BBC Chief - "We're Less Sensitive to Christianity"

[Teddy Bear]

I believe this topic underlines one of the essential elements underlying most of the bias we have seen and can see perpetrated by the BBC. It raises an important question that each person has to answer to themselves; What is the correct response to threats from a dangerous source - Islam?

To answer the question wisely, one has to consider the potential ramifications of what certain actions will cause.

The question:-
1. Should one bow to it and try to appease the source, and hope it will leave one unscathed?
2. Should one identify properly the true nature of that source and then do what is necessary to protect oneself from attack?

In the case of Islam, the wise action must take into account what will happen to our own nature and society by following either option. There is no doubt that whatever we decide to do will affect our future touching most facets of our lives.

So let's look at option 1 as viable, what are the consequences?
We allow something that we are afraid of to dominate, twist our view of reality to consider and treat as a friendly ally, and enable it to grow stronger and more powerful. Thus making it more difficult to eradicate in the future, and more likely we will succumb to it.

We also send out the message to every lowlife scum that no matter what the angle, the more violent you are prepared to be to get your way, the more likely you are to succeed.

Option 2 means there will probably be initially some attacks and attempts at intimidation that will need to be forcefully met, until completely subdued. Because of the need by every individual to think through the differences, between 'us and them', this would help clarify for most what our existing positive qualities are, and which ones do we need to develop further as part of our own human growth and evolution.

Any reader who sees this issue any differently are welcome to voice their opinion.

The BBC chose the first option - which has been clear to us already for a long time, but this is the first time they have ever admitted it. This would explain their hostility to nations like Israel which chose the second option. It reminds them of how cowardly they really are. It might also explain why they champion the rioters instead of the tax paying public, as well as the many other factions they seem to get behind, despite the lack of real morals exhibited by them.

I've a feeling this thread will be linked to quite a bit in the future.

Christianity gets less sensitive treatment than other religions admits BBC chief

• He suggested other faiths have a ‘very close identity with ethnic minorities'
  
• But added that religion as a whole should never receive the same ‘protection and sensitivity’ in the law as race

By Paul Revoir

BBC director-general Mark Thompson has claimed Christianity is treated with far less sensitivity than other religions because it is ‘pretty broad shouldered’.

He suggested other faiths have a ‘very close identity with ethnic minorities’, and were therefore covered in a far more careful way by broadcasters.

But he also revealed that producers had to consider the possibilities of ‘violent threats’ instead of polite complaints if they pushed ahead with certain types of satire.

Mr Thompson said: ‘Without question, “I complain in the strongest possible terms”, is different from, “I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write”. This definitely raises the stakes.’

But he added that religion as a whole should never receive the same ‘protection and sensitivity’ in the law as race.

Mr Thompson was making his comments during a wide ranging interview about faith and broadcasting, which included the furore provoked by the Corporation’s decision to screen the controversial show Jerry Springer: The Opera on BBC2 in 2005.

Hundreds of Christians rallied outside BBC buildings before and during the broadcast to protest about what they saw as blasphemous scenes such as Jesus Christ wearing a nappy.

At least 45,000 people contacted the BBC to complain about swearing and its irreverent treatment of Christian themes.

Many said that no one would have dreamed of making such a show about the Prophet Mohammed and Islam.

Mr Thompson has now appeared belatedly to accept their argument. In an interview, he said Islam was ‘almost entirely’ practised by people who already may feel in other ways ‘isolated’, ‘prejudiced against’ and who may regard an attack on their religion as ‘racism by other means’.
Strong reaction: Mr Thompson spoke about the furore provoked by the Corporation's decision to screen the controversial show Jerry Springer: The Opera on BBC2 in 2005

Strong reaction: Mr Thompson spoke about the furore provoked by the Corporation's decision to screen the controversial show Jerry Springer: The Opera on BBC2 in 2005

But he said that Christianity was ‘an established part of our cultural-built landscape’ which meant it was ‘a pretty broad- shouldered religion’.

He conceded that the broadcaster would never have aired a similar show about Mohammed because it could have had the same impact as a piece of ‘grotesque child pornography’.

In the interview posted online for the Free Speech Debate – a research project at Oxford University – Mr Thompson said: ‘The kind of constraints that most people accept around racial hatred, the fact that it may be in certain forms of expression or certain forms of depiction, may be outlawed because of the way in which they go to racial hatred and potentially the promotion and incitement of racial hatred.

‘I think religion should never receive that level of protection or sensitivity.

But I think it is wrong to imagine that it therefore goes into the general swim and that a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed is no more challenging than a debate about what two plus two equals.’
Grave consequences: Mr Thompson said the fatwa against Salman Rushdie over his novel The Satanic Verses, had made broadcasters realise that religious controversies could lead t

Grave consequences: Mr Thompson said the fatwa against Salman Rushdie over his novel The Satanic Verses, had made broadcasters realise that religious controversies could lead to murder or serious criminal acts

He added: ‘The point is that for a Muslim, a depiction, particularly a comic or demeaning depiction, of the Prophet Mohammed might have the emotional force of a piece of grotesque child pornography.

‘One of the mistakes secularists make is not to understand the character of what blasphemy feels like to someone who is a realist in their religious belief.’

When asked by his interviewer, the historian Timothy Garton Ash, if it was the case that the BBC wouldn’t dream of airing something ‘comparably satirical’ as Jerry Springer: The Opera about Mohammed, he said:

‘Essentially the answer to that question is yes.’

He added: ‘The idea you might want to… think quite carefully about whether something done, in quotes, in the name of freedom of expression, might to the Jew, or the Sikh, or the Hindu, or the Muslim, who receives it, feel threatening, isolating and so forth, I think those are meaningful considerations.’

Mr Thompson, who is expected to leave his job after the Olympics, said he was a ‘practising Catholic’ who believed that the ‘truths of the Christian faith’ were objective rather than subjective.

He had never watched Martin Scorsese’s film The Last Temptation of Christ or Monty Python’s The Life of Brian because he was ‘quite personally sensitive to mockery of religious images’.

But he said this did not mean that he was against either film being broadcast, adding that the best advice if you thought something might offend you was not to watch it.

However, he had no problem with the decision to show Jerry Springer: The Opera, and ‘thoroughly enjoyed it’.

Mr Thompson said the fatwa against Salman Rushdie over his novel The Satanic Verses, the September 11 terror attacks, and the murder in Holland in 2004 of film-maker Theo van Gogh, who had criticised Islam, had made broadcasters realise that religious controversies could lead to murder or serious criminal acts.

[Teddy Bear]

Nick Cohen at the Spectator adds his thoughts.

Should Christians kill Mark Thompson?
NICK COHEN MONDAY, 27TH FEBRUARY 2012
I’d rather they didn’t. But perhaps a campaign of clerical terror would make the BBC ‘respect’ Christianity.

According to the Telegraph, the director general of the BBC said it handles Islam with far more sensitivity than Christianity because: ‘The point is that for a Muslim, a depiction, particularly a comic or demeaning depiction, of the Prophet Mohammed might have the emotional force of a piece of grotesque child pornography. One of the mistakes secularists make is not to understand the character of what blasphemy feels like to someone who is a realist in their religious belief.’

Islam was a religion ‘almost entirely’ practised by people who already may feel in other ways ‘isolated’, ‘prejudiced against’ and who may regard an attack on their religion as ‘racism by other means’. Christians, by contrast, have broad shoulders.

So far, this sounds like the normal cant, The BBC restrains its staff because of a desire to combat racism.

But unlike so many in the arts and journalism, Thompson is not a humbug. He freely admits that fear rather ‘respect’ generates censorship at the BBC. Talking of the angry letters he receives, he said: ‘Without question, “I complain in the strongest possible terms”, is different from, “I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write”. This definitely raises the stakes.’

For all his honesty, Thompson needs to ask himself some searching questions.

1. Islam is no more a religion confined to the poor and the marginalised than Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism are. Powerful men with the ability to afflict harm and death on others use it to justify theocratic rule in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and para-military terror across the world. If the BBC will not criticise the fundamentals of their faith, it is doing what they would want it to do by damning their Christian competitors while handing them a free pass.

2. It is not just Iran and Saudi Arabia where Islam has the power to dominate. In Britain, liberal Muslims and ex-Muslims need to confront the bigots in their own communities. The liberal BBC will not help them or report their struggles for fear of violent attack. Its cowardice and a misplaced anti-racism have made it a reactionary force that cannot help immigrants and their children, who are struggling to escape taboos.

3. He should now stop Andrew Marr, Ed Stourton, John Humphrys and the rest of his staff from engaging in double-speak about ‘militant secularism’. There are no militant secularists threatening to kill him, Marr, Stourton and Humphrys — although some of us do feel the occasional twinge in the trigger finger. The militancy is all from the other side.

4. There is no blasphemy law in Britain. By bowing to the threat of extra-legal violence, the BBC is saying that it accords greater ‘respect’ to those who threaten crimes, than those who do not.

[cherenkov]

Of course the BBC is more sensitive to religions that have a habit of blowing people who disagree with them to smithereens. What else would a coward do?

However I must suggest that there are actually no Christians alive today, although there are still millions of people who have managed to persuade themselves that they are Christians.

The last of the true Christians were killed off by the Romans. What we have now are pseudo-Christians who think it is OK to kill others in a conflict like the last world war. However if you actually believe Jesus' teaching it was obvious that as a Christian it should have been a case of letting Hitler roll right in and kill as many of us as he wished. Nothing could be clearer from his teaching, and thus there are no real Christians left as it was clearly conceived as being a faith of martyrdom.

Hence the BBC has nothing to fear from them unless a Christian actually ups their game and martyrs himself or herself live on the Internet outside the doors of Broadcasting House.

[Teddy Bear]

Food for thought Cher The Christian Attitude Toward War

I think the notion of letting Hitler roll right in and kill as many of us as he wished is to be complicit in killing by enabling the murderer.
I don;t think there's 'black and white' on the issue. I believe true religion inspires to seek a better world based on the best concepts available to us.

[Teddy Bear]

The Middle-East Forum examines this admission by Mark Thompson.
There are so many links in the article I advise anybody wishing to pursue it further to click on the article itself.

The BBC Broadcasts Its Own Dhimmitude
by David J. Rusin
PJ Media
May 8, 2012

Media outlets tiptoeing around Islam are a dime a dozen, but the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stands apart for the egregiousness of its self-censorship and bias. Even more striking than the number of controversies involving suppression of Islam-critical speech on its channels are the frank acknowledgements that BBC policy is shaped by fear.

During a recent interview (full transcript) for a University of Oxford project, BBC director general Mark Thompson provided the most in-depth admission yet of the BBC's double standards with respect to faith. Christianity, he explained, receives less sensitive treatment because it is "a broad-shouldered religion, compared to religions which in the UK have a very close identity with ethnic minorities." Specifically, Islam in Britain is "almost entirely a religion practiced by people who may already feel in other ways isolated, prejudiced against, and where they may well regard an attack on their religion as racism by other means." Thus, when asked whether the BBC would run a Muhammad-mocking program on a par with the Jesus-ridiculing Jerry Springer: The Opera, which it aired over Christian protests in 2005, Thompson answered that it would not. Depictions of Islam's prophet, he maintained, could have "the emotional force" of "grotesque child pornography" for Muslims.

Concern about Islamist violence undergirds BBC self-censorship, as evidenced by Thompson's citations of the Salman Rushdie affair, which he described as "an absolute watershed," and 9/11. "A threat to murder … massively raises the stakes," Thompson pronounced. "'I complain in the strongest possible terms' is different from 'I complain in the strongest possible terms and I'm loading my AK47 as I write.'" Jonathan Neumann of Commentary observes, "The lesson the BBC appears to be teaching — a lesson we always knew and apparently is also policy — is that complaints get more credence if they are backed up by force."

Thompson's publicly enunciated views have evolved and serve as a microcosm of creeping dhimmitude, which refers to the subjugated status of non-Muslims under Islamic law. Four years ago, Thompson bemoaned the "growing nervousness about discussion about Islam and its relationship to the traditions and values of British and Western society as a whole." Seeing the BBC as a defender "of freedom of speech and of impartiality," he contended that it and other media outlets "have a special responsibility" to make certain that debate on any religion "should not be foreclosed or censored."

Just six months later, Thompson introduced his argument that Islam, as a minority belief system, must be dealt with carefully. "There's no reason why any religion should be immune from discussion, but I don't want to say that all religions are the same," he opined. In the BBC's defense, however, he boasted that it had not shied from displaying the Danish Muhammad cartoons — which seemingly had yet to reach the level of "grotesque child pornography" that they would in 2012. A BBC spokesman attempted to soften his words further: "What Mark Thompson said is that all religions are not the same — he did not say Islam, or indeed any faith, should be treated more sensitively than Christianity."

But now the mask has dropped for good, with double standards being confessed and visions of firearms elbowing out high-minded expressions of tolerance. Though his candor is refreshing, it does not begin to offset the lengthy and damaging record of cowardice that has defined Thompson's eight-year reign.

The BBC's asymmetrical approach to Islam and Christianity was palpable long before Thompson admitted to it. An internal memo leaked in 2006 provided an important glimpse of the prevailing worldview by revealing that BBC officials had deemed it acceptable to show a Bible, but not a Koran, being tossed into the garbage. Numerous insiders have gone public since then to confirm and criticize such policies. In 2008, comedian Ben Elton deplored how "the BBC will let vicar gags pass but they would not let imam gags pass," which he attributed to "genuine fear … about provoking the radical elements of Islam." Former BBC radio host Don Maclean lamented in 2009 that programs "seem to take the negative angle every time" regarding Christianity, even as they are "keen on Islam." News anchor Peter Sissons, who left the BBC several years ago, echoed him in a book published in 2011: "Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended."

At its most obnoxious, this mindset is manifested in bizarre inversions of reality, such as the infamous scene of a fanatical British Christian decapitating a peaceful Muslim in a 2008 episode of the BBC archaeology drama Bonekickers. One reviewer slammed "the BBC's paint-by-numbers version of political correctness," adding that "a Martian watching TV drama of late would probably conclude that the country is crawling with homicidal Islamophobes." Christians accused the BBC of smearing evangelicals by attempting to "transfer the practice of terrorist beheadings from Islamist radicals" to them, but the BBC Trust exonerated the network. The BBC spy series Spooks ignited a similar storm in 2006 when it showed Christians carrying out grenade attacks against Muslims and a bishop organizing the assassination of an Islamic cleric.

Even as it concocts Christian terrorists, the BBC balks at depicting Islamic ones. Editorial staffers nixed the Islamic suicide bombers in a planned episode of the BBC medical drama Casualty in 2007, so as not to "perpetuate stereotypes." They were replaced with animal rights extremists. A year later, executives reportedly canceled a film on the 2005 London transit bombings because they found the script "Islamophobic" — discounting the opinions of the jihadists' own families who had backed the portrayal of their kin. Journalist Nick Cohen put it best: the BBC actually was advancing "the belief that all Muslims are potential terrorists … by arguing that a dramatic examination of terrorism would be offensive to all Muslims."

The BBC also constrains how real-world Islamists may be described. For example, the network prevented the Christian Choice alliance from characterizing Tablighi Jamaat, the organization that had been aiming to erect an enormous mosque by the site of the 2012 London Olympics, as "a separatist Islamic group" during a pre-election broadcast in 2008. The label fits: Tablighi Jamaat "preaches that non-Muslims are an evil and corrupting influence," according to a Times of London article, and one of its UK leaders urged Muslims to resist the culture of Christians and Jews by nurturing "such hatred for their ways as human beings have for urine and excreta." Nonetheless, the BBC demanded that "separatist" be changed to "controversial" and rejected the favorable mention of "moderate Muslims" opposed to the mosque project — because, in the words of the Times, "the phrase implied that Tablighi Jamaat was less than moderate."

Likewise, the BBC instructed its personnel this year not to refer to UK-based hate preacher Abu Qatada as an "extremist," despite his ties to al-Qaeda. Notes from a BBC editorial meeting indicate that he may be dubbed a "radical," but the "extremist" designation is unwelcome because it "implies a value judgment" — a throwback to the logic that limited general use of "terrorist" on BBC channels in 2005. For good measure, journalists also have been warned not to employ old photos in which Abu Qatada looks fat.

If undesired language does slip past the censors, the BBC grovels, as when it rushed to offer an apology and £30,000 to the Muslim Council of Britain in 2009 after a Question Time panelist accused the group of promoting attacks on British forces. Executives were unmoved by the fact that the UK government already had suspended links with the organization due to similar concerns. Hypersensitivity motivated another apology two years earlier when a BBC radio host, responding to the return of a British teacher jailed in Sudan for allowing students to give a teddy bear the same name as Islam's prophet, innocuously joked that "her dog, Muhammad, is very pleased to see her." The BBC called the remark "ill-judged and entirely inappropriate" — words better applied to the notion of imprisoning somebody over a stuffed animal.

Perhaps most ironic of all, a spokesman for the BBC director general effectively declined a recent challenge from the head of DV8 Physical Theatre to screen a performance of Can We Talk About This? The courageous and well-reviewed dance production (watch the trailer) explores how fear stifles speech about Islam.

The BBC also has been accused of positively emphasizing Islam to the extent that other faiths are "brushed aside." This phrase was used by a British Sikh leader in 2008 after an analysis found that the BBC's religion and ethics department had rolled out 41 programs on Islam since 2001, but only five on Hinduism and one on Sikhism. "The bias towards Islam at the expense of Hindus and particularly Sikhs is overwhelming," a second protested. Furthermore, the Biased BBC blog noted in January 2011 that BBC Radio 4 had featured numerous shows highlighting Islam that month, but not one on any other minority religion. As for the majority faith, when Church of England representatives complained to Aaqil Ahmed, the Muslim controversially named chief of religious programming in 2009, about the BBC's diminishing focus on Christianity, he dismissed them as wanting to "live in the past."

Of course, the BBC's pro-Islamic — even pro-Islamist — slant does not stop at British shores. It also shades coverage of Middle Eastern conflicts, a phenomenon well beyond the scope of this article but documented by Honest Reporting and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).

Mark Thompson plans to step down as BBC director general later in the year, but free speech advocates should not celebrate just yet. The culture that he has fostered is deeply ingrained and will not simply leave with him. Indeed, the corporation's editorial guidelines were modified in 2010 to mandate special procedures for "content dealing with matters of religion and likely to cause offence to those with religious views and beliefs," a move that the National Secular Society's president condemned as "entirely retrograde" for legitimizing faith-inspired bounds on expression.

Those who muzzle themselves to appease Islamists have surrendered their freedom, but when a behemoth such as the BBC does so, it chips away at the liberty of all. Powerful media entities that succumb to fear do not only embolden jihadists and help keep the citizenry in the dark about key issues; they also set a precedent that the less powerful often follow, a kind of trickle-down self-censorship that infects public life. Adding insult to injury, Britons are forced to fund the BBC's dhimmitude — and ultimately their own — through the license fee on televisions.

In an apparent disconnect with many of his other comments, Thompson asserted during the interview that "the best advice you can give" a person who feels uncomfortable with something on TV is "don't watch it," a philosophy that informs his habits as a Christian. Until network officials demand the same civilized behavior from Muslims and stop capitulating to the specter of Islamist rage, fed-up media consumers should remember his advice and turn off the BBC.

David J. Rusin is a research fellow at Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.