Al-Beeb to the rescue

Rowan need not worry, since the Beeb is on his side. Melancholicus has learned, via Biased BBC blog, that a concerted effort is now underway to present his views on sharia law and the British legal system as the soundest common sense and to deflect public attention away from the repeated calls for his resignation that have issued forth from within the Church of England.

Yesterday, BBC Radio 4’s regular Thought for the Day on the Today programme featured a softly-spoken, educated, urbane and very British-sounding Muslim politely defending Rowan’s wisdom and attempting to calm the ruffled waters. The reader may listen to the broadcast here (requires Real Player; or simply read the transcript). Melancholicus feels that the point, though, was not to defend the archbishop of Canterbury, or even to present his views as reasonable; the point was to enable the BBC to distance itself from any suggestion that sharia law might actually be something insidious and nasty. In the last paragraph it is referred to, pointedly and reverently, as a “heritage of legal wisdom” for Muslims. The speaker made no reference to the fact that sharia law prescribes horrific public punishments for trivial misdemeanours, and is so utterly divorced from both reality and compassion that in countries where this foul code holds sway, rape victims are frequently stoned for adultery.

Andrew Marr is proud of the fact that the BBC employs an “abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people”. That explains a lot. Young people, who don’t know anything about anything, and lack the capability and the motivation to even think of questioning the institutional leftism of the organisation for which they work; ethnic minorities [read Muslims] who unfailingly pursue a line favourable to their own group; and gay people — well, enough said. If ever one wondered why al-Beeb is always in bed with either the Mohammedan or the homosexualist (or sometimes both simultaneously), well here’s the best explanation that Melancholicus has ever encountered.

And on this occasion, the latest outbreak of Rowan Williams’ recurring foot-in-mouth disease, the BBC clearly felt it had to step in and clarify matters — lest Muslims be embarrassed.