The BBC defends the mullahs, silences their critics
Update: RDF provides the video for non-UK viewers, so I’ve seen it now, and so can you.
The BBC has outdone itself this time. BBC1’s Sunday Live did a programme on whether it is right to condemn the Iranian regime for the stoning of Ashtiani. Maryam Namazie was supposed to take part (and it is not difficult to guess what she would have said, and how firmly she would have said it), but somehow the programme never got around to her. It did get around to two people who said the other thing, but it did not get around to Maryam. Yes that’s right. It found the time to talk to two apologists for the fascist reactionary mullahs’ regime in Iran but it could not find the time to talk to a secular feminist who thinks women shouldn’t be buried up to their necks and stoned to death for anything and especially not for “adultery.”
The BBC gives a voice to fascist reactionary mullahs and denies a voice to secular feminists who defend human rights.
Seriously.
In the live debate, they managed to interview Suhaib Hassan from the Islamic Sharia Council defending stoning and someone from Tehran saying she faces execution for murdering her husband but somehow there was no time in the debate for me.
Even the presenter, Susanna Reid, said stonings were rare and that none had taken place since the 2002 moratorium! In fact 17 people have been stoned since the moratorium; also there are court documents provided by her lawyer specifying her stoning sentence for adultery. BBC had all this information. Without providing evidence to the contrary, BBC Sunday Live took as fact the regime’s pronouncements on her case. They failed to mention that the man charged with her husband’s murder is not being executed and that the trumped up murder charges are an attempt by the regime to silence the public outcry and kill Sakineh. As Sakineh herself has said: “they think they can do anything to women.”
It beggars belief.
The Charter of the BBC says (at 6.1): “The BBC shall be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output, thetimes and manner in which this is supplied, and in the management of its affairs.” In other words, it shall not become the propaganda vehicle of any political party, religious organisation, or other minority group.
The BBC in this instance has clearly been subverted, nobbled and got at.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/how_we_govern/charter.pdf
And for the sake of the reactionary theocratic regime in Iran!! What is the matter with them?
I’m just not surprised Ophelia. This is a pattern that has manifested itself with disconcerting regularity over the years. If you have to say anything even remotely critical of Islam or its adherents, the BBC will ensure (as best as it can and as blatantly as it does) that you are heavily outnumbered by those who wear radicalism up their sleeves. And to think that every British citizen is actually paying a fee to facilitate this censorship.
Ever since the demise of Communism/ Socialism – white leftists have to find another place to hang their hats.
White leftists’ agenda is to bring down liberal-democracy-capitalism in order to resturcture society to their utopianist over-rationalized dreams where they will rule as the uber-conscious elite with compassion and guardianship of the poor – who are so incapable to conduct their own affairs, especially if they are brown.
In this process they will break bread with the most totalitarian of movements as long as they are suficiently postcolonial – including anti-enlightenment theorcratic fascists.
I literally don’t understand – I don’t even know how to express how baffled I am. How can they? Why is it considered acceptable to even *debate* whether murdering this woman is acceptable? The BBC? Who the hell is running it, actual fascists?
WARNING! RANT!
The BBC has been nobbled by Islam. In the language of Islam that’s known as Dhimmitude, and is more and more common these days. Islam is inimical to human rights, freedom of speech and democracy, and anyone who professes it is a danger.
This was true of Christianity in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it needed to be put down hard. It’s about time we started doing that to Islam, and yet the biggest public voices are silent. I do not fear for myself. I will be long dead, I suspect, by the time it comes to pass, but I am not happy leaving that as an inheritance for my son and daughter.
The thought of the world under the control of that hideous religion, with that thug of a prophet, is enough to make my stomach turn. At least Christians could say, with some justice, that they were acting contrary to the character of their founder. That didn’t mitigate the violence, but it did make Christianity more responsive to pluralism, after failing in the attempt to enforce religious unity with fire and sword. Islam will not be so squeamish. That is clear. Islamist fanatics — and any observant Muslim is an Islamist, if not a fanatic — cannot say that of their founder. He was a vicious thug, a plunderer of caravans, and a dealer in the spoils of theft, including women and children.
Besides that, if he is not just an elaborate fiction of a gang of cutthroats and thieves, he was a liar. He never heard voices speaking reams of the Old and New Testament and Zoroastrian scriptures. It’s all made up, and poorly made up too. A vicious, mindless piece of nasty verbiage, a programme of pillage, imperialism and murder, the enslavement of women, and the humiliation of any who will not convert to their silly mindless creed.
The BBC has just become its latest conquest. Hopefully, the BBC will have the decency to apologise, and show, by its actions, that it is meant. But the BBC didn’t do it only for a reactionary regime in Iran. It’s for a reactionary religion that has its representatives all over the world. It’s time to have the conversation: is this religion consistent with democracy? Is this religion consistent with human rights?
I don’t think so. It is now, I believe, a cancer at the heart of it, but I’d still like to hear the argument. And we’re not hearing it. We not hearing the outcry from the moderate Muslims about this stoning. Why are Western Muslims not up in arms because of of the damage that Iran is doing to Islam’s image? Why are Western imams not trying to convince us that this is not representative of Islam? Well, probably because it is, and they do not find it repugnant. If so, that’s a big problem. I think it is.
Here in Canada we have the state-funded CBC – which is a mirror image of the BBC.
They will criticize and malign anything that has to do with America, or with any idea that they perceive to be too capitalist or individualistic and insufficiently socialist or groupist in its orientation.
On the other hand, criticism of Islam or its mass murdering prophet is absolutely forbidden because they equate that with discrimination against Muslims.
The white leftists are intellectually so challenged that they cannot differentiate between criticism of an ideology (Islam), or ciriticism of an individual belief (some Muslim’s professed idea, for example) with that of a personal attack or discrimination against the Muslim individual as a person.
I doubt their agenda is to observe and protect the basic human rights of Muslims – otherwise you would hear the white leftists’ protest against the killing of Muslims by Muslims in Islamic countries.
Saikat…I knew that about Islam, but I didn’t really know it about Islam-in-the-shape-of-Iran. Not to this extent at least. It makes my skin crawl.
It looks like another triumph for the sort of short-term thinking that produced the appeasement policies of the 1930s. Don’t upset the thugs and gangsters; they could turn nasty, and we need good relations with them. Best to tread softly and hope for the best.
Whatever happens down the track, we’ll be able to muddle through.
Yeah, right.
OK, I’m absolutely no fan of fundamentalist Islam, but for the purposes of discussion I’ll play the part of contrarian on the issue of stonings: What exactly is it that is objectionable? Is it capital punishment? Because the US also executes prisoners. Is it the inequity of its application? Because the US kills proportionally far more minorities than whites. Is it the painfulness of the method? Because while the lethal injection cocktail used in the US has not been clinically examined, some of the drugs in that cocktail can cause excruciating pain.
I’m not saying we should not protest the barbarity of Iran, just that, if we are consistent, we should be just as vigorous in protesting the barbarity practiced in “Western” cultures as well (perhaps even more vigorous, since we are more likely to affect change in such societies).
If you’re going to play the part of contrarian, at least say something that’s not just silly. What you did say is not worth replying to.
Tulse, what makes you so certain that at least some people in the US don’t oppose capital punishment on the very grounds you mention? Some do, and they speak out against it regularly.
Britain and Canada have eliminated it altogether. Are you suggesting that Americans should not speak out against Human Rights violations until we have perfected our own nation? Fine, let the Europeans and the Canadians do it (and perhaps the Antipodeans, too. I don’t know where they stand).
Apropos of Eric’s ‘rant’ at #6, it is worth considering one of the possible outcomes of a Nazi victory in WW2. (Until the entry of the US into the war following Pearl Harbour, the German conquest of Britain was considered a real possibility, and not only by Winston Churchill.) Hitler’s big mistake was his attack on Russia; Japan’s the attack on Pearl Harbour. Both were counterproductive in the longer term, and neither was compulsory or strictly necessary.
In Hitler’s New Europe, after the last of Europe’s Jews had been disposed of, along with all communists, liberals and other anti-Nazis, a new era of peace would have begun. Nazi-approved art and science would have flourished: phrenological tests of Aryanity and endless performances of Wagner and ‘The Merry Widow’ by Franz Lehar just for starters.
The following I understand is from William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (Secker and Warburg, 1960), and though I have not checked the quote myself, I have seen it elsewhere:
“By late 1938 the majority of Protestant clergy took an oath binding themselves legally and morally to obey the commands of the Führer. The conclusion of the attacks on the churches is best summed up in some of the thirty articles of the National Reich Church:
“The Reich Church has the power to control all churches within the borders of the Reich. Only Reich Church orators are to speak in the churches, not priests or pastors. The Bible is no longer to be published. Mein Kampf is to replace it as the most important document in the Reich Church. There are to be no crucifixes, bibles or pictures of saints in the Church. On the altars there is to be nothing but Mein Kampf and a sword. The Christian cross must be removed and replaced by the swastika.”
After say about 1,500 years a new Islam-like religion would have been long established across Europe, and from the scribblings of his hagiographers Hitler would have emerged hallowed, haloed and sanitised. In short (and before total rot and corruption took over) it would have been something of a caliphate.
PS: This may be a confirmation of Godwin’s Law, but as commonly expressed (‘first to mention Hitler loses’) that law is pure bullshit.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=53040&start=0http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_lawhttp://www.lessontutor.com/bf_lehar.html
Tulse – what a heavy load of “Whataboutary”. I am sure you can do better than that?
Just because I may be short-tempered with my wife, does that mean I should tolerate my neighbour who beats and maims his wife – and not report it?
Because the US also executes prisoners. – duh Tulse, that is after a trial by judge and jury, after due process. See what Sakineh’s lawyer has to say about her scam trial.
Because the US kills proportionally far more minorities than whites. If you are talking about capital punishment, then read the previous line again. What you say is very racist and a disrespectful generalization against 350 million Americans. You are saying American justice stops where race begins.
Is it the painfulness of the method?; You mean administering anesthesia before the lethal injection is equivalent to slow torture-death by stoning where the stone size is optimized to inflict the most pain, as per Sharia law? Did you flunk science in college?
I suspect you were not sincere when claiming to be merely a devil’s advocate. Are you an Islamist or a white leftie apologist for gutter Islam? Whataboutary == Apologism.
Which part is silly? That both the US and Iran have inequitable painful capital punishment?
I agree that Iran/Islam is getting an undeserved pass by the BBC on this issue. And I am genuinely not trying to be obnoxious. I simply think it is important to point out that the specific issue is not confined to some barbarous “other”, but is also practiced by a country that is considered a strong ally of Britain. This reminds me of the discussion of the “Ground Zero mosque”, and how it should be opposed because it would involve gender-segregated seating, while failing to acknowledge that hundreds of Orthodox Jewish shuls do exactly the same segregating. If we are going to be intellectually honest and consistent, we cannot just single out Islam over these issues unless we want to court hypocrisy.
Of course they do. My point is that this issue is not unique to Iran or Islam.
Tulse, do you actually know anything about this case? Do you understand this woman is facing “capital punishment” because of an accusation of “adultery?” Do you understand why it fills people with abject, utter horror to know that a woman can be imprisoned by the state and sentenced to whipping and stoning to death based on the “crime” of having a relationship with men other than her husband, after he was already dead? Do you understand why this alarms and outrages people (even those opposed, as I am, to all forms of capital punishment, and who complain about that, too) in a way that the electric chair for a convicted murderer doesn’t?
Again – did you bother to learn anything about this woman’s plight before you flapped your gums?
Tulse, what Hamid says indicates what is silly about what you said. It’s silly whataboutery. Yes, it’s bad that the US has capital punishment, but I’m talking about stoning for adultery; no, they are not the same. “Your point” is wrong. Stoning for adultery isn’t just another instantiation of capital punishment.
Tulse –
Here’s a suggestion for you: type haredi into the search box, and see what you get.
Don’t accuse me of failing to acknowledge things that I have in fact repeatedly acknowledged and objected to right here. Don’t go “contrarian” and whatabout when you haven’t bothered to do any homework. Above all don’t play the “other” card. The point is not that they’re the “other”; the point is that they fucking well aren’t. Ashtiani is not the “other” so I don’t think she should be tortured to death.
Tulse – now you are really being silly.
You are equating the justice system in an open, liberal, democracy with the justice system of a totalitarian religious ideology invented by a barbarous thug? Such relativism is so disingenious and childish, I do not know where to begin.
Lets become a bit more empirical for the sake of argument and put an end to this Whataboutary. You have just been caught with your pants down in an act of adultery, even though your husband has been screwing siqehs (Islamically sanctioned whores) for decades, and he maintains four other wives. Now you need to go to trial. Will you choose the Islamic system or that of a western liberal democracy? Fessup Tulse and stop the whataboutary relativism. What may be your answer (if any)? I call your insincerety and apologia.
I am a Muslim apostate Tulse – and I find your attitide so racist – telling me that I deserve Islam because I am a non-white. That there is nothing wrong with Islam.
For your information, I oppose gender segregation by Jewish shuls And the next time they try to stone, beat, maim women, and have four wives, and treat them as 2nd class citizens, and when they own slaves, including women sex slaves as Mohammad (the perfect Muslim) did and as sanctioned by the piece of desiccated sewage Qor’an and Hadis, please be assured I will be the first to protest.
Tulse: Do your homework, please. Go back through the archives of this site and check the reams of stuff publicising and denouncing all sorts of barbarities perpetrated under the cloak of or in the name of religions. All sorts of religions.
Or do you think that any denunciation of say paedophilia by RC clerics should be prefaced with a list of crimes committed and sanctioned by Protestants, Jews, Muslims of all sectarian affiliations, as well as Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jains and assorted ‘others’? Oh, and I forgot to mention Voodoo cultists of Haiti.
When the Beeb and Guardian sideline the sane voices (muslim or exmuslim) speaking out strongly against the excesses of islam and amplify the obnoxious reactionary ones, they are doing more to ramp up hate against ordinary,hapless muslims than all the Pam Gellers of this world . The public is left with the impression that islamic societies are irredeemably barbaric and bloodthirsty, that there are no voices of dissent, no areas of commonality between ‘them’ and ‘us’. Do they realise this?
The BBC famously ran a ‘crucial debate’ on whether it was right for Ugandans to execute homosexuals a few months back.
Apparently, it is.
“..I knew that about Islam, but I didn’t really know it about Islam-in-the-shape-of-Iran.”
Islam-in-the-shape-of-Iran, Islam-in-the-shape-of-misogyny-and-racism-and-chauvinism ……. It really doesn’t matter. The BBC has subverted every norm of neutral, dispassionate, objective news coverage when it comes to Islam. I absolutely despise their news editors and the display of craven appeasement.
There is a liberal tendency to nativise, exoticise and patronise non westerners, to find ‘authentic’ voices from other cultures. So if you are a beardy robed monomanical self styled sharia judge reciting arabic verses of death, you are a helluva more ‘authentic’ than a western-style feminist, like Namazie. You are seen as having a genuine constituency on whose behalf you speak, unlike Namazie the heretic. Namazie would be seen as the western clone, the traitor to her traditions. This is how you have liberal commentators like TGA and Buruma fawn over Ramadan and castigate Hirsi Ali as an enlightenment fundamentalist. Ali and Namazie hold up uncomfortable mirrors’ to liberal prejudice.
Ophelia, Hamid, on reconsideration I realize that my comments were very much ill-chosen. I certainly did not mean to belittle the circumstances of Ashtiani’s case, and should have been better informed about Ophelia’s past comments on other religions. I let other concerns get the better of me, and wrote my original words in improper haste. I offer my apology.
Something I always try to do in these situations is to put myself in the shoes of the other party. Try and see why they’re doing what they’re doing, what makes them tick, what’s their rhetorical buttons, how can I get to them to persuade them out of it.
I can *almost* understand the blind petty-mindedness and the hidden, dark, blood-red, abusive, urgent, exultant, sexual high that the barbarians get from both stoning a woman to death themselves, or the pornographic sensation of watching – or even hearing about – someone else doing it. I don’t enjoy or approve of the emotions – too much of the torturer and the rapist in them – but I can understand them even as I am horrified by them, in the way that I can understand the effects of the bubonic plague even as I am appalled by its effects.
What I simply cannot understand is the BBC’s reaction to all this. I just can’t put myself in any kind of frame of mind where someone would actually decided to do as they’re doing. I don’t understand the urges, the buttons, the drives. Even in the pits of the deepest and darkest of human urges, there is… nothing to justify this. It makes no sense to me at all. The very banality and casualness of their pseudo-reporting is bone-chilling.
Yet another blind eye turned by the BBC in their efforts to remain PC. This is inexusable, the BBC should be ashamed of itself and it’s standard of journalism.
That’s good, as far as it goes, but it isn’t good enough. What I want to know is whether you did know the circumstances of Ashtiani’s case when you made your comments, and whether you chose to make them in spit of that.
The problem here is the age-old one of bending down backwards to make sure no “offence” is given to the religious. If I say gratuitously nasty things about Muslims or Catholics then it is at least possible that I might be trying to stir up hatred for these groups and it is reasonable for my motives to be questioned. However if all I do is condemn evils committed by some members of these groups; evils which it is reasonable to assume will be condemned by many, if not the majority of, members of these groups, then the idea is absurd. To routinely label those who criticise stoning of women for adultery as “anti-Islamic” or who criticise child-rape by Catholic clergy as “anti-Catholic” is either ignorant, stupid or dishonest…. or is the action one who is basically none of these things but is too much of a coward to act with integrity. Fortunately there are people such as Maryam Namazie, who are prepared to put themselves in real personal danger by speaking out against the theocratic regime in Iran and its barbarism. It is a scandal that the BBC did not allow her voice to be heard.
Organisations and spokesmen/women for organisations, such as the BBC, the police, local authorities etc., routinely show a degree of grovelling timidity towards the “sensibilities” of “religious” groups that would be roundly condemned if shown towards any other group. It is tempting to put this down to the “PC” attitudes of the “liberal left”. Now it is true that some deluded people who regard themselves as “liberal left” do have such attitudes however I suspect that the real motive in most cases is fear. The claim that they are acting “out of respect for other’s feelings” is merely an excuse allowing them to cover up this fear.
I watched some of this programme too, and saw half of the ‘debate’ in question. I watched in horror the contributions from both of the apologists, and I was wondering when they were going to get round to a contributor who stuck up for women’s rights and made some sensible points… and then of course they didn’t. I’m as outraged as you are OB. Shame on the BBC.
This programme’s predecessor, The Big Questions, was almost as bad. Always loads of religious people loudly braying their views, only one or two secular voices. This is the lowest to which they’ve sunk by far, though. Sunday Live is a bland programme, but its very blandness is what makes it dangerous – in that prime morning slot, the viewership is several million, all of whom heard the lie that this poor woman murdered her husband and stoning is just ‘normal’ capital punishment.
The blonde woman in the studio (I didn’t hear her name) was trying valiantly to say how ridiculous and appalling this all was but she was sadly outnumbered.
The BBC it seems is so desperate not to seem racist that it will chuck women’s rights under the bus in order to do this. Shame on them (again).
Btw I don’t agree with some of the comments that ‘leftists’ are the problem – the BBC is not run by leftists, it’s a conservative, status-quo-maintaining, right-of-centre, patriarchal institution through and through despite its claims to be completely impartial. There is a general lack of dissenting voices on the BBC to whatever the prevailing accepted ideas might be, including the idea that criticising Islam or Islamic societies is wrong because it makes you racist.
“There is a general lack of dissenting voices on the BBC to whatever the prevailing accepted ideas might be, including the idea that criticising Islam or Islamic societies is wrong because it makes you racist.”
This does not only apply to the BBC alone, but to British(and European) society as a whole.
Have any of you Brits who’ve been exposed to this written to the BBC with a complaint?
I didn’t see any mention of such, above. Surely it’s worthwhile?
Ian @1 makes a good case.
What the hell is wrong with them? Amnesty International and every other human rights group in the UK should write an open letter expressing outrage at this program and demanding an apology and a new show featuring critical (i.e., sane) views.
Big Brother Central?
I think it’s a bit of everything everyone’s said. There has been a shift in BBC coverage which is easier on Islam, a similar shift the Guardian took with it’s “My enemy’s enemy” though not as extreme. The BBC has been very understanding and interesting in the coverage of the WTC Islamic centre, but still biased. So you hear from the “moderate” Muslims who just talk about a community centre and people making cakes and playing monopoly, and then they switch to “insert redneck republican yank whole says all muslims are terrorists”. All that’s in the background.
But then, Sunday Morning Live is pretty much the only broadcast with any religious theme, it’s about the minimum the BBC produce to satisfy the “religious broadcasting” part of their charter. This doesn’t justify it, not when the show is supposed to be a “moral, ethical and religious debates that invites the audience to get involved”. It’s only a moral and ethical debate as long as you’re in someway religious.
Not to defend the Auntie too much, but the BBC has 5 tv channels, 3 of which broadcast 24/7 and this is one programme for a couple of hours. It’s not BBC policy and probably not the area to expect a totally balanced debate unfortunately.
That being said, there is, or at least appears to me, a go easy on Islam agenda in many items.
1. In Australia, there is no capital punishment. That is not to say that there is not significant public sympathy for capital punishment (the last poll I saw put it at around 50% in favour — but that was a long time ago now).
2. While Tulse has apologised (and I’m not trying to rub salt into any wounds), I think it is worth pointing out that many people (myself included) *do* criticise capital punishment in the US (as does Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch). And we argue our the case with facts such as the discrepancy in capital punishment rates between whites and blacks (not to mention legal errors, discrepancy between rich and poor, prosecutorial zeal, etc.). But even if we didn’t, even if we were total hypocrites and ignored the flaws in the US system, it would not undermine our objections to death by torture for crimes that should not exist on criminal statutes.
So just by way of explanation, Tulse, that is why Ophelia that your question was not worth answering. The question was wrong factually (many of us are critical of capital punishment in the US) and it was wrong argumentation (even if we weren’t, it wouldn’t make our arguments against the specific horrors of Iranian capital punishment any less cogent).
The BBC even state that Iran has continued to execute people by stoning on their website. Under the title Iran’s grim history of death by stoning (9 July 2010) and see link below)) the BBC state:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10579121
In 2002, the Iranian judiciary placed a moratorium on death by stoning.
But such sentences have continued to be reported. And Amnesty said this week that eight men and three women were awaiting the carrying out of sentences of stoning and since 2006 at least six people had been put to death in this manner.
Amnesty International and every other human rights group in the UK should write an open letter expressing outrage
hmmmm…. AI? the same folks who dumped Gita Sahgel?
Thanks Tulse.
I know about the broad issue of sucking up to religion and especially Islam – the part that surprises me is the sucking up to the regime in Iran. I mean that can’t even be called “PC” at this point – not after the demonstrations and the brutal punishments of same. Can it? Is there anyone anywhere who really thinks it’s right-on and progressive to cheer for the mullahs in Iran?
C Anders (#35): A ‘go easy on Islam’ policy would indeed appear to be operating at the BBC. While Islam provides many Muslims with a group identity, and little more (what religion/football club/political party do you support mate?) it provides others with a far more serious (and up to a point, exciting) purpose in life, and manifests as a form of collective insanity. The BBC is understandably reluctant to have any bombings or outrages traced back causally to one of its programs.
Thus the ‘go easy on Islam’ policy becomes ‘go easy on reason’; ‘go easy on scrutiny’. Islam succeeds in this area because it has one arm that operates a protection racket.
Ms. Benson, there is a point being missed. There were two arguments made on the BBC programme for why we should not criticise the murder of an innocent woman. One was cultural relativism. The other was the avoidance of unwittingly aiding a supposed political campaign to ‘demonise’ Iran. (You know, the way the British tabloids ‘demonise’ Muslims by reporting on ‘honour killings’.)
Any reader of Nick Cohen will know that the worst possible thing for a right-thinking person to be is on the same side of an argument as America and Israel.
Really, the BBC should rest easy, as the current American administration can’t even offer verbal support for the women’s movement in Iran, let alone criticise its Mullahcratic government.
The people of Iran call BBC farsi as Ayatolla BBC, because of BBC’s permanent support to mullas. BBC farsi was a big reason for Islamists to take power in Iran, supported actively Xomeyni and during the last 3 decades they sensored the people’s struggle against the IRI , as well Maryam Namazie or Mina Ahadi’s campaign against sharia law or againt stoning and … and permanently supported the government. BBC farsi is a political party rather than a media. I hope we don’t need to call BBC world service also as Ayattola BBC!!
Saba Keramat
Anon, yes, thanks – I’ve seen the video now, and you’re right. “Is this about demonizing Iran?” said the presenter in a Concerned voice. No; it’s about criticizing in the strongest possible terms the regime of the mullahs in Iran, who are not in fact identical with Iran, any more than the Coalition government is identical with the UK.
We have to be careful of “moral imperialism” said the dreadful Aric Sigman. It takes time to stop doing such things, so who are we to blah blah blah.
Saba – thank you for that. How horrible. (Who runs BBC Farsi, do you know? Is it another mullah?!)
It is shameful the way so-called liberals are bending over backwords to justify a reactionary ideology. I think it is definately a case of ‘America’s enemy is my friend.’
I was recently banned from commenting on CiF for arguing against the claim that “Islam is not inherently evil.” It’s hard to think of any other ideology which would be afforded such protection from criticism.
Another thought:
Which of the following should we privilege over the other?
The rights of the victims?
The religious sensibilities of the perpetrators?
Also: If those perpetrators have the threat of a sword (‘civil unrest’) at our necks, should we be louder or softer in our response to them?
This should be an easy pair of questions.
More of the same here. Note the tone of this disgraceful piece of ‘reporting’. Why would Iran bother to have a department of propoganda when they have the BBC?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11208458
Is it not time that moral and cultural relativism be denied any benefit of the doubt (oh the tender hearted respectful liberals, they *mean* so well…). It is nothing but repugnant discrimination, reactionary and indeed often genuinely racist.
Yes. The same organization that has spent decades defending people’s rights around the wold and has spoken out about this case repeatedly.
Indeed. Let me know when it has been.
You may want to let people in Latin America in on this.
Lunacy. There is no such thing as a monolithic “white left,” much less an agenda of such (and the idea that a BBC report reflects it is ridiculous beyond belief). Really, this has to stop. The only real solidarity and support from outside the Middle East and Muslim communities have come and will ever come from the left. If the right gave a fuck about human rights or democracy there they wouldn’t have supported and subsequently downplayed and rationalized the US and British governments’ overthrow of Iran’s democratically-elected secular government on behalf of [now BP], putting a brutal dictatorship in its place. They wouldn’t support or ignore the fact that the US government helped to bring (the secular) Saddam Hussein to power then turned a blind eye to massive human rights violations. Human rights for the US government and the right in our countries is pure cynical rhetoric. No one who cares about human rights and has any knowledge of history or current events (including the role of horrific US policies in bringing fundamentalists to power and weakening resisters) would fail to recognize that treating “Islam” and every Muslim person in this idiotic monolithic plays right into the hands of Christian imperialists.
If you’re paying attention you may have noticed the party Maryam Namazie represents. The Middle Eastern organizations in the network Ophelia mentions in her next post are left-wing. So are all of those fighting for women’s, gay, and human rights more broadly in the region that I’ve been linking to on my blog and others for years. The only publicity and support they’ve received in my country is from leftists – Democracy Now!, Brave New Films, anarchist groups,… Your portrayal of this alleged “white leftist agenda” is ludicrous.
“Is it right to condemn Iran for stoning women?”
How is this a fucking question?
What a sickening program.
@Salty –
I don’t have time to rebut your drivel. Suffice it to say that your racist attitude towards Iranians is well expressed. The 1953 coup was an Iranian coup, executed by monarchists, military officers, the clergy, the rightwing fascist organizations, the lumpens, and their lackies. To say this was a made in USA thing is so disingeniously overexagerrated – and is an orientalist denial of Iranian agency. The CIA spent only $300,000 on this coup with no results by the 12th of August 1953. It failed, and Roosevelt was summoned back to Washington. Then on the 18th, the indigenous forces mentioned above managed to unite their action and disposed Mossadegh, who had become a Soviet backed stooge by that time.
Mossadegh who had no oil technology, no method of finding the fields and extracting and processing, distributing and shipping the oil, and had absolutely no capital wanted 90% of the profits. He had zero value added to the production. Prior to that, the Anglo-Americans offered him 75% of profits, which he rejected. Mossadegh then offered Iranian democracy as a gambit to obtain that last 15% (around 8 cents a barrell) and he lost the gamble. He sold our hard won 100 year struggle for democracy on 8 cents a barrell. Your knowledge is surely lacking and reeks with simplistic postcolonialism.
Finally, Maryam Namazie is an Iranian and not a British leftist who has cut herself off from AI and the white lefties – and who has been condemned by the white lefties for her incessant ciriticism of Islam. Please freshen up on the facts. She receives virtually no support from the bien pansent nominally “human rights activists” – the kind that populate the BBC and wonder if clerics should be criticized for stoning or whether Qor’an can be corrected for stating the earth is flat.
Anon wrote: “There were two arguments made on the BBC programme for why we should not criticise the murder of an innocent woman. One was cultural relativism. The other was the avoidance of unwittingly aiding a supposed political campaign to ‘demonise’ Iran.”
There were several things said on the programme that I deplore, but Anon’s account is a travesty. None of the three guests argued that we should not criticise the murder of an innocent woman – on the contrary, they all said it was right to make strong protests about the treatment of Sakineh Ashtiani. One of them came up with the despicable “cultural imperialism” accusation against the “West”, while still deploring the use of stoning as a punishment. He also argued that the (justified) protests were being used to “demonise” the regime, an assertion supported by another of the guests. The third guest insisted that they should stick to the key point, that the use of stoning as a punishment of a woman for alleged adultery was an abomination. (She could have added that this is a regime that deserves to be demonised.)
Salty current,
For me, AI is to be deeply faulted not so much for firing Sahgal but for partnering the odious islamist Begg, touring with him and even going so far as to publish his execrable poetry on its website. I continue to support the organisation but not with the same level of trust as before. What do you think of HRW going trolling for money in Saudi arabia, using a subtle shade of anti-semiticism to get the fat sheiks to open up their purses?
I also think that it is dangerous to mischaracterise AI and other human rights and relief organisations as exclusively leftwing. Overstatement aside, such a partisan approach as yours alienates and divides people.
If you are so outraged by the Eisenhower administration’s support of the Mossadegh coup, why not also spare a thought for the Carter administration’s support of Khomeini? Or the iranian communist support of the ayatollahs- you should know what happened to those leftists! Right or left, all politicians fuck up. The US has not screwed up the world much more than the USSR or China. It will never reach the epic destruction wrought by colonial western europe ( such smug moralisers in present times) Its cynicism for human rights is not unique. The US was aided and abetted by Saudi Arabia nd Pakistan both extremist muslim nations in nurturing religious fundamentalists if you are referring to Afghanistan. Why fail to mention the sins and agendas of muslims , not to mention their self agency, while excoriating the US only?
Ophelia, where is the video you mention?
mirax, at the top of the page (I updated the post). And here
http://richarddawkins.net/videos/512110-updated-the-bbc-defends-the-mullahs-silences-their-critics?page=1
For what it’s worth, I agree with Salty that there is no monolithic white left. It’s true that a certain kind of apologetics – like Aric Sigman on Sunday Live talking about “moral imperialism” – is exclusive to the left, but it’s not true that that kind of apologetics is universal on the left. I’m on the left, and I detest that kind of thing.
Your accusations are insane. I have been linking to women’s and other human rights organizations in Iran for years, and spreading their information about what’s going on there.
No.
Wow.
You are ignorant or a fabulist.
Bullshit. Pointing to the imperialist actions of US governments in the efforts to destroy democracy around the world for more than a century denies agency to no one – not Guatemalans, not Chileans, not Ghanaians, not Hawaiians, not Venezuelans, not Iranians, not Haitians, not Filipinos,… The millions of people in these countries who have suffered because of it and continue to fight for democracy want this history and these current actions known.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/3/stephen_kinzer_on_the_us_iranian
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/14/steven_kinzer_on_the_history_of
(For Iraq, go to the Global Policy Forum web site and look under Iraq conflict.)
Right-wing talking points. He “offered Iranian democracy as a gambit”! He was the democratically-elected leader of the country, and you’re rationalizing his overthrow and replacement with a dictator on the grounds that his government rejected what you consider a generous offer to continue to exploit the country’s oil. You’re a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Imagine the same things being said about the US or Britain – “They wouldn’t allow us to continue taking their oil at the bargain price we wanted while people were poor, so we overthrew their democratically-elected government and replaced it with one friendly to us.” It’s rank imperialism. You offer perfect evidence of how people in the Middle East (other than the rich, theocrats, and other authoritarians, as history has shown over and over) have no reason to trust the cynical right in the US or UK.
What is her party?
There is no such thing as “the white lefties.” There are different groups and organizations with different views. I can assure you, though, that the only British groups that are genuinely supporting (including critically) or will ever support her party and their struggles are on the left.
From her bio:
She is involved in the Third Camp against US militarism and Islamic terrorism among other things….
She has spoken at numerous conferences and written many articles on women’s rights issues, violence against women, political Islam, and secularism – some of which have been translated into various languages.
Previously, Namazie was the elected Executive Director of the International Federation of Iranian Refugee, a refugee run organisation with 60 branches in 15 countries worldwide; founded the Committee for Humanitarian Assistance to Iranian Refugees (CHAIR); was the Human Rights Advocates Training Programme Coordinator at Columbia University’s Centre for the Study of Human Rights in New York and the NYC Refugee Coordinator/ US National Steering Committee Member of Amnesty International. She also ran a refugee women’s leadership training programme in NYC.
So you are saying that this BBC report reflects the entiuret of the monolithic “white left” and its agenda? You’re a nut.
None of this is relevant in the slightest. AI is a respected organization that has fought for human rights for decades and has spoken out about this case. It doesn’t matter if you plan to donate to them or volunteer for them or criticize them on other fronts (I hounded HRW on my blog several months ago about Honduras). Their strong statements about this BBC program would carry significant weight if they were involved in a protest.
I haven’t done that. But I have studied the history of human rights and politics in sufficient depth to know that right-wing “democracy” and “humanitarianism” are self-serving and cynical, and that people co-opted into supporting such “humanitarian” efforts are frequently used against real democratic struggles. (By the way, I was recommending it to Russell Blackford a while back, but others also might be interested in Stephen Hopgood’s Keepers of the Flame. I disagree with a lot of it, but it’s a very good organizational history.)
So? I’m an anarchist. Do you think I care if I alienate the right and don’t wish to cease pointing out that the interests of the US government and the religious right are not the same as mine and participating in struggles against them?
Not support – orchestration. You aren’t?
I have criticized every US administration for imperialist actions and violations of human rights.
Oh, well, might as well ignore imperialism and mass slaughter (and the effects of imperialism on the rise of religious fundamentalism). Just some fuck ups. (By that token, you could argue that the Iranian government is just fucking up with the stonings and hangings.) They haven’t fucked up. They have executed policies based on their beliefs and political and economic (and ideological/religious) interests as they recognize them. It’s certainly conceivable that some groups nominally on the right could support real democratic and social justice initiatives in poor countries (or their own), but the history of how they have behaved and the sides they’ve taken for the past centuries is undeniable.
Have you seen me defending those governments?
It’s done enough already, and it will if allowed to continue. It’s on that track.
So what? What is with this rationalization? It’s quite disturbing.
You’re very confused. I have never excoriated the US only.
Look, what I oppose is a monolithic discussion of “Islam” as though it were a being with its own essential and unchanging, depoliticized will. I criticize people, organizations, and governments and support individuals and organizations – not imaginary entities. I also try to understand the history that produced ideologies and regimes. I see the tendency to move in these discussions from the condemnation of the Iranian regime (or any other) and those who support its actions to the presentation of “Islam” or “terror” as some sort of existential threat as dangerously wrong and counterproductive. It’s especially dangerous at a time when Muslims in the US and Europe are vulnerable to (racist) violence and Muslim countries are being invaded, occupied, and threatened. It puts democratic/rights/justice movements in the Middle East in a terrible position; increases the potential for violence against Muslims here; denies people agency; and takes energy, time, and money away from supporting them and helping to publicize their actions. As I said, it plays right into the hands of the Christian imperialist right.
“Islam” is not a being with its own will, but on the other hand it is a religion based on particular “sacred” texts; this fact makes it both possible and reasonable to discuss it as such. And while we’re talking about essentialism, it’s worth noting that there are no “Muslim countries” so it’s absurd to talk of “Muslim countries” being invaded.
As are Christianity and Judaism. Not even in the case of Catholicism, though, in which a central organization controls policy, does it make sense to speak of it in the monolithic way in which Islam is discussed (and which Catholicism and Judaism have been discussed at various times). The fact that this time it’s Muslims and not Catholics or Jews who are being talked about in this essentialized, ahistorical and unsociological manner is significant at the moment because Muslim people are being attacked, harassed, and persecuted. It isn’t representative of reality to talk about all Muslims as though they share a single view or agenda, and it does nothing to help the people who are fighting under terrible circumstances in these countries for their rights and for democracy (or secularism, for that matter), which I thought was the shared goal. It works against other of your efforts – those drawing attention to pro-democracy/rights/justice organizations, working with them, publicizing specific rights abuses or rights-abusing policies and programs.
If you read what I was saying at all charitably, you would have recognized that I was talking about countries that contain large Muslim majorities (many of whose laws or the basis thereof are religiously constituted at some level). I’m not suggesting that they’re essentially Muslim in any way, as should be clear from all of my other comments about history. Sheesh. Don’t be silly.
But talking about Islam is not the same thing as talking about Muslims. I don’t talk about “Muslims” in an essentialized way – in fact I seldom (or perhaps never) talk about “Muslims” at all, precisely because it sounds so over-general and daft. It’s not really clear to me who is the object of this correction.
This can only be done in the most general way. It’s a religion that has been around for centuries and is part of the beliefs of more than a billion diverse people around the world. If people are “talking about Islam” they should be very specific about what they mean – which interpretations of the texts, practiced by which groups at what time, etc. Which means that you should probably just talk about the specific thing you’re talking about. It serves no purpose to refer to something which can have any number of different referents, and is dangerous at a moment when Muslims regardless of their specific beliefs or politics are being stigmatized and marginalized.
Eric MacDonald, primarily, in this instance. That I see it in the threads mainly rather than in your original posts is why I referred above to “the tendency to move in these discussions…” Sorry if that was unclear.
Don’t write whole essays on part of a sentence. I wasn’t making a sweeping generalization about Islam; I was saying what I said: that talking about Islam is not the same thing as talking about Muslims. That’s not a request for a patronizing lecture about how old Islam is, in case I didn’t know that.
Yes it was unclear – it was a vehement extended rebuke of (apparently) anybody and everybody. I’m not in the mood – not after an encounter with a stupid dogmatic patronizing anonymous clown at Jerry Coyne’s place.
Are you giving me orders now?
But of course it very much is as it’s being done. #6 above is an example. In the political rhetoric, “Islam…,” even if not explicitly associated with claims about all or the vast majority of Muslims, which it often is, is intended to be read this way and is read this way.
This doesn’t respond to my fundamental point – that “talking about Islam” in the manner and contexts in which “Islam” has been talked about makes no sense and serves no good purpose (and many bad ones).
Gosh, was it strident, too? And no, it wasn’t that at all. It was, as I said, aimed primarily at Eric MacDonald’s comment @ #6, which no one challenged and others built on. (That both this and the comments about the “white leftist agenda” went unanswered, in my view, left the thread something of a right-wing talking point fest that would be more at home on a different sort of blog.)
If you’re talking about Chet, I think you’re both wrong in various ways (btw, I have no idea what his obsession with the Napoleonic Wars is about, but it seems a bit creepy). I was just about to comment on that thread, incidentally, though not in response to either of you. If I do, feel free to ignore it.
There are many Iranian people who name BBC as Ayatollah BBC. After watching this program I feel strongly to join them and say that the word Ayatllah gives a clear discription of BBC’s position when it comes to issues of human rights.
@Salty Current. You said, immediately above:
First of all, let me point out that I put a big warning on this one. Sometimes, reading this stuff as it comes in day after wearying day, about some idiotic thing that Muslim extremists have done, or some pussilanimous action by some Western news source, I just get fed up. It makes me almost physically sick to watch this happening, and then I read something like Robert Fisk’s absolutely horrifying story in this morning’s Independent, and I simply wonder whether there is any redeeming feature in any religion, such that we should provide it the shelter and succour of excusing words.
And I mean the religion itself, knowing that lots of adherents of that religion or any other are ordinary people trying, just like all the rest, to live a decent life, to get ahead, to make ends meet, to see that their children are educated — und so weiter. Sure, lots of them are like that, but the religion is not. Christian religion is, or has been, a dangerous force. It used to burn people for apostacy and heresy. Sometimes it would be merciful and strangle the victim before they were burned, but often they were burned alive. Even stoning sounds like a merciful way to die by comparison, if we must compare the hideousness of religions and measure which is more so.
I’m sorry, I’m not prepared to be all nice and subtle about this. Religions themselves have become a danger to us, a grave danger. And so believers of those religions are always a pool from which the fanatics can draw. Even ordinary people trying to get ahead can be stirred to riot and burn embassies and kill diplomats, because the powers of religion are not rational ones.
And so I want to know whether Islam is safe. Is it safe to have large Muslim communities in democratic countries? I don’t know the answer to that. That’s not a reflection on the people in those communities, although in Canada at the moment the most surprising people have been arrested for planning terrorist attacks against their fellow-Canadians. That’s worrying. One was a doctor. Strange, isn’t it? Auditioned for Canadian Idol. Doctors seemed quite prepared to go along with the maddest of the Nazi schemes as well. Doctors were involved in the plot to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic. Rational people, one might have thought. What makes them so prone to act in religiously fanatic ways?
I have no answers, but I am concerned at the very careful way that the news media have adopted when speaking about Islam, as though Islam didn’t pose a problem in itself, as though it were actually a peace loving religion, despite the fact that there is scarcely a time when Islam didn’t have bloody borders. It was imperial from the word go, and disagreeing somewhat with Ophelia, it also set apart lands as Muslim lands. This is well understood and reflected in the Qu’ran. And the imperial programme lies at the heart of this religion. It sought to expand into Europe, and Europe survived by the skin of its teeth, although Muslim raiding parties burned and destroyed and killed, and kidnapped thousands of Europeans who were then sold as slaves in the Muslim empire. Thousands, perhaps millions of men, women and children sold in slave markets of the East. The Crusades are remembered with shame by Christians. No one seems to remember the thousands of Europeans sold as slaves, the thousands killed by Muslim raiding parties, the continuous efforts that were made from East and West to conquer Europe and add it to the Muslim lands, the waqf.
But I won’t go on now. You may rebuke me if you like, but I remain unrepentant. I believe, with people like Wafa Sultan, that Islam is not compatible with democracy, that Islam is founded on a debased creed of greed and violence, the oppression of women, and the humiliation of those who will not accept Mohammed as the last prophet, and Islam as the perfect religion. And this concerns me. The BBC’s failure simply to condemn stoning outright, without dancing carefully around cultural sensitivities, is a sign that we are not really aware of how great a danger faces us. And when you consider that an organisation like the Roman Catholic Church is encouraging complicity between Christianity and Islam, I think it is clear that there are dangerous waters ahead, and we should be wary.
Salty, you didn’t say what it was aimed at until long after you’d said it; at the time it was far from obvious what it was aimed at, and it was a rather irritating and lengthy lecture. And yes I’m giving you orders now: orders not to take a phrase out of context and beat it up. That’s annoying. I don’t want annoying things. They annoy me.
Represented by whom, exactly?
And many are fighting for their human rights and for democracy and social justice around the world. Doesn’t it make sense to focus on supporting them – the people who are suffering and in grave danger – rather than tarring all Muslims with one brush?
See, this is the sort of rhetoric that scares me. This sort of bigoted question has been asked about every marginalized group for centuries, in countries “democratic” and not. Democracy means accepting the existence of people you disagree with and dislike (or think you do – you really have no idea what everyone in those communities believes). People of my political persuasion were persecuted in, imprisoned and tortured by, and expelled from ostensibly democratic countries because people believed the propaganda about all anarchists being terrorists. And I can tell you that it’s not at all safe for people in the Middle East or anywhere else to have their country invaded and occupied by these “democratic” imperialist (largely Christian, some zealots) militaries.
Of course it is.
No.
Indeed, many were (Lifton’s Nazi Doctors is quite good, btw). Many are also quite prepared to go along with torture on behalf of the US (Miles’ Oath Betrayed is also pretty good). Doctors have participated in horrible things on behalf of imperialism/colonialism, corporations, and political/religious ideology. Other doctors have been on the front lines fighting for rights and justice, many paying a high price for it. Are you suggesting doctors should be banned? Have you thought this through?
You haven’t provided any evidence that they are especially prone to this. This whole line is fairly strange.
This is ridiculous. I am angry about this BBC piece, but the idea that the news media should talk about Islam as a monolith is absurd.
Do you know anything about the history of Muslims in Spain? The people who expelled them (the Jews, too) were about the biggest religious fanatics imaginable, also responsible for setting off the Spanish Inquisition and centuries of Christian imperialism and plunder in the Americas combined with the systematic slavery of millions. The actions of the US and British governments in other countries in the past decade have destroyed infrastructures and led to the suffering and deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people. In these circumstances, there’s something obscene about talking about the “danger” of the very existence of Muslims in the US or UK.
First, I don’t know that the Crusades are remembered with shame by all Christians. And make no mistake: The Vatican will lose no opportunity to control countries and people’s lives.
http://www.concordatwatch.eu/
They haven’t, they don’t, and they won’t. There have been confessional dictatorships in recent years that make some Muslim countries look progressive by comparison. Look at Spain’s dictatorship, its internal policies, and its treatment of Moroccans in the 20th century and at the Moroccan government’s response to Nazi demands for them to turn over Jews. Look, given the brutal history and present of imperialism and the role of Chritian churches in it, trying to claim that Muslims are singularly prone to expansionism is fighting a losing battle.
The same, with the appropriate substitutions – can be said about Catholicism. I would be concerned if people were talking about Catholicism in political terms like this if Catholics were being persecuted and marginalized and bombed and tortured. “Islam is not compatible with democracy” doesn’t really have any meaning. Of course the teachings of the Koran are often horrific, as are those of the other monotheisms. Of course theocracy is incompatible with democracy. But if you’re suggesting that Muslims cannot live in democracies, that’s another story. (The fact that Mossadeq was democratically elected should give you something of a clue.) Seriously – these are exactly the same sorts of arguments people made about Catholics in the US for decades (and which many Catholics made about Jews in Europe, of which we’ve seen the results). It’s undemocratic bigotry. Again: we should fight with the people who are fighting for the same things. This means not going along with essentialist portrayals that stereotype them and make them more vulnerable to violence.
There’s really no content here.
***
I thought it would be more obvious, but I did clarify later when you expressed confusion. I think you’re being a pill. If you don’t want me to comment here, Ophelia, say so. In any case, there’s littel point if you’re going to respond to substantive arguments with comments like this.
@SC (Salty Current)
You seem to be implying that it is impossible to distinguish between an ideology and its adherents.
Is that correct? Was going to write a bit of a post attacking that position, but I thought it would be better to get some clarification out of you first as to what your position actually is.
…
Yes, that does happen on the internet… occasionally. ^_^
I’ll note that this is inconsistent with pretty much everything else you’ve said, including: “Islamist fanatics — and any observant Muslim is an Islamist, if not a fanatic…”
Yes of course I’m being a pill, but I think you’re being a bit of a pill too. I think this whole idea that one mustn’t talk about Islam is just silly. I suppose you think Irshad Manji was very naughty to write a book called The Trouble With Islam?
I also think you tend to get a bit elephant-gun – a bit overkill. Great long 5 thousand word comments to disagree with one short comment. It’s not the case that I don’t want you to comment here, but I wish you could do it with a good deal more art.
What ideology specifically and what adherents? “Islam” is as diverse in the religious viewpoints it encompasses as Christianity. Moreover, it has the same relationship with politics as does Christianity – the texts themselves are authoritarian, patriarchal, expansionist, and often vicious, and are highly compatible as far as I can see with forms of government reflecting that, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t millions of Muslims who support secularism and don’t see theocracy as correct. There have been and are Muslim Communists, Socialists, far rightwingers, progressives, human rights activists, nationalists, and so on. There are even Muslim anarchists, though I think this requires a sort of mental acrobatics I can’t even imagine. What is the ideology they all share that makes it sensible to talk about Islam as a singular entity or its purported agenda?
I agree with Bernard Hurley’s post above, btw. The problem with “if all I do is condemn evils committed by some members of these groups” is not the case for a large number of people. I think he’s right that the BBC was reading the broader, essentialist framing into a condemnation of the Iranian government’s laws and actions, and that the program was immoral and infuriating and should be protested, but that doesn’t mean such essentializing framings don’t exist and don’t have consequences. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have pointed it out here had it not appeared on this thread.
I haven’t read it, and I don’t judge by titles. But if it’s as dumb and unsophisticated as the article by her that you linked to recently,…
Please, you wouldn’t care about the length of my comments if I agreed with you; but insulting my “art” is one step too far. Short and sweet: Fuck you, Ophelia. I’m done here.
Salty Current – I have no intentions of answering your historical revisionism backed up with links to fascist or Stalinist left-wing websites. To imply that Iranians have no interest in their own politics and political future, and to imply that Iranian politics is controlled by one or two countries at their whim, is so demented, counter-factual, and borderline colonialist that it is not worth a reply.
Just to make it clear, you defended Mossadeq who for 8 cents a barrell destroyed our nascant democracy for good. And then white left-wingers like you consider that a worthy cause. Just shows the kind of value that you and your kind assign to “human rights” and “democracy” that you liberally give lip service to. I brought you a good example of where one can assign a value to democracy and cut the left-wing delusions, and you failed this very empirical test and continued with your BS artistry on postcolonialism where shakedown is considered a right, and where the country provides ZERO value added, it can still demand a 90% cut on hard earned profits. For you and some white leftists (exceptions excepted), you are so demented that 8 cents a barrell and thumbing your nose at the US is sure worth destroying a nascant democracy, its concomitant liberties, and the introduction of a dictatorship.
Daniel Schealler is absolutely right that as with other white leftists (exceptions excepted), you are unable to distinguish between an ideology, and the person of its adherent. Obviously you don’t have an understanding of human rights to commit such blunderous confusion. This is one reason why the anti-democracy white leftists (again exceptions excepted) are so intellectually inferior.
Sorry OB – I did not mean to get so far OT and I will desist. It is exactly people like SC who when put to the real test, end up upholding Islam and theocratic fascism, as long as the theocrat screams “death to America” and “death to the West”. Then they have the gall to pretend weep for Iranian human rights while at the same time they are happy to trade it for 8 cents on the barrell.
@SC (Salty Current)
Sorry to get pedantic on you – but it still isn’t absolutely clear what your position is.
Are you saying that it is impossible, in principle, to distinguish between an ideology and its adherents.
Are you saying that it is impossible, in practice, to distinguish between an ideology and its adherents.
Are you saying that there is one ‘Islam’ per Muslim?
Again – sorry to get pedantic on you.
For what its worth, although I disagree strongly with you on the topic of distinguishing between ideologies and their adherents, I do understand and respect your motivation to speak up for Muslim individuals – indeed, I agree that Muslim individuals shouldn’t each be stereotyped based on the behavior of other people who self-identify with the same label. The basis of my objection, when I get around to it, is going to that critiquing an ideology is very distinct from critiquing adherents of that ideology. But before I can deliver that argument in a way that will actually addresses your objections, I need to know what those objections are. I need to know the shape of the lock before I can fashion a key to fit.
Wow! Did I do that? I know I can get carried away, but …, really?
Wow – what a slimy and fallacious argument. Lets give this a name: Argumentum ad diversitum ?
SC is saying because Islam constitutes a number of diverse undercurrents, then it is NOT POSSIBLE to critique Islam, because that would be a generalization.
OK, so let us not critique communism, cause there are so many different manifestations of it. Let us not critique Christianity, because of numerous diverse denominations. For that matter, let us not critique evolution because of diverse interpretations and differences in details.
Does he even realize how stupid it sounds? Again, I propose an empirical test to self-deluded intellectually deracinated white leftwingers who have lost touch with reality. Assuming SC is a woman, I advise her to immigrate to Saudi Arabia or Gaza and live there for the rest of her life. I bet she will soon discover something to critique.
Empiricism trumps rationalism. (And, BTW that has been proven without doubt in the quantum world.)
Again sorry OB for being so personal in my comments.
Hamid:
Please.
Your patronisation is as unwarranted and even insulting as your straw-dummy is egregious.
the comments about the “white leftist agenda” went unanswered
Not exactly, Amy Clare commented on it at #30
@ Ian MacDougall #40
Couple of things spring to mind, both purporting a bit of context to the situation rather than defence. The sport issue is probably more relevant than you’d think in this case (apologies for English football talk), because in my experience a lot fans of most “premiership” teams are sure the BBC is biased against their clubs/overly pro their main rivals. Well, they can’t all be right.
The BBC has its faults, content and editorially, but I would still wonder if it’s right to be so critical on the basis of one token religious programme (you really think the BBC is that committed to its religious programming if it didn’t have to do it?) against the total output of the BBC. The BBC probably dedicates more hours to Rugby League than it does to religion.
That doesn’t justify the comment or the lack of perspective in this “ethical and moral” debate (as they proclaimed), but we shouldn’t judge the entire editorial policy of the BBC on the basis of a short programme with a small audience of religious people out of what is usually pretty darn good television and reporting.
That said, I do notice a bit more lenient view of Islam than other faiths and I don’t particularly like it. I don’t know if that’s like the bias I perceive against my football team, I suspect not. But I also understand the context behind this and it isn’t fear of riots or terrorism, it’s more complicated. First, the BBC mandate is an old, tired standard that makes them represent all views of the public. That was fine back in the day when everyone was of the same view, much more complicated now. The main issue they have though that before 9/11 there had never really been any representation of Muslims or the Islamic faith, none. The first time people really paid attention was 9/11, so immediately the first views of Islam was as terrorists. The BBC has unfortunately taken a policy of representing another side of Islam to counter this and the debate is an unfortunate consequence of that. That tied in with its 180 degree flip from being overly praising of Israel to overly critical in the last 10 years.
Besides, to be so critical on this one issue is to ignore other aspects of the entire BBC programmes, like its soap Eastenders (with a much bigger audience) that had a Muslim family disown and even wish dead a son who was gay. Not bad, ok it’s drama, it’s made up, but they would often deal with some of the issues of that faith there. Again a much bigger audience and prime time television. They often also have documentaries highlighting issues among a lot of faiths (Panorama has dealt with aspects as well as specifically commissioned documentaries).
That must be why the Iranian authorities declared the BBC Farsi service illegal in the same month it was launched in January 2009, and started jamming it in June 2009.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/21/iran.bbc.persian/index.html
“In June 2009, BBC Persian’s Hot Bird satellite broadcasts along with those of BBC Arabic Television, other BBC services, and those of other broadcasters were experiencing interference due to a jamming signal originating from within Iran…
“The channel has been criticised by Iranian state television of encouraging “illegal” rallies and manipulating the Iranian people against the Islamic Republic, a claim which the BBC denies…
“The BBC have been broadcasting their Persian radio service since 1940 and their Farsi-language website has been up and running since 2001. Whilst the regime can do little to stop radio waves, it has blocked the website and once again, only those who know how to access proxy servers can read it.”
http://jerometaylor.independentminds.livejournal.com/5737.html
Without offering any opinion on the appropriateness of capital punishment, it is instructive to consider the actual statistics in the USA. On average, there are about 10,000 murders committed annually in the USA. The perpetrators are divided almost exactly at around 5000 white and 5000 black. There are typically about 50 annual executions in the USA, representing about 0.5% of all murderers. Of those executed, the black/white ratio is again almost exactly 50/50. A black murderer therefore faces the identical 1 in 200 chance of execution that a white murderer does.
Women are far less likely to be executed for murder than men are. Women commit murder at about 12% of the male rate, yet are executed at about 1% of the male rate. Those who even attempt to defend honor killings should pause and digest this. There are no male honor killing victims.
It is true – many Iranians are running away from Iran because of it’s barbaric islamic regime, here in Australia I have many Iranian friends who will never go back because of the terrot they are forced to live under.
In Britain you are afraid of Islam – you are scared to speak out against the horrors of Islam. The BBC has shown this. That is why they would not hear the truthful side of the story. I live for 36 years in Britain and will never return there. The quaran is horrific and barbaric, stoning people to death is horrific and barbarc.
You will never be able to depend on the BBC to show the true face of Isam.
However, through simple normal people demonstrating – all over the world – we can fight the horrors of Islam and the murders of innocent women and men.
It is rather strange if Iran bans the BBC. The protest I organised against the execution of Sakineh Ashitani was up there on the Persian BBC site along with the French protest.
Iranian friends assure me that people in Iran can get through and see the site with all the support. She was there in the protests last year and tell me how happy it makes the Iranians to see the rest of the world helping them.
Sunday Live, BBC 1, 5 September, showed a film clip of the exiled Iranian Shiva Mahbobi of the Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran stating:
“They bury women up to the chest above their breast, and they bring stones that the size of the stones is quite important. It shouldn’t be that big so they don’t kill them right away so they actually torture and gradually kill them. A good friend of mine, she was only at the time sixteen years old, and she got actually executed in prison among actually fifteen young girls same age. They would rape them before the execution so that when they die they don’t go to heaven as an innocent virgin… It doesn’t mean just because brutality against women and against people happen in another country we should close our eyes. I mean what happened to humanity if that’s the case. We have to continue the pressure.”
More on Shiva Mahbobi:
http://fartashphoto.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/shiva-mahbobi-campaign-to-free-political-prisoners-in-iran/
http://iransolidarity.blogspot.com/2009/10/shiva-mahbobis-act-of-solidarity.html
http://stopstonningnow.com/English/ShMahSpeIta260903.htm
This is what Ashtiani’s son says. This is what all the Iranian exiles I met in Stockholm told me. This is crucial. This is what shows up the bullshit about “moral imperialism” for what it is. Solidarity is crucial for people living under tyrannical regimes, and we must never forget it.