A couple of weeks ago we reported on the BBC’s “documentary” about Geert Wilders entitled “Geert Wilders: Europe’s Most Dangerous Man?” The movie was a blatant hit-piece by a progressive outfit called Red Rebel Films, which is based in the Netherlands and enjoys partial funding by the state.The film’s appearance on the BBC as well as the earlier release of an original Dutch version were coterminous with beginning of each of Mr. Wilders’ “hate speech” trials. It strains credulity to suppose that the timing of these events was mere coincidence.
Our British correspondent RezaV wrote a carefully documented letter of complaint to the BBC, and eventually received a reply. Here’s what he says about the Beeb’s response and his own counter-response:
Predictably, I received a bland and standard response to my complaint regarding the BBC’s Geert Wilders documentary that you covered at Gates of Vienna.
Below is the text of their reply. I’ve also pasted the text of my counter-response that explains how the BBC has broken its own rules in broadcasting the programme.
Anyone who has complained about this programme should reply and complain about their standard responses. I strongly believe that with this documentary the BBC really over-stepped the mark. This time, they’ve made some serious mistakes, and if we all take a few minutes to keep the pressure up, I really believe that we can get them to apologise.
Text of the BBC’s reply to me:Thanks for your feedback regarding ‘Geert Wilders: Europe’s Most Dangerous Man?’ broadcast on 14 February 2011.
We understand some viewers felt the programme showed bias against Mr Wilders.
To give the programme some context: Islamic integration is a controversial topic in Britain and even more in other parts of Europe. 09/11 saw a surge of anti Islamic political movements across in the States and Europe.
This programme looked at the rise of Geert Wilders, whose ideas are changing the Netherlands and are having an impact across Europe and beyond. To try and understand one of Europe’s leading anti Islamists and why parties sharing his views on Islam are getting increasingly powerful, the programme followed Wilders on his Dutch election campaign trail. The programme gave a significant amount of space to the views of a range of Wilders’ supporters in the Netherlands, as well as to Wilders himself. To reflect the extent of feeling on the matter the programme also heard from members of the international anti-Islamic network who support him.
The programme explored the promotion of the belief that Europe is being taken over by Islam and the response of prominent Muslims to that. It also looked into why Mr Wilders’ critics are strongly opposed to his progression in Dutch and European politics.
The programme reflected the fact that there are elements of the Muslim community who espouse violence as well as many others who oppose it and that the Qur’an is open to differing interpretations.
We feel the film is a piece of impartial journalism which explored a wide range of Mr Wilders’ ideological positions, hearing from both sides of an argument of which he is prominently involved in.
We would like to assure you that we’ve registered your comments on our audience log. This is the internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily for all programme makers and commissioning executives within the BBC, and also their senior management. It ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.
Thanks again for contacting us.
My counter-response:
In your Complaint Response you state:
“We feel the film is a piece of impartial journalism which explored a wide range of Mr Wilders’ ideological positions, hearing from both sides of an argument of which he is prominently involved in.”
I understand that “impartial journalism” is an entirely subjective term and I am not surprised that the BBC took a one-sided and particularly hostile stance towards Geert Wilders.
However, even in taking that expected stance, I understand that your own Editorial Guidelines require that you:
6.4.25 When our output makes allegations of wrongdoing, iniquity or incompetence or lays out a strong and damaging critique of an individual or institution the presumption is that those criticised should be given a “right of reply”, that is, given a fair opportunity to respond to the allegations.
We must ensure we have a record of any request for a response including dates, times, the name of the person approached and the key elements of the exchange. We should normally describe the allegations in sufficient detail to enable an informed response, and set a fair and appropriate deadline by which to respond.
1. As highlighted in my original letter to you, your programme made some very serious accusations against Mr Wilders. Please provide evidence that the requirements of your Editorial Guideline 6.4.25 were adhered to by providing evidence that you “have a record of any request for a response including dates, times, the name of the person approached and the key elements of the exchange details”?
2. With regard to the various serious and unsubstantiated allegations that you made against Mr Wilders and that I listed in my original letter to you, please provide examples of where in your programme you complied with your Editorial Guidelines 6.4.26 which stipulate that: “Any parts of the response relevant to the allegations broadcast should be reflected fairly and accurately and should normally be broadcast in the same programme, or published at the same time, as the allegation”?
3. Your Editorial Guideline 6.4.27 states: “In very rare circumstances where we propose to broadcast a serious allegation without giving those concerned an opportunity to reply, the proposal must be referred to a senior editorial figure or, for independents, to the commissioning editor. Referral must also be made to Director Editorial Policy and Standards. The allegation must be in the public interest and there must be strong reasons for believing it to be true. Our reasons for deciding to make the information public without requesting a response from the individuals or organisations concerned may include possible interference with witnesses or other legal reasons.
With regard to your Editorial Guidelines:
a. Please confirm that the decision not to provide Mr Wilders an opportunity to reply to allegations made against him on the programme was referred to a senior editorial figure? b. Please confirm that referral was also made to the Director Editorial Policy and Standards? c. Please explain how the various unsubstantiated allegations against Mr Wilders and in particular the allegation that he was a spy for Israel were “in the public interest”? d. In the specific case of your allegations that Mr Wilders was a spy for Israel, please explain your “strong reasons for believing it to be true” as required by your Editorial Guidelines?
4. Section 4 of your Editorial Guidelines states:
“The Agreement accompanying the BBC Charter requires us to do all we can to ensure controversial subjects are treated with due impartiality in our news and other output dealing with matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy. But we go further than that, applying due impartiality to all subjects.”
Please explain how your programme’s description of Sheikh Kalid Yasin, who was shown preaching Islamic extremism in Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque, as “…an American Muslim teacher extremely popular among young European Muslims, he has embarked on a mission to de radicalise them” whilst at the same time representing that Mr Wilders is “Europe’s Most Dangerous Man” and making the various unsubstantiated allegations against him that I listed in my original letter to you, applied “due impartiality to all subjects”?
I look forward to your response.
39 comments:
If he's made a complaint to the BBC and feels their response does not offer restitution the next step is to make a formal complaint to Ofcom.
http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/tv-and-radio/a-specific-programme/
Ofcom have the power to order an ajudication, and if it is found that the BBC is in breach (obviously dubious as Ofcom is part of the establishement, but it does happen), then Ofcom has the power to compel the BBC to make a statement of retraction.
Further engagement with the BBC will be ultimately pointless they will just ping-pong the issue into the long grass and ignore it.
If your reader wants to do something substantive and bring about some form of restitution then Ofcom is the way to go.
I can confirm I received the same reply. In my complaint I didn't even mention bias just the inclusion of Sheikh Kalid Yasin. I also pinged it back to them (I would post it here but they don't email your complaint to you and I didn't keep it)
RezaV's follow-up letter is a specimen of exquisite scrupulousness and searingly rational parsimony.
One hopes that his chosen moniker, "RezaV", does not indicate a "moderate Muslim" in our ranks; nor, which is not much better, one of those Persian ex-Muslims who thinks Maryam Namazie is the cat's pajamas.
I watched the documentary and found it unbearingly dull. It consisted mainly on endless failed attempts to find anything incriminating against Wilders, showing the 'journalist' as an amateur as opposed to the professional and effective Wilders.
I found the film ineffective as a hit piece and a vaste of time from a documentary perspective. The project should have been abandoned.
Failing that, BBC should have junked it simply because the quality of the thing is obviously poor.
On the other hand, the Danish broadcaster DR also had quite a lot of complaints about airing this one. Their stock response was:
"We find that it fully lives up to our standards for quality".
We were quite a few who went: "Yes, that figures" :]
Pierre
It is my intention to take this to Ofcom, however I want to demonstrate that I've given the BBC every opportunity to address my complaint.
Hesperado
No I am not a "moderate Muslim" but I do believe that such a thing does exist - although not as the mythical "Vast Majority" that always precedes the words "moderate Muslims" whenever uttered by members of our wilfully ignorant liberal establishment.
As for Namazie, I never tire of pointing out to people that she is a nasty Commie whose vision of Utopia is no less nasty than that of your average Islamist or SWP fascist.
I was born an Iranian and a Muslim. I no longer consider myself to be either.
@Reza
Ok, just making sure. Have a word with the people at the Biased BBC blog, I'm sure they'll have plenty of advice on how to word your Ofcom complaint in the most effective way.
Reza
If you are the fellow, I believe you might be(pickledpolitics, harrysplace), sincere thanks for your efforts. I hope you don't take offense at some of the more suspicious. I'm not Iranian, but consider the arab conquests of your ancestors homeland to be one of histories great tragedies, like the loss of one of humanities classical cultures. I've met more than a few Iranians with a savage hate on for islam. Your position is complex leftist westerners doubt you are who you say you are and what you have to say, and many counter-jihadi types will revel in much of what you have to say, but remain suspicious of your motives and identity. Whatever, I hope you don't let either group get you down.
Al BeBeeCeera is so full of shiite, could it be that they're made of it?
Who was the guy who recently quit exasperated claiming that the whole bloody lot is mad of young urban metrosexuals, homosexuals and progressive commies pushing a very tendentious PC line?
Infuriating that you, the taxpayer, has to fund it. But we here in Australia are in the same pits.
Thanks Reza,
So far so good. Just one more thing, then I can breathe easy: Do you agree that the Pahlavi dynasty was the only (albeit relatively) good thing to happen to Persia in all its miserable 1300-odd years of voluntary Islamic submission?
Not sure about what Reza has to say, but I, as a young man, knew Iran quite well. I even met the shah on 2 occasions.
That time, in 1969, Teheran was a modern, wealthy city, with many nightclubs, elegant cafe's, stylish women, (my Iranian friend, married with a German woman, had 7 hair salons, gold-mines, all of them) and I sold Mercedes limousines, traded carpets, it was great!
Only in Qum and in Mashad I saw the radical headbangers that time, and I had some unpleasant experiences. ("kuffar" , Yahood", etc) My Iranian friends took me up to the Caspian sea, we drank plenty of Vodka and eat Caviar, drove back like mad monkeys in the serpentines, it was a crazy time. I knew what was coming when Peanut Khadr gave it away 10 years later.
America, you can't chose your parents. But you need to chose your leaders well. And you need to educate your children. This world is a nasty place, and its suicidal if you're not politically savvy.
We don't live in a bubble. Islam is our oldest enemy, its time to make an end to Islam!
For many more examples of BBC dhimmitude see links under BBC at the Islamic Index.
sheik yer'mami said "who was that bloke" That'd be Peter Sissons, once an important BBC journalist.
Sheik yer'mami, you also lived in Iran?
So did I, 1975-1978. Being just a child, I didn't go drinking vodka at the Caspian, but I sure did my share of observing. Mainly in the 'holy' city of Mashad, though I avoided the slums for obvious reasons.
Saw the Shah twice. I am adamant that he's the best that happened to Iran for more than a millenium.
A lot of Persians seem to be decent people, it is sad what has become of their country. lslam is a curse, a filthy curse.
Hesperado
“Do you agree that the Pahlavi dynasty was the only (albeit relatively) good thing to happen to Persia in all its miserable 1300-odd years of voluntary Islamic submission?”
Ha Ha! I’m not sure how to answer that. The Shah was weak and corruptible but at least might have had a desire to remove the entrenched culture and ideology of Islam from Iranian society. Unfortunately however, I fear that successfully cutting out the malignant tumour that is Islam would take almost as much blood and pain to execute, as did infecting Islam on the Persians in the first place.
And please understand this: There was nothing “voluntary” about the Persians’ submission – that’s just another lie among the litany of lies that have come to represent the ‘accepted’ history of the religion of ‘peace’. It took the Arabs 300 years to Islamify Persia. After a relatively short period of violent forced conversion they imposed centuries of discrimination, harassment and coercion to mop-up those who didn’t convert. And it continues. Even today, a Jew, Christian or Zoroastrian who converts to Islam at the time of his father’s death inherits all of his father’s possessions over his non-Muslim siblings.
Sheik yer’mami
You must be of my parents’ generation. Their accounts of Iranian life in the late 60s and early 70s are much like yours.
You must however understand, that the “headbangers” you speak of weren’t ever limited to Qom and Mashad. Once outside of the wealthy, liberal and ‘westernised’ north Tehran, most of the country was (and still remains) materially, spiritually and culturally impoverished by Islam.
Even in the liberal 1970’s Tehran, my mother tells me that a woman who wandered into the wrong neighbourhood without a chador would have rocks thrown at her.
Cudoine
Indeed I am that fellow. The nepotistic and terribly ethnocentric owner of Pickled Politics has long accused me of being a white supremacist neo-Nazi who pretends to be ethnic-Iranian. Every comment I posted there would be invariably followed by a vuvuzela call of increasingly paranoid conspiracy theories about who I really was. At times I was surprised that they didn’t add "rapist" and “kiddy-fiddler” to their litany of unsubstantiated and racist accusations about me.
Eventually, I posted a promise that the next time I went to Iran I'd make a short video that would indubitably show me being an (ethnic)-Iranian in Iran. As soon as I did that the 'professional ethnics' who run that ‘whitey-hating’ site promptly banned me. I now have that video and am considering an appropriate way and context to get it out there.
You see, the professional ethnics of PP and their ‘white’ leftist friends, have long known that simply shouting “racist!” (and more recently "Islamophope!" will silence those who say things that they don’t like. For example, those who say that multiculturalism doesn’t work, that diversity isn’t necessarily a ‘strength’ or that immigration isn’t, by default, a very good thing for the people already living in the country being immigrated to.
So for decades, people like the owners of PP haven’t needed to win or even engage in a debate. Which is just as well for them as deep down they know that such a debate is unwinnable - the truth about multiculturalism, diversity and immigration are incontrovertible and easily evidenced.
I've been saying what Merkel, Cameron and Sarkozy have finally started to say today about multiculturalism for over 15 years. I’ve opposed mass immigration, especially from the third world, for longer than that. I’ve also opposed Islam and understood it for the fascistic and totalitarian political ideology it is way before 9/11 brought it under the scrutiny of the European ‘man in the street’.
In the days when no one could say these things aloud, I was able to thanks to my ancestral ethnic and religious background. I am not a ‘white’ ethnic Western European. I was born in Iran. I'm also a first generation immigrant to Britain. I was born, and technically still am, a Muslim. So I can neutralise the only weapon of the liberal fascist. “Racist!”. “Islamophobe!”
This in effect has been my ‘golden amulet’ that’s meant that for years I’ve been able to discuss these things with people who know them to be true but are too frightened to say so themselves.
And that’s why I’m such a terrible threat to white leftists and whitey-hating professional ethnics.
I'm not sure why this thread became a discussion of the Pahlavi dynasty.
Taking Reza's letter on its merits, it strikes me as excellent, like his original complaint.
Several years ago I cancelled my TV license as the BBC was just too trashy and obviously left wing. It feels good not to pay them anything, and you can watch what little is worth watching on the iPlayer anyway.
Not sure how they expect their business model to survive when radio is free and they're giving away their programmes too. I suppose they are counting on people having to pay to watch other channels, which seems rather unfair.
Anyway I would urge all license fee payers to support Reza with a complaint. Maybe even to your MP too. I would to mine, but he is Sadiq Khan.
(p.s. I have been to Ex-Muslim events too but was put off by Mariyam's apparent socialist sympathies. Very unfortunate how common this is in the secular movement.)
Reza,
On the Shah, the point of my question was not to elicit unalloyed praise of the Shah (and his father), but simply to concede that for any society that has been Islamic for centuries, an iron-fisted dictator suppressing Islam at least somewhat is, as Jack Nicholson said in the movie by the same name, "As Good As It Gets".
Second, when I referred to the "voluntary submission" of Persians to Islam I of course wasn't referring to the initial, let us say (to be generous), 100 years during which Persia was definitively conquered by force with horrible massacres and oppression: I was referring to the subsequent 1200-odd years during which Persians became Muslims no longer against their will, but fanatically in keeping with their subsequently deformed will. As a colleague of mine who has studied Persian history has pointed out to me, there was a window of time somewhere in the middle of the long arc of Islamic Persian history (the precise century eludes me now, I think it was approximately the 14th) during which a foreign non-Muslim conqueror from central Asia briefly took over Persia -- and he had the power to suppress Islam, and when he offered the option to Persians to abandon Islam, the vast majority declined the invitation. I.e., by then, the disease had sunk in too deeply for most of them: like most Muslims, they had come to love Big Brother.
The only treatment for islam is segregation. Enforced segregation and driving the muslims back to saudi arabia from which the disease first came. AWe need a map of the world describing which countries will be kept seperate for the muslims, their geographic spread must be reduced by about 75 percent. Once driven back and contained they must be forever kept seperate.
mt,
You might be interested in my extended analysis of a proposal for mass deportation + global quarantine of Muslims:
The Iron Veil
I wouldn't mind allowing Muslims to keep most of their status quo Dar-al-Islam -- with certain exceptions:
They cannot have any part of the Philippines, any part of Thailand, any part of Israel, and certain areas of Africa should also be off-limits (e.g., northern Nigeria). Otherwise, they can have Indonesia, Malaysia, central Asian corridor (Afghanistan and a couple of other Stans), Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and the rest of the Maghreb.
Similarly, Lebanon and Serbia should be rid of Muslims.
Ideally, I would favor the expulsion of all Muslims from Turkey, and create there a Republic of Byzantium where many of the oppressed Christians of the Muslim world may relocate.
The remainder of the Dar-al-Islam should be plenty of room for the world's Muslims.
A quarantine would have to be enforced, naturally, since Muslims aren't going to stay put and behave unless forced to.
Reza,
yes indeed, I have just turned 60. (don't tell anybody)
However, our reminiscing on the Shah and Iran does derail the thread which is about the BBC and Geert Wilders.
Therefore I would suggest to you (or anyone else interested) to continue this walk down memory lane further on http://sheikyermami.com/
Apologies to the Baron; no comment whoring intended, just another subject that arose from this thread.
Ah Hesperado - a man of vision. Its all well and good to criticise islam but we need solutions. Pushing the muslim horde back is the place to start. Once people get over the initial shock of such a seemingly outrageous proposal they will begin to come around to the logic of the idea. And pushing back is what we need to do. What with the pressure islam has been exerting against non islam the last 20 years there is a built up mechanical tension in all of the lands of the infidels - we need to release this tension and bring it to bear against the muslim horde.
mt,
"What with the pressure islam has been exerting against non islam the last 20 years there is a built up mechanical tension in all of the lands of the infidels..."
Prior to that, there was the pressure Islam exerted upon the West for a good thousand years -- from the 7th century clear through to the 17th century, of relentless attacks, grand attempts (some successful) at invasion as well as innumerable Blitzkrieg terror attacks (razzias) coupled with piracy, kidnapping, torture and slavery (over a million Europeans enslaved by Muslims); not to mention horrific oppression over the Westerners they had under their thumb at various times (for nearly 800 years in Spain; for the last 600 years in Eastern Europe, albeit slowly dwindling into the present; and elsewhere, such as their rule of Sicily for a while, as well as Greece -- in addition to what I consider an extension of the West, North Africa and the Middle East, all thoroughly civilized by Rome and then Christian Rome for over 600 years before the Muhammedan hordes swept through).
The West largely forgot this thousand-year reign of terror, for various reasons: the West had grown so spectacularly superior in geopolitical terms, by the 18th century, while the Muslim world receded back into its baseline inferiority, cut off from its only source of strength, other peoples whom it conquers and sucks the life blood from. But there is another reason why the West largely forgot about that major specter that had haunted and hunted her for so many centuries: a kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on a civilizational scale.
mt: What with the pressure islam has been exerting against non islam the last 20 years there is a built up mechanical tension in all of the lands of the infidels - we need to release this tension and bring it to bear against the muslim horde.
Hesperado: Prior to that, there was the pressure Islam exerted upon the West for a good thousand years -- from the 7th century clear through to the 17th century, of relentless attacks, grand attempts (some successful) at invasion as well as innumerable Blitzkrieg terror attacks (razzias) coupled with piracy, kidnapping, torture and slavery (over a million Europeans enslaved by Muslims)…
Is anyone sensing a pattern here?
ISLAM BECAME QUIESCENT ONLY WHEN SUPERIOR WESTERN MECHANIZED WARFARE FINALLY POSED A FUNCTIONAL THREAT TO ITS CONTINUED EXISTENCE.
In reality, the jihad has never stopped but only, temporarily, diminished in scale during the 18th and 19th centuries until Western invention of air travel, mass transportation, electronic communication and other technological boons made global terrorism an effective tool.
In a concomitant manner, only the use of mechanized warfare − reborn as network centric war fighting − will provide any functional tools to defeat Islam.
Now for the bad news. Even expulsion, repatriation, reverse immigration or recongregation − whatever name you like to call it − will not work.
Islam will continue to leak across its eternal "bloody borders" and impose jihad until faced with an existential threat.
The advent of Western technology has enabled a rebirth of jihad in ways that make it exceptionally difficult to combat. Only by using some of Islam's own tools against it will there be any hope of dismantling this death cult.
The first of these tools is collective punishment. Terrorism is the ne plus ultra of collective punishments. Muslims have been accultured to anticipate and welcome death. This normalization of death makes ordinary combat relatively inneffectual. It is only when entire famlies and tribes start disappearing that Muslims will sit up and take notice.
This is a small scale existential threat to Muslims at the genetic scale and one that they comprehend just fine.
Once every terrorist attack in the West is answered with a 100X to 1,000X death toll in dar-al-harb, Muslims will become far more reluctant to engage in jihad. While the uncertainty involved in randomly imposing such retribution has its own particular merits, directing such retaliation against locations where attacking terrorists originated from will be more productive.
Another tactic is deprivation of resources. As noted in my Gates of Vienna essay "Bood for Water", a primary resource is water, in the form of food. The West can survive without Middle Eastern oil. The converse cannot be said about how Islamic countries import our water.
Overall, the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region is the world’s fastest growing importer of foreign-grown wheat. The water required to irrigate domestic grain and other foodstuffs would equal the entire annual flow of the River Nile. Thus, for regions experiencing Water Poverty, importing wheat is the equivalent of importing water.
…The United States, Canada and Australia continue as targets for Muslim hostility. Should they band together for protection and unanimously halt deliveries of grain to the MME, mass starvation could set in within less than a month.
Finally, putting an effective end to Islam will eventually require an undeniable demonstration of power that permanently discredits the divine status of Allah.
The demolition of Islam's shrine at Mecca is one such action. Few other ways exist of providing incontrovertible proof of Allah's inability to protect the Muslim world.
I have previously opposed this measure and, even now, suggest it rather reluctantly. However, Islam's intransigence almost necessitates that its comeuppance take some incontrovertible form that no Muslim can deny.
Additionally, obliterating the shrine at Mecca will cut loose a fundamental anchor that might permit more Muslims to convert away from Islam.
Whatever form it takes, a dismantling of Islam is required for any substantial halt of jihad to occur. Such extreme measures are literally demanded by Islam and the way it operates.
Zenster, you are like a whiff of fresh air in this dungeon of despair!
Zenster
By "jihad" are you referring to violent actions of 'The Tiny Minority of Extremist' Muslim 'terrorists' and so-called '"insurgents" or are you speaking of the incremental Islamification of our societies through massive demographic growth as seems to be the preferred method of the 'Vast Majority of Moderate' Muslims?
Reza: By "jihad" are you referring to violent actions of 'The Tiny Minority of Extremist' Muslim 'terrorists' and so-called '"insurgents"… ?
Thank you for asking, Reza.
The "Tiny Minority" does not exist. What exists is a majority of Muslims who remain deafeningly silent on the topic of global jihad and, through their tacit acceptance of same (let alone contribution of zakat), make themselves complicit in every single Islamic atrocity that happens around the world.
There is no "middle ground" on global terrorism. As a Spanish journalist once noted:
AT SOME POINT SILENCE IS NO LONGER CONSENT. TO REMAIN SILENT IS TO LIE.
The lie of Islam as the "religion of peace" has already cost our world too many lives. The lies about "a tiny minority" or "insurgents" and "moderate Muslims" must all be dispensed with so that this world's truly peaceful people might survive.
Our only alternative is the exact opposite.
Zenster,
1. If the West became psycho-culturally capable of the measures you advocate, they would surely be prepared to round up all Muslims, put them on trains, planes, automobiles and ships, and forcefully relocate them -- then maintain a perpetual quarantine such that any Muslims found outside the parameters would be killed.
2. Even if we decided to adopt your strategy, it would be reckless to deploy it before all Muslims have been removed from the West; for those extant millions in the West (by the time we are ready to do your strategy, there will be a few million more at least) will be sure to cause dangerous trouble in more than one way, including an uptick in terror plots.
Hesperado, I am in the process of reading your essay, "An Iron Veil". Have you read El Inglés' article, "To Push or to Squeeze?"; which was published at Gates of Vienna around the same time as your own work?
I would be interested to see if you have managed to take into account the contingencies noted by El Inglés.
As you note in your own work, for "the West [to become] psycho-culturally capable of the measures" needed to properly address this situation, there will probably have to be some far more hideous terrorist atrocities, most likely involving WMDs and them being deployed on American soil.
I am seeking some way to avoid that dire outcome. America's World War II internment of its Japanese population is the only comparable model and, due to Muslim radicalism, even that one would quickly spiral into outright concentration camps with all of their attendent horrors save that of Nazi Germany's mass exterminations.
As you have so cogently noted, most modern minds recoil at such prospects and simply refuse to consider them despite the looming menace of terrorist nuclear attacks and widespread imposition of shari'a law.
In order to keep my points concise and relatively digestible by much of reading public, I deal in polemics so that people become accustomed to using intellectual tools that will gradually enable them to address this entire matter on their own.
It is a slow and grinding process to wear down the deeply ingrained sense of humanity that the 1960s "Peace Movement" has instilled in the public's mind. Distasteful as it may be to engage in this excision, the alternative is that of Islam enjoying untrammeled access to the West with all of the grotesque implications implied by such a notion.
Zenster
Even if the measures you advocate were, as Hesperado rightly stated, "psycho-culturally" viable, the world and humanity is too complex for such 'perfect' and 'final solution' type measures. I don't use the term "final solution" to be insulting or provocative – I try not to let emotion get in the way of debates such as these. It's just that comments like yours only harm the anti-Islamification struggle.
Not only do they give ammunition to critics who cite comments such as yours as representative of the opinions of the type of people who support politicians such as Geert Wilders, but ultimately your ideas have no chance of ever being realised. I fear that most Europeans would choose to become Muslims themselves or live in dhimmitude rather than support the types of measures you propose.
No, Zenster, it doesn’t need to be so drastic. Geert Wilders has the right idea. First our laws must define Islam as the political ideology it actually is, rather than the ‘religion’ that is morally equivalent to Christianity, Judaism and other purely spiritual faiths.
Once we’re able to do that, then we can treat Islam differently. We can make it illegal for parents to send their kids to Islamic evening schools. We can close all Islamic schools. We can withdraw charitable status from all existing Mosques and close down many of them for violating carefully drafted laws designed to prevent the proselytising of anti-democratic and anti-Western ideologies. Obviously we can ban sharia law. We can ban the wearing of the niqab. We can ban the wearing of the hejab and other foreign ethnic and religious garb in schools, universities and government buildings. We can withdraw state benefits from those who refuse to dress in a way that will allow them to secure work and anyone who doesn’t speak English. We could even ban halal meat.
Very importantly, we can force all mosques and Muslim organisations to display a ‘health warning’ that every Muslim has the absolute right to reject Islam and choose any other religion or none with impunity. All schools would be required to teach this and anyone caught preventing a Muslim from rejecting Islam would be subjected to very harsh penalties.
We could promptly and efficiently deport all illegal immigrants and review the applications of the millions of immigrants who have been given citizenship to our countries by our reckless governments and withdraw the citizenship of any persons whose initial applications for entry or asylum are shown to be fraudulent. Similarly, we could remove British citizenship from anyone whose been awarded it in say the last 10 years but has not paid any tax.
The above represents a few ideas to turn back the clock. There are many more.
In short, we can turn our countries from places where it’s very easy to be a practicing Muslim into places where being a practicing Muslim is very difficult indeed.
And our Muslim ‘citizens’ will then vote with their feet and leave.
That type of strategy is achievable. Yours Zenster is not.
Reza: That type of strategy is achievable.
It is also one that I have supported for many years now. My earlier comments are aimed at a scenario where deportations have become the norm and are deemed to be an acceptable measure by the majority of Americans.
I would also like to make sure that you do realize how I oppose any notion of "extermination" regardless of whether or not the concentration camp model is adopted.
Pejoratively or otherwise, you sought to invoke visions of a "final solution" and I am concerned that you interpreted any of my comments as even remotely supporting such a thing.
Either you are relatively new here or just have not read many of my comments in the past. Otherwise you would be well acquainted with my support for Islam being declared a political ideology and thereby stripped of its Constitutional protections.
I have advocated this and all of the other measures you mentioned for many years now. What has recently become rather disturbingly apparent is that Islam will − and already is in the process of − intentionally ratcheting up the intensity of this entire conflict to levels where genocide will take place.
Islam’s indulgence of terrorism and large-scale slaughter along with its open advocacy of genocide are all intentional devices that seek to make its opponents blanch at the prospect of outdoing such limitless savagery. This doctrinal obsession with death is a direct reflection of Islam’s calculated ploy at overwhelming its foes by challenging every limit of human decency. Thus, Islam weaponizes all of the most dearly held cultural traits that Western civilization has struggled to enshrine over the last several centuries.
By inspiring moral hesitation, Islam gains unmerited credibility and undue mercy when it would most certainly demonstrate nothing of the sort in return.
As the philosopher Bertrand Russell noted:
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Again, this goes to the heart of how Islam seeks to inspire moral hesitancy in its foes. By being a fanatical dogma in and of itself, Islam requires similarly fanatical opposition. This is typically repugnant to thinking minds and, therefore, inspires rejection of the very measures that are solely capable of defending civilizations against Islam.
This self-inoculating aspect of Islamic strategy is one of its most insidious features. We already hear cries from the Left that our successful military strategies make us no better than terrorists ourselves.
This auto-demoralizing aspect of Islam makes it one of the most diabolical entities that the West has ever faced in all history.
Most worrisome of all is if Liberal PC MC leadership stays in place for much longer, it will be these militarialy unproficient types that will be at the helm when the nuclear terrorist attacks begin.
Aside from abject surrender, the way that so much of modern Western leadership is unlettered in the arts of war only increases the chances that wholesale nuclear retaliation will be their sole remaining alternative. That Islam, by outright choice, literally forces the entire situation into such a "coffin corner" only increases the likelihood of a Muslim holocaust.
Zenster,
You wrote:
"America's World War II internment of its Japanese population is the only comparable model and, due to Muslim radicalism, even that one would quickly spiral into outright concentration camps with all of their attendent horrors save that of Nazi Germany's mass exterminations."
While Muslim resistance to internment (or better yet, deportation) would of course necessitate counter-violence on our part, I am confident that we would not devolve into genocide -- we are a good rational society, and we would only kill as many as we had to.
Thus, your consequent sentence misunderstood my meaning:
"As you have so cogently noted, most modern minds recoil at such prospects..."
My point is that modern PC MC minds misjudge the modern West -- precisely as you did -- by expecting that genocidal measures by us against Muslims would be inevitable, were we to become appropriately tough on Muslims. That's the fundamental error that is causing PC MCs to suppress themselves and to seek to stifle all anti-Islam sentiment: they are primarily afraid of themselves, of their own West, spiralling into genocide -- but my point is that this is an erroneous, and strangely pessimistic loss of faith in our own capacity to remain good and rational.
Hesperado: While Muslim resistance to internment (or better yet, deportation) would of course necessitate counter-violence on our part, I am confident that we would not devolve into genocide -- we are a good rational society, and we would only kill as many as we had to.
I agree and am mystified why either of us are managing to misconstrue any meanings here.
That's the fundamental error that is causing PC MCs to suppress themselves and to seek to stifle all anti-Islam sentiment: they are primarily afraid of themselves, of their own West, spiralling into genocide -- but my point is that this is an erroneous, and strangely pessimistic loss of faith in our own capacity to remain good and rational.
Again, agreed. My own take is that, as I noted above, most PC MC minds are so unschooled in the proper application of military power that they have adopted a highly polarized view of war.
Perhaps this is an outcome of the Cold War in that even a small nuclear exchange would have had devastating effects on all involved. Too much of society is allowed to relax in the shade of our warriors' shadow. Especially now that advanced technology allows relatively small numbers of soldiers to project a tremendous amount of power.
I share your faith in America's military and, fortunately, so do many others as our soldiers remain among some of the most highly respected individuals in the public's eye.
Zenster,
When I wrote that --
I am confident that we would not devolve into genocide -- we are a good rational society, and we would only kill as many as we had to.
-- you wrote that you agree, and that you are --
"... mystified why either of us are managing to misconstrue any meanings here."
However, what I was responding to were your words (which I had quoted):
"... due to Muslim radicalism, even that one would quickly spiral into outright concentration camps with all of their attendent horrors save that of Nazi Germany's mass exterminations."
I disagree strenuously with your belief that if we started interning Muslims as we interned Japanese in WW2, the situation would "quickly spiral into outright concentration camps with all of their attendent horrors save that of Nazi Germany's mass exterminations" -- and my words which you quoted, and with which you said that you "agree", should clearly show this.
Now I'm mystified.
Zenster,
Your description of how Muslim behavior will devolve:
"What has recently become rather disturbingly apparent is that Islam will − and already is in the process of − intentionally ratcheting up the intensity of this entire conflict to levels where genocide will take place.
"Islam’s indulgence of terrorism and large-scale slaughter along with its open advocacy of genocide are all intentional devices that seek to make its opponents blanch at the prospect of outdoing such limitless savagery. This doctrinal obsession with death is a direct reflection of Islam’s calculated ploy at overwhelming its foes by challenging every limit of human decency."
Is little different in kind from what the Japanese did through the 1930s and into the 40s against America and the whole free West. Yet did America, at the spearhead of the West, feel it necessary to genocide the Japanese? No, we simply killed as many as we needed to, to make them stop (ditto for the Germans). And after they stopped, the Japanese were not only not genocided, they quickly went on (with our continued help, btw) to flourish socially and economically better than they had before.
So, Muslims may intend us to "outdo" them in violence, but the West will never in a milion years even come close to what Muslims do -- because, being rational, we don't have to. All we have to do is deport them and quarantine them, and kill as many as it takes to get this done -- and this number of deaths will be nowhere near a "genocide".
Hesperado: So, Muslims may intend us to "outdo" them in violence, but the West will never in a milion years even come close to what Muslims do -- because, being rational, we don't have to. All we have to do is deport them and quarantine them, and kill as many as it takes to get this done -- and this number of deaths will be nowhere near a "genocide".
I sincerely hope so and continue to have faith in America's ability to demonstrate restraint.
Unfortunately, we are still confronted with pacifying some four dozen Muslim majority countries and economy of scale dictates the use of nuclear weapons. Given that one simple fact it may turn out that the huge economic outlay of constructing a Berlin-style wall around dar-al-Islam may prove infeasible when compared to other countries' desire for swift results.
America will not be doing this alone and other major players in the world community have nowhere near the sense of restraint that we do. Should Russia or China take a terrorist nuclear stike, everything could slide over the edge in the blink of an eye.
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