Cowering under Islam's sway

[LiviaOlivia]

January 27, 2004

It is the biggest flap over political correctness Britain has seen in years. It has pitted one man against the BBC - Britain's highbrow, purportedly impartial state TV network - and unleashed a national fracas over what may or may not be said about the hottest topic of the moment: Islam and the West.

Earlier this month, Robert Kilroy-Silk, a one-time Labour MP and for 17 years the host of one of British television's most successful daily talk shows, let loose with a few thoughts about the Arab world. In a column for the mass circulation Sunday Express, under the deliberately provocative headline "We owe Arabs nothing", he opined, in part, as follows: "Apart from oil - which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the West - what do (Arab countries) contribute? They should go down on their knees and thank God for the munificence of the United States. What do they think we feel about them? That we admire them for the cold-blooded killings in Mombasa, Yemen and elsewhere? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors?"

The comments exploded in the British media. The Guardian, the house journal of the British left and the BBC, lambasted them as "boorish, ignorant and offensive". Kilroy, as he and his show are known, was suspended by the BBC. Ten days ago, after an extended media furore, Kilroy was forced to step down. He may even face prosecution under race relations legislation that carries a maximum sentence of seven years in jail. As crude as Kilroy's comments were, the virulent reaction to them was far out of proportion to his sin. The full text of his remarks reveals that his quarrel was with Arab governments and those religious leaders who use their positions to whip up a frenzy of anti-Western sentiment among their peoples. His phrasing is careless and smacks of generalisation. But surely this is small justification for hounding a man out of his job, let alone threatening to jail him.

The swiftness of Kilroy's demise points to something more than a simple scrap over political correctness. It's a symptom of a new European reality: surging growth among Muslim populations and establishment nervousness over how to deal with them - a nervousness that threatens to stifle much-needed debate over events in the Middle East and Muslim integration at home.
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Robin Shepherd is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre.

The Washington Post



This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/26/1075087954378.html

[Wonco_the_Sane]

1. "boorish, ignorant, and offencive"...but not untrue???

Free speech is free speech is free speech to me. What a scary world this is turning into. What's the argument here? It's true what he said but really really rude? Sheesh.

[Snappy]

2. True?

"That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors?"

Is this true of all Muslims?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. No

The man's words were intemperate at best, and show the prejudice against Islam. That being said, he still has the right to say them. I'd rather know who is ignorant so I can educate them rather than have speech repressed so you don't know, and the ignorant prejudice can continue.

[Wonco_the_Sane]

5. Nope

Of course it isn't true of "ALL" Muslims. It is true of many Muslim governments however, and unfortunate that anyone is punished for speaking their mind. I'm not a fan of religious extremism in America or anywhere else. Most Christians, Muslims, Buddhist ect... are peaceful. Too many are ideologies that push hate.
Everyone has a right to speak their mind.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. The Arabs Don't Like Criticism? Tough.

The Arabs don't like being criticized? Poor babies.

I don't see why the Arabs should be exempted from criticism. Heaven knows they criticize the West, both for good reason and also for a lot of bad ones. Whatever the glories of the Arabic past may have been, I don't see why the Arabs' current antics like corruption, religious intolerance, supporting suicide bombing, reprinting Nazi and Czarist hate literature, misogyny, or ethnic persecution (Think Berbers, Kurds, and black Sudanese, for starters)should be exempt from harsh criticism, any more than their not-so-recent past practices like slaving in Sub-Saharan and Eastern Africa.