‘It will be vital to challenge apologists for terrorism.’ Prevent Programme
Margaret Hodge said this in 2010:
‘We need to have an honest conversation about what’s going on in our working class communities. The very mention of immigration causes controversy and the whole debate is often seen through the prism of racism.
‘The result is parties like the BNP tap into people’s frustrations and that’s why we’ve seen a rise in support for them.
The BBC refuses to talk fully and openly about race, religion or immigration….which is why you get the rise of the EDL…which the BBC then campaigns against….an organisation that in effect they helped create.
When Tommy Robinson was interviewed on the Today programme the Left had a moment of anguished horror….someone whose views they disagree with had been allowed onto the radio…the Left’s ‘house radio’ at that….the BBC.
Mehdi Hasan was so outraged he penned a quick note in the Huffington Post advising the BBC where they went wrong.
He even went so far as to formulate some questions that the BBC could have asked Tommy Robinson.
Someone at the BBC read his advice and decided to run with it. They decided to bring the unsuspecting Tommy Robinson back onto the airwaves and subject him to a vitriolic show trial, designed to attack him personally and assassinate his character and reputation.
Andrew Neil was given the task of skewering the upstart EDL ‘racist thug‘….the questions Neil asked coming almost word for word from the pen of Hasan with no pretence at an attempt to debate or engage in an intellectual argument…it was an out and out exercise in abuse and mud slinging to blacken Robinson’s name….and all done to appease the BBC‘s left wing censors and Islamist propagandists.
As Brian Sewell said about the BBC’s output:
We deserve better. It’s patronising rubbish. The BBC clearly think it’s good to have programmes presented by people with no knowledge or experience. There’s no debate, no critical discourse or differing viewpoints.
Of course that’s a bit of an exaggeration…there are ‘differing viewpoints’ on the BBC…you just have to make sure that your viewpoint is within the BBC’s acceptable bounds for discussion….should you have views that the BBC finds unacceptable you find yourself in the position of Tommy Robinson in the EDL getting rail roaded by Andrew Neil.
What did Neil start off with?:
Neil tells us that: ‘The EDL is motivated by hostility to all Muslims.’
Really? Who said? Why not let Robinson speak for himself before you put words in his mouth? Is he hostile to Muslims or to Islam the ideology?
Tommy Robinson’s name
Neil, in a breath taking example of investigative journalism goes on to ‘reveal’ Robinson’s real name…or that of his long lost father, telling him…
‘We did find your birth certificate….you changed your name because it concealed for some time your BNP past….you were hiding your BNP membership.’
Extraordinary bit of detective work by the BBC…no?
But doesn’t everyone know that ‘Tommy Robinson’ is an alias by now?
Did Lennon adopt the name ‘Tommy Robinson’ to ‘hide his BNP past’…and did that ‘conceal it for some time’?
In August 2009 the EDL was set up…in June 2010 ‘Searchlight’ had an article which revealed Lennon’s real name and previous membership of the BNP:
Searchlight Magazine June 2010
by Nick Lowles and Simon Cressy | Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Searchlight can exclusively reveal that the leader of the English Defence League is a former British National Party member who has served 12 months’ imprisonment for assaulting an off-duty police officer.
Self-proclaimed EDL leader Tommy Robinson is really Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, from Bedford.
Robinson said he changed his name firstly to ‘Lennon’ because he had no contact with his birth father…and used the name ’Tommy Robinson’ for the EDL because of threats to his life….he had only been in the BNP for one year and left when he realised they were not what he had believed originally.
Andrew Neil ignored all the explanations and carried on insisting the name change was to hide his BNP past.
You’re a violent man
Neil then brought up a video where Robinson was heard to say if there is anymore violence by Muslims against British people they would ‘feel the full force of the EDL’
Neil insisted that this meant that the EDL was going to inflict violence upon Muslims.
Robinson insisted that he meant the full force of democratic law.
Neil refused to accept that saying:
‘Force’ is a threat of violence in any language…’they’ knew you were talking about violence.
Really?…that’ll be news to the UK Energy Minister:
‘Oil executives caught fixing the price of petrol will face the ‘full force’ of the law, Energy Secretary Ed Davey vowed today as calls grew for those responsible to be jailed.’
Neil goes on to make some slanderous allegations which had little basis in truth or evidence…..
‘I would suggest that you are not interested in democratic politics…it is just street thuggery. It’s the politics of the street you’re interested in which is the hallmark of extremism, Fascism and Communism throughout the ages.
As many people in this country are frightened of you and the EDL as they are of the extremists.
Mehdi Hasan Says: ‘You’re quite a violent man, aren’t you?’
Andrew Neil parrots Hasan:
‘You are a violent man making violent threats.
Let’s add this up…you are a violent man with a violent record, you are a former member of the BNP, you and others threaten Muslims with violence, EDL demonstrations are menacing and intimidating.’
Help For Heroes doesn’t want anything to do with the EDL
Neil claimed that…
‘The fact is that ordinary people don’t want anything to do with you…the EDL is using the death of Lee Rugby to carry out attacks.’
Unfortunately research by the BBC’s own favourite academic, Matthew Goodwin, says that at least 40% of Tory voters and 33% of Labour voters agree with the EDL…not only that but 50% of people believe that there will be a war between white British people and Muslims.
Andrew Neil made another spurious, and wrong, point….that the charity ‘Help for Heroes’ didn’t want anything to do with them and nor did British soldiers..due to ‘disgust’ at their activities….Neil conveniently forgot this:
The charity said it does not accept donations from any political party…
“It’s the same for any political party, we don’t allow political fundraising. As a charity, we’re non-political.”
Not only that but many British soldiers agree with the EDL…and most intensely dislike and distrust the BBC.
A final point is that Neil readily accused Robinson of violence and the EDL of various crimes and violent intentions but when Robinson mentions that two Muslims killed Lee Rigby Neil jumped in and said ‘you must say alleged’….really?
So that was how Andrew Neil treated the EDL’s Tommy Robinson…essentially making up lies about him and his views based on Neil’s own prejudiced interpretation of the facts…ignoring whatever Robinson said….Robinson might as well have not been there…at least for Neil…to those watching a different picture might have emerged.
Contrast that with how Neil talks of G8 protestors and Owen Jones, ironically later in the same show.
Does Neil think that Occupy or the UAF or the G8 protestors are engaged in ‘street thuggery’ the ‘hallmark of extremism, Fascism and Communism’? No.
Andrew Neil on the G8…’The authorities are bracing themselves for some aggro…protestors plan to make themselves heard…G8 has been accompanied by protest and violence for years.‘’
To Owen Jones he says…’You stand shoulder to shoulder with the protestors’.
Jones says he hopes to stimulate a national and global debate, holding leaders to account….there must be anger at how things are and hope for how things can be.
Neil asks where are the protestors?…it’s not like the good old days when he was a student he says…he wants to know why there aren’t more protestors…people have a right to be furious.
So here we have Owen Jones…standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with violent, anti-establishment protestors and Andrew Neil gives him the red carpet treatment…and wants to know why there aren’t more like him out there on the barricades being ‘furious’.
Curious how the BBC panders to the violent, anarchists seeking to destroy Capitalism whilst the likes of Tommy Robinson are ‘tarred and feathered’ and run out of town.
It was the just same with the London riots, Occupy and the Student protests…all violent…all excused by the BBC….which fully supported the student protests sending in Victoria Derbyshire to spend the days with them.
Andrew Neil is happy to be Hasan’s dogsbody but what about Hasan himself? What questions might be asked of this slippery Islamist?
Hasan presents himself, at least in the non-Muslim press and TV, as a ‘progressive’ Muslim…and yet he also states that he is ‘devout’. Are the two statements compatible?
If you are devout you follow the Koran and the strictures of the religion….how can you be ‘progressive’? The Islamic religion is anything but progressive.
Hasan is not all that he seems, the public image is not the real one, the real Hasan is just below the surface for those who look.
Hasan has a plan…that plan is to further the Islamic cause by ‘capturing’ the media…by flooding the media with positive images of Islam…whether true or not.
He urges his fellow Muslims not to be doctors and engineers but to be journalists and media poppets…in order to ‘ 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,” In other words he means to get Muslims into positions of power and influence to push a media assault that presents Islam in a way they want you to see it, but not as it really is.
“I grow tired of having to also endure a barrage of lazy stereotypes, inflammatory headlines, disparaging generalisations and often inaccurate and baseless stories.’
I would suggest that Tommy Robinson must feel exactly the same way…only with more justification, after his treatment by the BBC.
With all that in mind what sort of questions might you ask Hasan?
Perhaps we could start with this one….What is the difference between you, your mindset, Mehdi Hasan, and that of the killers of Lee Rigby who make similar statements about Kafirs to those you did…all based on the Koran?
Adebalajo said, in his speech: “We are not scared of Kufar … my brothers remain in your ranks and do not be scared of these filthy Kufar. They are pigs … Allah says they are worse than cattle.”
The Koran says:
‘Believers, know that the pagans are unclean. Let them not approach the sacred Mosque after this year is ended.’ 9:27
“They are only like cattle – nay, they are even further astray from the Path – even worse than cattle.” 25:44
Mehdi Hasan, the Huffington Post and Guardian and New Statesman contributor was caught on video stating, “The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists… the Quran describes the atheists as “cattle”, as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.”
And in that 2009 speech at the Al Khoei Islamic Centre he also quite openly states:
“The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran; they are described in the Quran as, quote, “a people of no intelligence”, Allah describes them as; not of no morality, not as people of no belief – people of “no intelligence” – because they’re incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world, about the existence of God.”
Are non-Muslims ‘animals’ Mehdi…are they immoral?…you seemed to think so when you said this:
“We know that keeping the moral high-ground is key. Once we lose the moral high-ground we are no different from the rest of the non-Muslims; from the rest of those human beings who live their lives as animals, bending any rule to fulfil any desire.”
As a devout, practising Muslim Mehdi, can you tell us if Islam itself is extreme?:
The Prevent project defines extremism so:
“Extremism is vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We also include in our definition of extremism calls for the death of members of our armed forces, whether in this country or overseas.”
There is evidence to indicate that support for terrorism is associated with rejection of a cohesive, integrated, multi-faith society and of parliamentary democracy. Work to deal with radicalisation will depend on developing a sense of belonging to this country and support for our core values.
What does Dr Kalim Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute in London think: ‘We are not a pacifist religion. We don’t turn the other cheek. We hit back.’
Mehdi you support the Islamist student body FOSIS and Tower Hamlet’s Islamist mayor, Lutfur Rahman, don’t you?:
You were very keen to have the BBC ask Tommy Robinson some searching questions…and yet you utterly failed to do the same for the Islamist mayor of Tower Hamlets:
Mr Hasan unfortunately declined to put to Lutfur any of the detailed evidence assembled by Channel 4, the Telegraph and this blog about his close links with people who very much don’t believe in a secular Britain, set out here. Nor was he rude enough to mention the filmed evidence of Lutfur’s vote-rigging in Tower Hamlets which we obtained. Instead he asked largely general questions and was content to accept Lutfur’s denials without further challenge.
What, Mehdi, do you think of the IFE, an Islamic extremist group, which believes in turning Britain into a sharia state under Islamic law?
‘Mehdi Hasan has form on defending the IFE – in a debate with me on Sky News last summer, he denied that they were an Islamist organisation.’
Do you support the UAF?:
Scores of young Asian men chased the group back to Harrow and Wealdstone station, leading to a stand-off with police who had formed a protective ring around the men who had been chased.
As hundreds of UAF supporters spilled out into Station Road, pandemonium broke out as protesters, some armed with sticks, rampaged up the road and began attacking riot police, throwing stick, rocks, glass bottles, and firecrackers.
What do you think of the UAF’s Vice chairman the Islamist extremist Azad Ali?
Isn’t it true that ‘Unfortunately, UAF’s counter-demonstrations often seem to cause as much, if not more, trouble than those by the EDL and BNP.’
Last weekend, Tony Brett, a Liberal Democrat councillor in Oxford and the city’s deputy lord mayor, found what he called a “disgraceful rabble” of people climbing on the city’s main war memorial — squashing, he said, the flowers that mourners had placed there, then trying to remove half of them altogether and “jeering” other visitors as they paid their respects.
That day, the memorial was supposed to be the scene of a wreath-laying by the far-Right, racist English Defence League. But none of the people laying flowers and being jeered bore any kind of EDL insignia and none of the wreaths had any kind of card or message from the group.
Neither Mr Brett, nor a local newspaper reporter on the scene, saw any sign of any EDL presence.
All the aggro, Mr Brett said — he called it the “hate” — came from the self-appointed opponents of bigotry, a group called Unite Against Fascism (UAF).
You claimed that Cameron doesn’t know the difference between Islam and Islamism so what is Islamism Mehdi…is it extremism…or is it the devout practise of Islam?
You support the Iranian nuclear programme….do you support the Iranian regime?
Is Islamic terrorism cultural or religious?:
Gentleman in audience – “The root cause of terrorism is bad teachings in religious schools.”
Mehdi – “Rubbish”
Mehdi – “Terrorism is not a cultural problem, terrorism is a political problem”.
Douglas – “And it’s a religious problem as well”
Mehdi – “In your view Douglas it’s a religious problem”.
Douglas – “I’m perfectly willing to talk about foreign policy as would David Cameron be, but you cannot pretend that there is no religious component to the terrorism because there is ”
Mehdi – “I thought you said it was cultural. Culture and religion is not the same thing”.
Dimbleby – “Mehdi, you’re saying there is no religious component?”
Mehdi – “I’m saying there is a religious component; I’m saying there’s not a CULTURAL component”.
Do you support Ken Livingstone despite his comments about Jews and his support for Qaradawi?
Mehdi, what do you think of these statements?
‘Mr Blair, the former prime minister, used a column in the Mail on Sunday to call on the Government to “be honest” and admit that there is a widespread problem with the religion.
In a major intervention following the murder of soldier Lee Rigby, Mr Blair said “the seeds of future fanaticism and terror” were being sown and that children in the UK and abroad must be educated about the place of religion in society.’
[This] is not the province of a few extremists. It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies.’
A significant section of young Muslims have already rejected the cultural values and norms of the society in which they live. It is their rejection of European societies that motivates people to search for alternatives.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that what we need is not rhetoric about the forces of radicalisation, but a more scrupulous attention to what constitutes a way of life worth defending.
I don’t suppose the BBC will ever get round to asking Hasan those questions or the leaders of the UAF any similarly rigorous questions to those that they asked Tommy Robinson.
I guess some things are best left unsaid for the BBC.