embarking, the family were separated: the mother got on a ship for Cyprus; her children did not. We were subject to offensive, lingering camera work of the two crying little boys, as close as I have seen the BBC go to the pornography of grief. Moreover, the report failed to make clear that the boys were all the time in the company of their father. It reminded me, strikingly, of one of those manipulative, tear-jerking clips shown on Red Nose Day: the ones designed to make people reach for their credit cards.
Even the most ardent supporters of Israel manage to pause, no matter how insincerely, to acknowledge the suffering in Lebanon. Reid herself described tales of woe in the most vivid manner, but airily dismissed it all as an inconvenience and blot on her television screen.
Without the coverage of Keane and others, the news agenda would surely have moved on elsewhere by now. Because of it, at least there is some international talk of a ceasefire.
I also happen to think what we've seen from Beirut, Tyre and Qana, is exactly what has happened in Kabul, Kandahar, Baghdad, Fallujah and countless other towns and villages in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last few years. It's just that now reporters aren't embedded with US and UK troops - they're off the leash and telling people what the horror of war is. Hopefully it will go some way to stopping it.
Must be great being a journalist. John Ware yesterday showed how it can be carried off with minimum work. Just sit back and soak in the briefings from Mossad.
It was rumoured previously that Ware was influenced by Israel’s secret service, but he wore it on his sleeve with pride on yesterday’s Panorama. With reference what “intelligence sources say”, he had, for example, information on secret meetings held by Palestinians 14 years ago, access to transcripts of prisoners held by Israel, and material seized by the Israeli army in the West Bank.
He seemed in awe of his informants. A Palestinian head teacher denied that her school had ever been raided by the Israeli army, but he maintained it had, and that a computer seized from there had pictures of violence on it. For Ware, she was lying, and the Israelis could do no wrong.
