The irresponsible Express stokes the fire

October 15, 2009 by shanecroucher Leave a Comment

There’s an article in today’s Express which is a cause for some concern. A minor, extremist Islamic group called Islam4UK is organising a demonstration to take place on October 31st in London, with the agenda that Britain should be ruled by Sharia Law. Islam4UK is a small organisation, which represents a hard-line Islamic viewpoint – one which isn’t shared by the overwhelming majority of Muslims in this country. However, the headline of the Express lumps all Muslims together:

Now Muslims demand: Give us full sharia law

The Express, in its typically disgusting style of journalism, has declared that the planned demonstration is the start of:

a massive campaign to impose sharia law on Britain

Except, it’s not exactly massive, is it. It’s one planned demonstration in London by a group of fundamentalist religious zealots. Of course, the Express bury the fact that it has not yet been approved by the Metropolitan Police way down at the bottom of the article:

The rally has not yet been given final approval. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “We have received an application for the march but we have yet to meet with the organisers.”

Islam4UK is fronted by Anjem Choudary, known for his extreme and unpaletable views. He’s an easy source of inflamatory quotes, which the right-wing tabloid media can churn out in an explosion of pretend outrage.  In short, his words, with a dash of hyperbole, sell papers. But there’s so much that’s ethically wrong with what they’ve done with this story, it’s hard to know where to start….

Firstly, what does giving coverage to groups like this achieve? It promotes the event by giving it a wider audience, so not only may you get more extremist Muslims turning up, you also advertise it to people like the English Defence League (EDL), a group of violent thugs opposed to anything or anyone other than themselves. Let’s say the demonstration gets the go-ahead – you can bet your arse that the EDL will show up and violence will break out. More grief for everyone for nothing beneficial to anyone, other than to appease the violent or twisted minds of Islam4UK and the EDL.

Secondly, by making sweeping generic comments like the Express headline, you further marginalise and isolate communities within our society. How do you think the average Muslim feels having just seen that front page? Knowing that he has just been lumped in with extremists, with whom he very probably shares no sentiment.

Thirdly, at a time when sympathy for the BNP is hot topic, by scaremongering with more ‘Muslims under your bed’ stories, you just legitimise their views. There are parts of the population who are very susceptible to propaganda, misinformation and sensationalism. By writing ludicrous, massively irrelevant and hugely irresponsible articles like this, you’re just handing the BNP more weapons to its arsenal. Once these articles are out there, the damage is done. You can’t fight propaganda with reason and rationality. When Nick Griffin appears on Question Time – what happens if he brings this up?  The reasonable side of the argument will get shouted down, as this will be ‘evidence’ of the supposed Islamification of Britain.

No ethical or moral consideration goes into journalism at the Express. Should the PCC step in and criticise the Express? As it stands, the Express is a friend of the fascists.

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Sarkozy and burqas – the right outcome via the wrong approach

June 22, 2009 by shanecroucher 1 Comment

Scooting around the blogosphere on my lunch break today led me to a Conservative stalwart blog called Letters from a Tory. There’s an open letter to Nicolas Sarkozy, praising the French President for speaking out against the burka and other Islamic religious wear and making the first steps to banning them. Here’s the original Daily Mail report. The reason this has come to the fore is because:

A group of 58 MPs from the Left and Right has called on Parliament to take action against  women who are adopting what they called oppressive head-to-toe Islamic dress that ‘breaches individual freedoms’

LFT states:

First and foremost, you deserve congratulations for even considering this issue.  Unfortunately in the UK, no-one can mention the word ‘Islam’ without being accused of racism or lacking cultural awareness or some other complete rubbish.

This is typical rhetoric from those not willing to listen to the other side of the argument. Frequently from the right-wingers we hear bleating about what they ‘aren’t allowed to say’, as they bathe themselves in a swamp of paranoia. You can mention Islam, create a debate about the legitimacy of certain aspects of Islam in a progressive society and have a full and frank discussion without it amounting to being called a ‘racist’. LFT is yet another person in a band of many who rule out a debate before they’ve even started, rendering themselves thought-criminals and creating a huff about nothing. The opposition you believe to be up against is a fabrication of your own mind, LFT. Once you’ve finished sulking in the corner you can join the rest of us for a real debate.

On the issue of the burqa, LFT eventually brings himself to his argument:

On the issue of Muslim attire, I don’t think there are any laws in Islam which state the women have to wear a burka or niqab.  In fact, there seems to be some debate within the Islamic world as to whether they are needed at all – some think they are, some don’t, hence the number of variations in the style of headdresses and outfits.  Personally, I don’t see how anyone can complain about headscarves because there are no grounds to claim that women are being victimised in any way, and I’m sure many Muslim women are proud to assert their identity in this way.  However, telling women to cover almost their entire bodies in front of men they don’t know is really pushing the boundary.

How can this be anything other than an attempt to repress women and their individuality?  Obviously the burka is more common in Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia and I don’t think many people would question the submissive role that women play in such societies.  Personally, I have no wish to see such attitudes in any Western country and there is a strong argument to ban the burka and similar attire on these grounds.

LFT, in a way, undoes his own argument when he claims that their isn’t any Islamic law that dictates a burqa to be a necessity. Well, perhaps this means that women have more of a choice than you’d lead us to believe?

In any case, how would banning the burqa make any difference to how the patriarchs of the Islamic families who have burqa-clad women feel? Surely more efforts should be spent on getting the moderate Islamic community to work with the stricter faction, in a bid to persuade rather than coerce. Banning them would cause a ruction and greater isolation of strict Muslims, who already live far enough away from mainstream society as it is. Why do we want to push them further back when it’s bringing them closer that will ultimately lead to progress?

I don’t particularly want to see women wearing burqas. But banning them is just a superficial emancipation of the women who do wear them. It’s sweeping the issue under the carpet and offers no real solution to the fundamental issue. Taking measures to outlaw certain religious practices pushes people away, creating even more of a ‘them and us’ situation. If Sarkozy really did care about the female repression that it represents then he’d target the root cause.

The real issue is why people feel they should put a burka on – and that’s what we need to tackle.

Win that battle and there’d be no need to legislate.

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Look on your own doorstep first ‘Gaunty’

June 16, 2009 by shanecroucher Leave a Comment

gauntsunStalwart anti-everyone left of Enoch Powell Sun columnist Jon Gaunt, famously sacked from TalkSport radio for calling a councillor a ‘nazi’ for suggesting that smokers wanting to foster kids should choose between their vile habit or nurturing a child, claimed in his latest article that:

Unfortunately, if you expressed any of the above in recent years the fascists on the Left and in the BBC shut down the debate or tried to portray you as Little Englanders at best, and racists at worst.

These deluded fools are to blame for Griffin and Darby – the Dumb and Dumber of British politics – grabbing a foothold.

I’ll just clarify what “the above” means to give you some context. He was making the point that you can be anti-Europe, concerned about immigration, dislike political correctness, pro-capital punishment blah blah – without being a moron. However, it’s where he places the blame for the recent election of two BNP MEPs that I take issue with.

There’s an irony in your words, Gaunty. Why do you think that we can’t have a sensible debate about immigration? Why do you think we can’t engage in serious discussion over the benefits and disadvantages of the EU? A large chunk of the blame sits with the Sun for whipping up a feast of jingoism, nationalism and animosity within the British public. Perhaps the reason these people get stereotyped as “little Englanders” is because the opinions handed to them by the Sun means that they form irrational conclusions, based on uneven evidence and hyperbole.

A story with the headline “Immigrants push cops to the limit” ran, with the first line of the article reading:

A crime wave triggered by a huge influx of immigrants has stretched police to breaking point, a top cop warned yesterday.

The ‘top cop’ they were talking about is named in the article as Julie Spence, Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire. They unashamedly place her open letter next to it – not once does it mention a ‘crime wave’ or a rise in criminal activity due to immigrants. She talks frankly and sensibly about the pressures on public services that mass immigration can cause because of budgetary limits:

The contribution that all communities make to our success as a nation is considerable. But we cannot hide the fact that our growing population is having an impact on our public services…funding for my service has not kept pace with the scale of change we have seen in recent years. That must change.

I commissioned a booklet welcoming all nationalities to our county and reminding them of the laws and customs they should be aware of to make their life here both safe and lawful…If I became a victim of crime in a foreign land I would like, where possible, to speak to someone in my own language. The same applies here

So the ‘crime wave’ being detailed in the Sun isn’t true. The very source they claim to have received this information from mentioned nothing of the kind. Detailed reporting by better newspapers revealed that the alleged rise in crime was due to the influx of immigrants was entirely false. Both the Telegraph and the Guardian showed this.

We can’t have a sensible debate about the EU because there isn’t enough sensible reporting on it by the media. The Sun build up an anti-European consensus among its readers by using imperialist rhetoric, referring to Germans as “Jerry” or “Krauts” as an example. Constant use of the words “our”, “them” and “us” build up an atmosphere of defense: as though we’re being attacked.

With the majority of Sun readers taking their education on the EU straight from the pages, what chance have they got of really learning how the system works? The Sun frequently publishes stories on the EU that are myth. Take this as an example. From “EU plan to grab our oil“:

GREEDY EU chiefs will snatch Britain’s North Sea oil if Tony Blair signs up to the planned EU constitution, it was revealed last night.

The draft proposal for the treaty has a secret clause demanding power over Europe’s energy supply.

Critics warned the move would mean Britain surrendering control of multi-billion pound oil stocks to Brussels.

But this is highlighted as false by europa:

The “secret” clause referred to here by The Sun was Article III-152 of the draft treaty (Article III-157 of the final version).

This article is merely a restatement of existing EU laws that aim to preserve and improve the environment, whilst maintaining the operation of the single market. UK ministers have agreed to this existing legislation. It does not allow “Brussels” to seize control of UK oil stocks.

However, the Sun’s readers don’t know about this and so form an opinion on the EU based on a mistruth.

In another example of the Sun’s irresponsible hate-mongering, they were forced to pay £30,000 damages to a Muslim bus driver they vilified in their pages. In court, the bus driver’s lawyer highlighted the libel:

The article suggested that Raulynaitis was so arrogant, unprofessional and contemptuous of the passengers within his care whom he is paid to serve, that he ordered them off his bus so that he could pray.

The article went on to allege that the passengers later refused to reboard the bus because they spotted a rucksack and feared he may be a fanatic and therefore, it is to be inferred, a terrorist.

It’s exactly this hype that the readers will absorb and so come to a conclusion based on myth. I wonder how many of the readers know that those stories are false? I’d hazard a guess at not many. So the damage is done and relatively irreparable. Who do many readers turn to on the back of falsities about immigration and the like? The worst proponents of anti-immigrant, racist propaganda of all.

The BNP.

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