BBC propaganda Last nights Panorama on Islamic extremism in Britain, brought forward to take advantage of the furore generated by the terrible events in Paris, was weak and deeply irresponsible, even by the programmes own dubious standards. While many are trying to insist on the limited and exceptional nature of violent extremism, reporter John Ware was doing precisely the opposite - claiming that a growing strain of non-violent Islamic extremism was closely connected to terrorism and therefore encouraging precisely the kind of wider blame the Muslims game that most people with any sense of responsibility or humanity want to avoid at all costs. Ware had little actual evidence to support his claims, just a montage of decontextualised video clips and the opinion of a few barely known experts, some of whom appeared to need prompting to support his analysis. Oh yes and one or two soundbites from David Cameron and Theresa May. The main thrust of his opening argument was that puritanical strains of Islam -- in other words Muslims that didnt like having fun - was leading directly to Jihadi violence. I kid you not. After fifteen minutes or so, perhaps, to be generous, sensing the tenuousness of his argument, Ware changed tack. His second claim was that it was actually a sense of victimhood - apparently propagated largely by Islamic media - that leads people to violent jihad. Wares obedient interviewees twisted and turned with him and endorsed this second theory, complaining about how many Muslims had the nerve to feel as if that they were discriminated against and were getting a raw deal, despite the obvious fact that they are all doing so well in an equal, fair and free society. They agreed too that such a sense of grievance was extremely dangerous. Now, social and political context has been missing from much of the discussion around recent tragic events. But to discuss a sense of grievance as a problem without even a cursory consideration of whether the grievances might be real takes condescension to new levels. The programme didnt pause for a beat to consider whether the well documented levels of police harrasment against Muslims, clear economic marginalisation, or British participation in a series of invasions of Muslim countries might have fuelled this sense of grievance.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 21:01:24 +0000
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