Wednesday 2 April 2008

An imam walks into a bar...

I read that the left-wing "comedian" Ben Elton has made the astounding suggestion that the BBC is too scared to allow jokes about Islam to be broadcast. Speaking to the Christian cultural magazine, Third Way, Elton, who is apparently a churchgoing atheist (presumably that fits with the hypocrisy of a supposed radical leftist who fawns over the Royal Family, and writes kitsch musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber), said that:

I believe that part of it is due to the genuine fear that the authorities and the communities have about provoking the radical elements of Islam. There is no doubt about it, the BBC will let vicar gags pass but they would not let imam gags pass...I wanted to use the phrase 'Mohammed came to the mountain' and everybody said, 'Oh, just don't! Just don't! Don't go there!' It was nothing to do with Islam, I was merely referring to the old proverb, 'If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain.' And people just said, 'Let's not!' It's incredible.

Now, I would personally be happy with anything that keeps Ben Elton off the airwaves. I simply don't find the man remotely funny. Indeed, not only do I not find him even vaguely amusing, but I also find him deeply cringeworthy - a kind of real-life David Brent. No doubt his censored joke, whatever it was, was as dreadful as all his other ones.

But in this case, he is absolutely correct. It is abundantly evident that the mainstream media, and not just the BBC, does voluntarily censor itself to avoid offending Muslims, in a manner that it would never feel the need to do with any other religion. One need only consider the fact that, in the whole of the UK, the only newspaper that reprinted the infamous Danish Motoons was the student newspaper at Cardiff University. And when the university's students' union, who publish the newspaper - ironically titled Gair Rhydd (Welsh for "Free Word") - realised what they'd done, they issued a grovelling apology, recalled all the copies, and suspended the editor. Would the same thing have happened had the cartoons been anti-Christian?

This kind of double standard applies not only in the case of direct references to Muslims, or Mohammed. Today also brought the news that a set of books aimed at promoting homosexuality to schoolchildren aged five and upwards have been withdrawn from primary schools in Bristol, after Muslim parents complained en masse. Of course, it is quite reasonable to oppose the left-wing brainwashing of very young children, which was the evident purpose of these books, and complaints were also made by some Christian organisations, such as the Christian Institute. But a comparison of the responses to Christian and Muslim complaints is instructive. Last May, Sunderland University's Dr Elizabeth Atkinson, who is responsible for the production of the books, was scathingly dismissive of Christian concerns, saying that "we knew when we started this that the Christian groups wouldn't like it because they don't like homosexuals. It wasn't surprising." Yet as soon as Muslims complained, the books were swiftly removed, in order to, as Bristol City Council put it, allow schools to "operate safely".

Muslims constantly complain that they are the victims of discrimination, and many on the left are more than happy to give credence to their claims - indeed, Ben Elton's comments have already been recorded as an example of "secular, liberal Islamophobia" at Islamophobia Watch. But the fact is, that, by virtue of a unique combination of whining about how unbelievably oppressed they are, and expressly or impliedly threatening violence against anyone who challenges them (a tactic most recently observed in the actions that led to the temporary removal of Fitna from Liveleak's servers), they have achieved a privileged status in this country, and, indeed, across the entirety of Western Europe. As Ben Elton's comments show, this is something that is recognised by increasing numbers of people, including some on the left. The next challenge, of course, is to actually do something about it...

5 comments:

JuliaM said...

"Yet as soon as Muslims complained, the books were swiftly removed, in order to, as Bristol City Council put it, allow schools to "operate safely"."

Thereby teaching all other aggrieved pressure groups exactly how to achieve the desired result next time....

Alex said...

Moral cowardice and political folly dressed up as so-called "sensitivity" to Muslim values are so commonplace now that one wearies of the quotidian examples. Watching the government and the media cave in whenever the Muslims demand preferential treatment, can lead to hair loss in the despairing observer.

Where will it all end, we ask ourselves. Can anyone see any light at the end of the tunnel? Will the indigenous majority ever come to its senses and rebel against the monstrous regiment of cultural Marxists who are intent on brainwashing British society? I don't think so, but unless somehow, sometime, somebody gets a grip, Britain is doomed.

FR writes: The next challenge, of course, is to actually do something about it.....

I wish I had a few constructive suggestions, but I don't.

Fulham Reactionary said...

Alex:

I assume that Homophobic Horse was being ironic. At least, I hope so...

Although, of course, the success of the Muslims in silencing opposition and otherwise getting what they want does serve to demonstrate that, while violence, or the threat of it, shouldn't succeed, it very often does.

Anonymous said...

Speaking to the Christian cultural magazine, Third Way, Elton, who is apparently a churchgoing atheist

It is not that reactionary for thinking atheists to attend church.

Orriana Fallachi was an athiest all her life but went to church, for she felt at home there. She made clear that so much of Italy, its art and architecture, the rennaiscance itself, was founded around the church.

DP111

Homophobic Horse said...

"We knew when we started this that the Christian groups wouldn't like it because they don't like homosexuals. It wasn't surprising."

With bigot zeal.. Consider the utter condescension in that above sentence. That's what you get when you give up your freedom by allowing agents of the collective to tax you and spend your money how they think it should be spent. In this case on state schools. And with imprisonment for concientious objectors to state schooling already instituted cretins like Dr Elizabeth Atkinson can smugly insult you from an assailable position bolstered with your tax money.

My only objection to Muslim violence here is that it is ultimately counter-productive, if not predictable. A better solution would be the abolition of state education. Like good reactionists we opposed to structuring the state in a way that gives a platform to the agents of cultural marxism, or ideology in general.

--

1. Chrisitians object to the homosexualist life-style because it is decadent and destructive.

2. The normalizers of homosexuality are the vanguard of a movement that seeks to abolish mankind itself.

2a. With scientists preparing to produce hideous human/animal hybrid embryos, the homopolitans have nothing with which to reasonably oppose this having spent the last 3 decades normalising the abuse of the reproductive function: Homosexuality, sex change, abortion, contraception, these are all perversions that are ending with the abolition of mankind.

And with these vile gene splicing experiments a line has been crossed that should not have been crossed, something monstrous has been done and I will not live to see the end of it in my lifetime.