Geert Wilders and the BBC

Don’t you just love the partiality of the BBC! Don’t you just love the way al-Beeb views very social, political, historical or cultural matter through such a red-tinted lens that anyone even slightly on the wrong side of the centre line is blasted as “far right”, as though the Dutch Freedom Party were the quintessence of fascism, akin to the Nazis?

Well, the Freedom Party appear to be showing strongly in the European elections, strongly enough to claim at least four seats in the European parliament.

This has sent al-Beeb into conniptions. Count the number of times the expressions “right wing” and “far right” appear in the following story.

When does the BBC ever use the terms “left wing” or “far left”? Answer: it doesn’t. This because that organisation is slanted so far to the left that to be “left wing” is to be positively centre, which is where al-Beeb fondly imagines itself to be.

Dutch far right in poll triumph

The party of the right-wing Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, has come second in the country's elections for the European Parliament, partial results indicate.

Mr Wilders, who is facing prosecution over anti-Islamic statements [interesting that no-one ever faces prosecution over anti-Christian statements], said his Freedom Party (PVV) would get four of the 25 Dutch seats in the parliament.

With more than 92% of votes counted, the ruling Christian Democrats are top.

Voters are now going to the polls in the Czech Republic and the Republic of Ireland. The UK voted on Thursday.

Dutch and British voters were the first to go to the polls to elect the EU's most powerful legislative body.

Some 375 million people in 27 member states are eligible to vote. Most will cast their ballots over the weekend.

Partial results released on Friday showed Mr Wilders' PVV was on course to win 16.9% of the votes in the Netherlands. The PVV currently has no seats in the European Parliament [looks like this is about to change—unless the EU decides to refuse acknowledgement of democratic results it doesn’t like, which is not beyond the bounds of possibility].

Mr Wilders was refused entry to the UK in February on the grounds that he had sought to incite hatred with a film he made last year that equated Islam with violence and likened the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf [one cannot even debate this subject without drawing down on oneself the hysterical fury of the multiculturalists, never mind the far more dangerous psychopathic fury of the islams, but one can trash the Bible with as much vilification as one likes without the slightest consequence].

EU officials concerned

Voters are deciding who gets the 736 seats up for grabs under various forms of proportional representation.

The European Commission has asked for an explanation from Dutch officials, who broke EU rules by releasing partial results early. Results are not supposed to be announced until polls close across Europe on Sunday night [perhaps the real explanation they’re looking for is why the Dutch electorate have dared to deliver such an unpalatable result. Re-education, anyone?].

In the UK, elections were also held in some areas for local councils.

The results of both UK polls are keenly awaited to see how they might affect the national political scene, following weeks of turmoil over MPs' expenses claims.

Latvia, Cyprus, Malta and Slovakia vote on Saturday, while the Czech Republic and Italy vote over Friday and Saturday, and Saturday and Sunday respectively. People in the remaining 18 member states will vote on Sunday.

In Ireland, the vote is seen as a key test ahead of a second referendum on the EU's controversial Lisbon Treaty, expected in October.

The Irish government, stung by the voters' rejection of Lisbon last year, is opposed by Declan Ganley's Libertas. The millionaire entrepreneur, who helped fuel anti-Lisbon sentiment in Ireland, hopes to win one of the 12 Irish seats.

Coalition ally hit

The anti-immigration Dutch Freedom Party MEPs will be headed by Barry Madlener and Mr Wilders will remain an MP in The Hague, Radio Netherlands reports.

The partial results in the Netherlands also showed gains for two staunchly pro-EU parties - the social-liberal D66 and Green Left. Each is on course to send three MEPs to Brussels.

The Christian Democrats' governing coalition partner, the Labour Party (PvdA), was the biggest loser - its share of the Dutch vote fell nearly 10% percentage points to about 14%.

"We dare to talk about sensitive subjects like Islamisation and we use plain and simple words that the voter can understand," Mr Wilders has said in the past.

The controversial politician is facing prosecution in the Netherlands for making anti-Islamic statements, following a court ruling in January [once again, would Mr. Wilders be facing prosecution if he had made anti-Christian statements? Rhetorical question...].

Polls show that Euroscepticism among Dutch voters has increased since the last European elections, with EU enlargement and integration the most unpopular issues.

Across Europe, far-right [there we go again!] parties are hoping to win at least 15 seats. However, the centre-right European People's Party bloc is expected to remain the main force, followed by the European Socialists.

Geert Wilders is now unmasked as a known agent of Goldstein, and he must be stopped before he spreads thoughtcrime throughout the European Union!

What is heartening, however, is that the Dutch at long last seem to be waking up and recognizing the reality around them. This is a country Melancholicus had long given up for lost, but the Islamic infiltration of Europe has now reached such a pitch that even the liberal, left-leaning Dutch have started to notice. Why are so many Dutch people casting their vote for the “right-wing” Geert Wilders and his “far right” Freedom Party? Because they are afraid. They see their liberal, tolerant, easy-going society and culture being filched from them little by little, and supplanted with a replacement which is anything but liberal, tolerant and easy-going, abetted by the Dutch government and by the EU.

Just ask the good people of Rotterdam.

The BBC on the first hundred days

Yesterday marked the 100th day in office of US President Barack Hussein Obama.

The celebration of this sacred festival was reported in a variety of media and without exception all coverage of Obama’s first hundred days was overwhelmingly positive. It was astounding to listen to the effusive, jaw-dropping panegyrics.

RTÉ Radio 1 featured an American commentator—Democrat, naturally—whose smooth, slick and syrupy tribute to the wonders of the presidency thus far was lapped up eagerly and uncritically by the presenters. The only negative notes allowed to ruffle the waters were found in passing references to the inevitable ‘far right’ and that favourite bugbear of leftist journalism, the ‘religious (i.e. Christian) right’.

But BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme, presented by Robin Lustig, went further than RTÉ in attributing a voice and a human face to those perfidious opponents of the Chosen One. The effect, of course, was to make them look ridiculous—which was surely the purpose of such coverage to begin with. In search of fruitful propaganda, the reporter, one Kevin Connolly, betook himself to the American mid-west, specifically to the state of Oklahoma, where he hoped to obtain a collection of suitably dotty soundbites from a collection of suitably dotty individuals, which would then be passed off by the BBC as representative of conservative American opinion at large. The premise: that opponents of Obama are unbalanced, uneducated, prejudiced, fundamentalist evangelical rapture-type rednecks who stubbornly refuse to render the great man his due adulation for a variety of specious reasons that no sane rational person could possibly take seriously. They are also, naturally, racist and ‘homophobic’. The BBC doesn’t have to say this, of course. The beauty of this propaganda coup is that the selected interviewees make such an arse of themselves denouncing the President that one feels positively embarrassed listening to them. One may safely assume that anyone expressing a more moderate view, or opposition to Obama on more specific and tangible grounds, would have been carefully edited out so as not to spoil the picture.

We do not exaggerate. For those who may have missed it, or who are so nauseated by the shameless bias of the contemporary BBC that they cannot bring themselves ever to listen to anything broadcast by that organ, here is the source. The anti-anti-Obama propaganda starts at approximately 39 minutes in.

Listen particularly to the group of “Bible-believing Oklahoman ladies who lunch” after 40:50 to get the kind of score the BBC was really after. The reporter’s caveat that one “wouldn’t wish to meet more hospitable, warmer people anywhere” is merely a disarming remark and nothing more.

It’s all really rather insulting to the good people of Oklahoma, as well as to the millions who voted either for John McCain or for another candidate, to suggest that opposition to Barack Hussein is based only on this kind of stuff.

Bravo comrades at the BBC, you’re doing your work well!

Anti-semitism and the BBC

Roger Bolton, of BBC Radio 4’s Sunday fame, is somewhat nonplussed by the claims of the UK parliamentary committee for anti-semitism that incidents inspired by this prejudice are at their highest level since recording began 25 years ago.

The interviewee, the Rt. Hon. John Mann, is the chairman of the aforesaid committee, and he was most adamant about the rise in the level of anti-semitic incidents, which he rightly described as “disturbing in a country which prides itself on its tolerance”.

Bolton doesn’t believe it, though. Listen to his language: “reported increase ... said to be ... danger of overstating the level of anti-semitism ... incidents are pretty low level ... we’re talking about hate-mail, anti-semitic graffiti ... I don’t want to downplay this [tongue firmly in cheek] but there’s still a relatively small amount of physical assaults and things like that...”

Melancholicus is not in the least surprised by this attitude. He knoweth the BBC far too well.

But who to blame for this “reported increase” of anti-semitic prejudice? Sure, why not the Jews themselves! Mr. Bolton asked his guest if there was a danger that opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza might be confused with racial prejudice. Melancholicus thinks that Mr. Bolton would prefer the answer to be yes, which would comfortingly imply that there isn’t any genuine anti-semitism out there, at least not really. But that would necessarily involve the corollary of the BBC admitting—at least tacitly—its own responsibility for fanning the flames with its consistently partial and one-sided coverage of the interminable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So either way Mr. Bolton can’t win, can he?

So he seeks a scapegoat: “In the past anti-semitism has been driven by religion, Christianity in particular”. Yes, he really did say those words. Listen. It’s at 9:20.

Melancholicus shall let pass this swipe at Christianity, soft target that it is (how brave of you, Mr. Bolton), for he is more interested in the words in the past.

Thus the elephant in the room goes completely unnoticed. Anti-semitism is indeed on the rise as the elephant grows bolder, more militant, and more sure of itself. But Mr. Bolton cannot admit this, since to do so would violate one of the BBC’s most cherished nostrums of political correctness. Witness the obsession with Israel; the other “I-word” doesn’t even get a mention. Melancholicus was disappointed that Mr. Mann likewise failed to cite the Islamic impetus behind contemporary anti-semitism—but then Mr. Mann is a Member of Parliament, so he can’t be expected to have a brain.

But guess who did get a mention? Yes, good old Dickie Williamson again! Melancholicus believes there has not been a single edition of Sunday which failed to mention the holocaust-denying bishop, even in passing, since the story first broke three weeks ago. Some things never change.

With not even a trace of irony

Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 this morning featured an interview with a 105 year old spinster, who not only never married, but remained a virgin her whole life.

Like a true modern, the interviewess was amazed that anyone could go for so long without sexual congress, and that her subject had no regrets whatever. How horizons have shrunk in this brave new age!

The maenads then introduced a single mother who after a string of broken relationships embraced celibacy, and who discoursed on how empowering her experience of celibacy has been. Whereat all and sundry sang the praises of celibacy and lauded it as a magnificent virtue that gave rise to all sorts of wholesome benefits. It was even remarked that celibates lived longer and were healthier and happier than those who were not.

Melancholicus does not ever remember hearing the state of celibacy being treated with such awe and admiration on BBC radio.

Those who have been called by God either to the service of the altar or to the cloister voluntarily renounce the possibility of marriage and of sexual intimacy with another person. They remain in the celibate state, that they might more effectively order their lives and give themselves to prayer and works of mercy.

Yet their celibacy is regarded by the likes of the BBC not with awe and admiration, but with ridicule, derision and relentless critical hostility. It is even claimed that their celibacy has warped their psychology, even to the extent of turning ordinary decent men into compulsive child molesters.

Celibacy in the service of God, it seems, is an evil thing; whereas celibacy in the service of oneself is a virtue.

At least that is the opinion of the BBC.

Whither the Daily Service?

Confound and blast the wretched BBC!

Melancholicus has never thought much of the level of religious programming aired by the BBC, but he has always derived a certain spiritual comfort from listening to the Daily Service broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (LW) between 9:45 and 10am on weekdays.

This service—typically but not exclusively Anglican—consists of a series of prayers, reflections, Scripture reading and some lovely traditional hymns. The Lord’s Prayer is usually recited. While listening, one can close one’s eyes and imagine the interior of one of those countless beautiful English churches, with their medieval architecture, Victorian stained glass and their rows of BCPs and English Hymnals. Unusually for a religious programme broadcast by the BBC, the service is regularly edifying (although often sandwiched by the schedule between the impious, arrogant, pompous and opinionated Melvyn Bragg on the one hand and the equally egregious Woman’s Hour on the other).

But of late the content of the Daily Service has taken a noticeable turn for the worse. Recently we had the vicarette who explained away all of Our Lord’s exorcisms recorded in the gospels as simply the curing of people afflicted with “mental illness”, thus denying the reality of demonic possession, and in effect denying the very existence of wicked spirits. It is all very well to draw attention to mental health issues, but one must not falsify the testimony of Scripture in order to do so. Besides, is there nowhere else in the Radio 4 schedule in which the issue of mental health could be raised, than the Daily Service?

The devil has no better allies than Christian ministers who go out of their way to deny he exists. A day later there was the foolish Canon who interpreted the spirit that had afflicted the bent woman in Luke 13 as “a crippling psychological burden”. Psychological burden! While it is true that grave mental anxiety can have such an effect on the body, this kind of rationalisation is ridiculous and succeeds only in calling attention to itself and to the minister’s discomfort with the plain words of the Biblical text. This silly man also made a reference to “the spirit blowing where she wills”, whereafter Melancholicus heard no more, since his thumb flew post haste to the off switch. While he has heard a few fairly iffy Daily Services over the years, this is the first time on which he resolutely tuned out before the programme had finished.

And this morning there was a Welsh minister, whether Anglican or non-comformist Melancholicus cannot recall, but the service led by this man would have gone down a treat at a socialist meet. He claimed his faith didn’t make any sense until he began linking it with the emancipation of the poor and the working class. His service, naturally, featured ‘inculturated’ Zulu singing, socio-political reflections that were thoroughly this-worldly, Pelagian and all about works (is such not passing strange for a minister from a Reformed background?). Almighty God was very much in the background. Insofar as He made an appearance at all, Our Lord’s mission was all about merely improving the material condition of the poor, something any socialist could rave about; one could be forgiven for thinking as a result that the Incarnation was nothing to do with redemption from sin and attaining to everlasting life. With a sigh, Melancholicus switched off the radio. He had expected an edifying service of prayers and hymns, not fifteen minutes of marxist agitprop.

One wonders if the BBC is attempting to bring the hitherto unmistakably Christian Daily Service into line with what we might call ‘BBC religion’, even to the extent that it shall contain nothing that could be considered ‘exclusivist’, or offensive to persons of non-Christian religions; or, on the other hand, whether the degradation of the content of the service merely reflects the continuing decomposition of the Church of England, since the established church provides most of the ministers who conduct the service. Melancholicus wonders who picks these ministers, and whether they are vetted beforehand, so that the BBC may rest safe in the knowledge that they will not use their fifteen minutes of air time to utter some similitude hostile to the dogma of political correctness, or to infer that Christianity might actually be the true religion after all.

The BBC even has a page on the history of the Daily Service here, and a gallery of images therefrom here. Both are worth a look.

But this article by Paul Donovan in the Sunday Times on the occasion of the Daily Service’s 80th anniversary in December of last year is much more illuminating as regards the current trajectory of this much-loved programme:

Faithful service

Radio Waves
Paul Donovan

Hidden away on Radio 4 long wave (though still important enough to interrupt the cricket, as listeners to Test Match Special in Sri Lanka will have noticed) is a 15-minute programme called Daily Service. It consists of hymns, prayers, a Bible reading and a homily. On Wednesday, it is 80 years old. This extraordinary span is exceeded only by Choral Evensong and Radio 4’s Sunday-morning charity appeal, both of which began in 1926. In addition, Daily Service marked the first point in history when daily corporate worship was extended to people, unseen and unknown, who had not physically gathered together for that purpose.

There is one tiny sentence about the anniversary in the vast, 272-page Radio Times, the same in the official listings, and nothing in the press information bulletin. Twenty years ago, when Daily Service celebrated 60 years of “bringing peace and consolation to the sick, the lonely and the sad”, in the words of its founder, the BBC produced an excellent souvenir booklet with much enthusiastic input from its then head of religious broadcasting; this time, so far as I can tell, his successor has said not a word, at least not publicly. How much has changed in 20 years.

Is the BBC suffering from “Nativity-play syndrome”, the misplaced belief that non-Christian religions will object to too much emphasis on Christianity, a view that has been so effectively demolished by Trevor Phillips?

Possibly. But I detect something more: a slight but increasing nervousness in the BBC about the legality and morality of spending public money on one religion at the expense of others. Let there be no doubt that this is what the BBC does: in addition to Daily Service, every weekday, we also have Prayer for the Day (not to be confused with Thought for the Day) and Sunday Worship on Radio 4, Sunday Half Hour on Radio 2, Choral Evensong on Radio 3 and, on BBC1, Songs of Praise. All of these are ecumenical, but specifically Christian. No other faith is accorded this airtime.

Some of us have no problem with that: Britain is a Christian country, whose head of state is also head of a church established by law, and whose legislature still has 26 Christian priests sitting in it as of right; and the BBC, as the state broadcaster, should reflect that. But I fear that is becoming a minority view, and that more people now think of Britain as a “multifaith” country, in which case it is difficult to defend a publicly funded body supporting only one religion in terms of the hours devoted to worship. Indeed, many BBC bosses — and its own corporate literature — frequently refer to “multifaith” Britain. Sooner or later, I suspect, they will be asked to justify giving this platform to Christianity in preference to other faiths.

Until then, and perhaps afterwards, we can take heart from a corner of the schedules that would not exist had it not been for an indefatigable Hertfordshire spinster, Kathleen Cordeux, whom I quote above. She pestered the BBC for two years to start the programme, arguing her case, getting a petition up and having an appeal printed. She was the most persistent letter-writer the fledgling BBC had ever encountered. An early example of listener power! How much we owe her, and her determination.

Indeed. But even if the BBC does not go so far as to axe the service altogether, Melancholicus fears that the hip’n’trendy C of E ministers currently chosen to lead the service may still end up killing it with relevance.

Portrait of a terrorist

Listen to the BBC Radio 4 programme Jihad UK, broadcast last Monday in the wake of the convictions of three British Muslim men for terror offences, here. Unfortunately Melancholicus is unable to embed the BBC media player in this post, so readers will have to activate the thing themselves after clicking the link.

The objective quality of the coverage is really quite good, in spite of the BBC’s institutionalised reverence for all things Mahometan. Nevertheless, the BBC still cannot bring itself to name religious ideology as the inspiration behind jihadi violence lest the reputation of Islam itself be besmirched.

Instead, the blame is laid on a variety of external factors; the seductive lure of foreign jihadi groups, the youth and impressionability of young British Muslims and—that perennial scapegoat for Mahometan aggression—western foreign policy.

It was interesting—and certainly refreshing—to hear comments such as “platitudes such as Islam meaning ‘peace’ won’t cut it here”—but the reporter failed to go the full distance and inform his audience that Islam does not mean peace at all; it means submission.

Particularly interesting, even revealing, is this comment by Hanif Qadir of the Active Change Foundation in describing the motivation of young Britons who give themselves up to the jihadi cause:

“These people who carry out terrorist activities, they’re not evil individuals. It’s because they’re most human, unselfish and often self-sacrificing kind of individuals, that will jump in when they see unfairness, and when they see injustice being done to a person, or to a race or to a community. It’s often these type of people that want to get involved.”

For all it seems to exculpate those who participate in terrorist attacks, this remark nevertheless rings true to a large extent. Ah, the idealism of thoughtless youth! The misplaced zeal that leads young persons to become socialists and that which leads them to become jihadis is ultimately the same. Young persons are often gifted with a self-sacrificing desire to make a change and be of service to something important—or at least something that they consider to be important. What that something is, however, makes all the difference. The foolish, idealistic young that are seduced by an evil, twisted ideology such as socialism—or Islam—will end by becoming evil and twisted themselves. That is simply the way of things. One’s character cannot remain untainted by one’s acts.

At the end of it all, it is disquieting to know that even though Britain may not have the largest Muslim population in Europe, it certainly has the most radical. Britain has been a breeding ground for jihadis for years. In this respect, Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan is required reading. Melancholicus does not quite agree with her stance vis-a-vis the invasion of Iraq, but her social commentary and her diagnosis of the malaise currently afflicting British legal and political life is right on the money.

But that such a programme can be aired on the BBC at all is progress in itself; it must surely indicate that Britain is beginning to wake up to the fact that a significant proportion of her Muslim minority, including those born and raised on British soil, does not identify with her culture and institutions, and is intent on turning her into an Islamic state.

And why? What is the cause of their alienation?

Is it really because of poverty and hopelessness, as is so often claimed?

If so, why are university campuses such fertile recruiting grounds for the jihadis?

Is not the problem rooted in something much simpler than the interplay of complex socio-economic factors?

Could it be a matter of theology, perhaps?

Is it not the Islamic religion that ultimately drives the jihadis?

This programme is perhaps the closest the BBC has ever come to making the link between Muslim violence and the Islamic religion.

Will they ever get there? Melancholicus somehow doubts it. Political correctness is so deeply engrained in the minds of the British intelligentsia that he cannot see it being dislodged any time soon.

Cardinal Newman slandered by the BBC

Slander is always an evil thing, but how much more so to slander one who is dead and hence unable either to defend himself or to exact redress for the harm done to his reputation.

Melancholicus usually has his alarm set for 7am on Sunday mornings, a habit which has survived from the time when he used to attend the earliest (8am) Novus Ordo Mass offered in the local parish. This entailed waking up every Sunday morning to the BBC’s Sunday programme—most assuredly not the best way to begin obervance of Dies Dominica since hearing the first few minutes of this programme (extremely woolly at best and misleadingly tendentious at worst) would always send him off to Mass in rather ill humour and desiring to hit someone. Hard.

Melancholicus no longer goes to the local Novus Ordo (for reasons explained below) but still wakes on Sunday morning at 7am, whereat he lies abed exposed to the entire length of the Sunday programme unless sleep should mercifully reclaim him into blissful unconsciousness.

But this weekend Melancholicus failed to set his alarm, so he missed the Sunday programme completely. He was happy enough about that until, later in the day, he read the evil news—O horrible to relate!—over at Mulier Fortis.

Since he has a devotion to Cardinal Newman, and will be marrying his bride next year in Cardinal Newman’s Dublin church, Melancholicus was—to say the very least—wroth.

So Melancholicus went to the Radio 4 website to listen in on the offending article which, after promising an interview with the ridiculous former bishop of Edinburgh, coverage of the marital union between a Hindoo and an Anglican vicar (whether of the same or opposite sexes Melancholicus cannot tell), then a Mahometan who refused to sign a contract saying he would not take a further wife (or two, or three!), introduced the matter of Cardinal Newman with the words

“Is the Roman Catholic Church trying to cover up the homosexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman, now on the fast track to sainthood?”

“The homosexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman”?? Notice this slur on Newman’s character—for which there exists not a tittle of evidence—is taken for granted by the BBC, as though it were a matter of hard fact. And what about the flippant “fast track to sainthood”? Newman has been dead since 1890. His cause has been in preparation for a long time; “fast track” it most certainly is not.

That’s about the level of this programme. Ill-researched, sensationalist, tabloid pap, whose editors (Roger Bolton, Jane Little and the egregious Edward Stourton) seem unable (or unwilling?) to report accurately on the facts in a manner which sifts fact from fiction and to reassure the listener that the BBC is an unbiased and impartial news service after all.

Melancholicus is most exasperated, not with the screaming Peter Tatchell, who is so fixated with his vice that he sees it everywhere and cannot be expected to know any better, but with the editor who chose this hysterical freak as a credible guest on the programme.

But for an organisation which is devoted to proselytism on behalf of buggery and sodomitical weddings, and which regards the likes of Hans Küng and Lavinia Byrne as respected ‘Catholic’ theologians, these kind of propaganda slurs are not surprising, are they?

They still don't get it

This year being the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, there has over the past few weeks been a glut of coverage by the secular media of Catholic teaching on contraception, some of it hostile, some of it seemingly impartial, all of it facile.

Woman’s Hour yesterday morning on BBC Radio 4 was presented by Jenni Murray, and included a feature on contraception and the teaching of the Church. Reference was made to a recent survey (conducted by that well-known organ of dissent The Tablet) which revealed that the majority of Mass-going Catholics in England and Wales are using, or have used, some form of contraceptive device or practice.

This is no surprise to any of us; such statistics have been around at least since the ’sixties. We might also reasonably conclude that the ‘Catholics’ quizzed in this survey were doubtless from the Novus Ordo-attending Tablet-reading demographic, and so no doctrine of faith or morals would be likely to inhibit their pursuit of the thoroughly secularised life.

In any case, the results of the survey prompted Jenni Murray to ask this question: “If the majority of Roman Catholics are simply defying papal orders, should they be changed?” [emphasis mine].

They still don’t get it, do they? Truth is not formed by public opinion. An error is still an error, however sincerely and fervently one may believe in it. Likewise a proposition is not made true simply by the fact that it pleases the majority to give it their assent, nor made false by their rejection of it. Melancholicus could not say it better than St. Augustine: “Wrong is still wrong, even if everyone is doing it. Right is still right, even if no-one is doing it.”

Melancholicus snorted with contempt at Ms. Murray’s dismissal of the Church’s teaching as papal orders, as though it were no more than the diktat of a tyrant, a mere policy that could, and ought to, be changed when a more congenial and enlightened fellow occupies the See of Peter, rather than an objective truth the Pope is bound to uphold for all time.

Reference was also made to Mrs. Cherie Blair, wife of the former prime minister and known contraceptrix, in which Mrs. Blair was described—somewhat ironically—as a “good Catholic girl”. Melancholicus thinks that Mrs. Blair is now a bit long in the tooth to be reasonably described as a “girl”, and as far as “good Catholic” goes... why does the BBC feel the need to use this adjective in reference to Catholics? There are not a few bad Catholics knocking about these days, among which may be numbered Mrs. Blair herself. Is there not a hint of derision here, with this trite phrase revealing Jenni Murray as mocking and sarcastic? We must not be surprised. To adopt such an attitude to Christianity and the Church is de rigueur among the media mavens of today, in marked contrast to the craven deference they accord other religions, particularly Islam—witness the cloyingly obsequious approach by this same Jenni Murray to the Islamic religion on Woman’s Hour on Tuesday 1 April.

Let the reader compare. Is there not a contemptible double standard in evidence here?

More pious mohammedan hagiography from the BBC

As the other occupants of the household rose early and departed for work, Melancholicus lay abed this morning, enjoying a late snooze and listening to BBC Radio 4. This is partly a consequence of end-of-job indolence, since Melancholicus will, upon the expiry of his contract, be leaving the university at the end of this month of April to seek his living elsewhere.

Regular listeners of Radio 4 may be familiar with Woman’s Hour, which is broadcast daily (Mon-Fri) after the news at 10am. Woman’s Hour, as its name implies, is a programme by, for and about women, often with a strongly feminist slant. This morning’s edition was presented by Jenni Murray and included a feature called Women of the Qur’an. This is a serialised item, and this morning’s instalment was on Aisha, one of Muhammad’s many wives and a prominent influence on early Islam.

There was nothing particularly offensive in this feature (although Melancholicus did not listen to it all the way through once he realised it would be a hagiography). The feature was more significant in terms of what was omitted rather than what was included. Nothing offensive to the politically-correct reverence in which the BBC holds Islam was ever mentioned. Muhammad was referred to throughout as ‘The Prophet’, even by Jenni Murray (who is not, to my knowledge, a Muslim). The feature was presented by an academic woman who was herself a Muslim, so we knew straight away there would be no remarks or judgements hostile to the Islamic religion or to pc-orthodoxy. She narrated that somewhat amusing tale of Aisha losing her necklace in the desert, going back alone to look for it, and her empty litter being carried on by the Muslims unaware that she was no longer in it. It was all very charming and homely, which is precisely the effect the BBC wanted to achieve. Aisha was also a strong character, and being Muhammad’s favourite she could carry on with a certain licence not available to other Muslim women. Naturally, being so close to Muhammad, she could exert a considerable influence over the whole community. This portrait of Aisha as the stereotypical ‘strong woman’ likewise enabled the Radio 4 people to feel good about themselves, and allowed them to indulge in the leftist fiction that Islam really doesn’t endorse or encourage violence against women, nor relegate them to the status of chattels under the absolute dominion of their male relatives.

The fact that Muhammad ‘married’ Aisha when she was only six years old and consummated the marriage when she was only nine was of course discreetly omitted. The fact that Muhammad had several other wives (of whom Aisha was merely his favourite) was likewise not mentioned. It is ironic that in a programme devoted to promoting sexual equality as well as the social and political advancement of women, the degraded position of women in Islam should be glossed over so completely. Rather than doing its own research and adopting what should be an impartial approach to women’s lives under Islam, the BBC is instead given to repeating the pious nostrums it has heard from Muslim clerics and Islamic scholars.

It is fashionable in leftist circles to talk about how Islam has somehow “elevated the status of women”, and that Islam is a religion that is good for women. This is of course utter nonsense, and is totally at variance with the facts on the ground. These facts are so obvious that one wonders how they could be overlooked. Even the BBC itself has reported repeatedly on the plight of women in many Islamic countries (and even Muslim women in western countries like Britain), but has so far failed (or refused?) to make the connection between the Islamic religion and the misery in which these women’s lives are spent.

So on today’s edition of Women of the Qur’an, there was no mention of the harsher Qur’anic injunctions against the fairer sex—no mention of the fact that the Qur’an permits a Muslim husband to assault his wife, or that it permits the rape of female captives taken in war, or that it makes divorce a male prerogative, or that it permits a man to take a plurality of wives and have sexual relations with his slave-girls as well.

None of this was even mentioned by the BBC, so the listener might be forgiven for assuming that Islam is a peaceful and benevolent religion that promotes equality and harmony between the sexes. Not for the first time, the BBC has allowed its ideological views to dominate its attitude to the evidence, with the result that its presentation of the Islamic religion is one-sided, deferential, partial and to a certain extent dictated by the leaders and spokesmen of the Muslim community.

Unfavourable coverage of Islam or Muslims is deemed to be ‘racist’. Any evaluation of the current political situation, in which we see young Muslims—even Britons—radicalised by their religion to the point of attending terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan and seeking to blow themselves up on the London tube, that attempts critically to study the relationship between their acts and their religion, is strictly off limits. The politically-correct position is that Islam must never be blamed for the misdeeds of its adherents.

Contrast this deferential approach to Islam with the BBC’s hostile treatment of Christianity, in which the Church is lashed—often with generous helpings of satire and mockery—for her teaching on such issues as contraception, abortion and sodomy. Any journalist may adopt this stance with total impunity and be as spiteful and sarcastic as he or she likes, without fear of the slightest rebuke from Broadcasting House.

So much for impartiality, and for standards of professionalism in broadcasting, even at the vastly-overrated BBC.

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.

The contemptible BBC...

...has reversed its decision to censor a popular Christmas song the lyrics of which it had feared would be offensive to sodomites.

The song, Fairytale of New York, sung by Shane MacGowan and the late Kirsty MacColl, is a vulgar and somewhat trashy piece for which Melancholicus has never much cared, but he must admit to having experienced a certain malicious glee when this bastion of political correctness was compelled to withdraw its edited version of the song and play the unexpurgated version instead after being inundated with complaints from listeners.

The fact that so many people objected to this pathetic attempt at pc-inspired censorship gives us hope that there are still some in Israel who have not yet bowed the knee before Baal, and that there are those who have yet resisted brainwashing by the propaganda of Ingsoc.

From RTÉ entertainment news:

BBC backs down over Pogues classic

BBC Radio 1 has reversed its decision to censor the classic Pogues and Kirsty MacColl song 'Fairytale of New York'.

The station had decided to bleep out the word "faggot" from the song because it could be offensive to listeners.

But BBC 1 controller Andy Parfitt said last night: "After careful consideration, I have decided that the decision to edit the Pogues song Fairytale of New York was wrong."

AdvertisementParfitt said that the song did not use the word with any "negative intent".

Listen to a special programme on the story behind 'Fairytale of New York' here.

He said: "Radio 1 does not play homophobic lyrics or condone bullying of any kind. It is not always easy to get this right, mindful of our responsibility to our young audience. The unedited version will be played from now on."

He continued: "I want to stress that everyone at Radio 1 and its music team take the issue of language very seriously and enormous care is taken in ensuring that offensive language is edited from records where necessary."

"I understand absolutely, in a climate where questions about editorial standards are at the fore, the thinking behind this decision. While we would never condone prejudice of any kind, we know our audiences are smart enough to distinguish between maliciousness and creative freedom," said Parfitt.

He concluded: "In the context of this song, I do not feel that there is any negative intent behind the use of the words, hence the reversal of the decision."

“Homophobic lyrics” indeed. Despite the occurrence of the word ‘faggot’, there is no mention of sodomy at all in this song. When will these people ever relax and get a life? Are we all children, that we must be dictated to by these self-appointed arbiters of correctness as to what words we may or may not use in our discourse? This is all a pointless row over nothing. Besides, are homosexuals and other minority groups really so traumatised by the existence of certain words that they have to go running to nanny every time they perceive any slight, real or imagined, against themselves? If so, they should grow up and start living in the real world. People should not be forced to accord others an automatic respect simply on the basis of skin colour, exotic oriental religion or peculiar sexual habits. In the real world, as opposed to the culturally-constructed unreality fostered by political correctness, respect has to be earned.

In politically-correct culture, minority groups are treated like a sort of protected species that the rest of us are expected to handle with kid gloves. Melancholicus is not impressed. Not being a ‘minority’ himself, he enjoys no such vicarious protection. On the contrary, several of the ‘cultural categories’ to which Melancholicus belongs are regarded in the pc-Weltanshauung as ‘majoritarian’, and hence legitimate targets for attack and discrimination. He is white, male, heterosexual, and — worst of all — a Roman Catholic. His religion can be insulted with impunity, in speech, writing, and broadcasting, and Melancholicus must simply accept that as a fact, for there is nothing he can do about it. The BBC, in particular, is noted for its anti-Catholicism as well as for its simultaneous molly-coddling of sodomy and Islam. Melancholicus wonders why it should be apparently so acceptable to attack and ridicule Catholicism, but why Islam ought to be treated with respect and deference in all public discourse.

Here’s a BBC-related link I stumbled upon the other day. It’s fun.

The exoneration of the Knights Templar, or more tendentiousness from Broadcasting House

The Holy See has lately produced a facsimile edition of primary documents relating to the trial and subsequent suppression of the Knights Templar in the early fourteenth century.



The BBC took up this story of course, as it offers excellent scope for spin detrimental to the Catholic Church.

The BBC made much of how difficult it is for scholars to gain access to the material stored in the secret archives. Melancholicus was not impressed by this attempt to paint the Vatican archives as a sinister and secretive institution, since as a textual scholar, he knows at first hand how jealously EVERY library and repository guards their priceless manuscript sources.

Furthermore, the fact that this documentation can be consulted by serious researchers and — contrary to popular belief — is not sequestered away in some top-secret vault to which no one is granted access does indicate that the archives are not quite as ‘secret’ as the BBC would like us to believe.

The forthcoming publication of the Chinon parchment was featured this morning on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

Melancholicus has observed a curious phenomenon in contemporary journalism. Most journalists seem to engage in this practice, and those who work for the BBC are no exception.

The contemporary journalist cannot simply report on the facts of the matter and leave it at that. Instead, every news story must be subjected to the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis; reporters seem to imagine that unless their coverage is tinged with this Hegelian hue, they have failed to be impartial and objective. That they would think so proceeds from a false understanding of the nature of truth, and ultimately of reality. This false understanding in turn proceeds from relativism. There is no middle ground between truth and falsehood; no ‘synthesis’ is possible between what is true and what is not. Yet the doyens of professional journalism in our time seem to be incapable of affirming any proposition without immediately setting forth its contrary. This they consider to be characteristic of objectivity; whereas it is actually a characteristic of mediocrity, as the reverend and esteemed Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange reminds us:

The truly mediocre man admires everything a little and nothing with warmth ... He considers every affirmation insolent, because every affirmation excludes the contradictory proposition. But if you are slightly friendly and slightly hostile to all things, he will consider you wise and reserved. The mediocre man says there is good and evil in all things, and that we must not be absolute in our judgments. If you strongly affirm the truth, the mediocre man will say that you have too much confidence in yourself. The mediocre man regrets that the Christian religion has dogmas. He would like it to teach only ethics, and if you tell him that its code of morals comes from its dogmas as the consequence comes from the principle, he will answer that you exaggerate ... if the word ‘exaggeration’ did not exist, the mediocre man would invent it.

The mediocre man appears habitually modest. He cannot be humble, or he would cease to be mediocre. The humble man scorns all lies, even were they glorified by the whole earth, and he bows the knee before every truth. (Ernest Hello, L’homme, bk. I chap. 8, cited by Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, vol. I, p. 201)

This approach of pro and contra is not restricted to questions of opinion, of which there can be many sides, each of which may be legitimately considered. It is even brought to bear in questions of fact, such that all things are subject to this sophistry — all things with but a single exception: the ‘rights’ claimed for themselves by minority interest groups, to which no contrary position is permitted to be expressed. Such sophism completely destroys not only knowledge, but even the possibility of knowledge.

End of philosophical digression, and back to the BBC. It was not sufficient for the good people on the Today programme to announce the publication of the Chinon parchment and set forth the significance of this document; they had to muddy the waters by introducing the fables of Dan Brown and his ilk. By bringing forth fairy tales into a discourse on an historical subject, the wretched interviewer (probably the same fool who interviewed Cormac Murphy O’Connor yesterday morning) served only to introduce confusion in the minds of his listeners, who as a consequence do not know what is true and what is false. This man was even interviewing a professional historian about the document and the Knights Templar. If she was irritated on being impeded from a scholarly discussion of the facts by the introduction of this enormous red herring, she didn’t show it, preferring instead to render a non-committal answer. Melancholicus, however, lying abed, was exasperated and punched his pillow.

BBC bias

The BBC seems to be constitutionally incapable of intelligent reporting when it comes to the Catholic Church, or to any agency or individual that stands opposed to the institutionalised leftism of the the contemporary social order.

This morning on BBC Radio 4, Melancholicus heard Cormac Cardinal Murphy O’Connor interviewed by either James Naughtie or the egregious Edward Stourton (I’m not sure which) regarding an open letter penned by the Westminster prelate and the Primate of Scotland, Keith Patrick Cardinal O’Brien.

Melancholicus was exasperated by the (deliberate?) obtusity of the interviewer, who (intentionally?) misunderstood the whole thrust of their eminences’ letter, and seemed to think (while knowing full well to the contrary?) that this letter heralded a ‘softening’ of the teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion.

Can it be that the BBC cannot tell the difference between a Church teaching and the manner in which said teaching is presented? The letter calls for efforts to roll back the easy availability of abortion by increments over a period of time. The interviewer did seem to be impressed by this pragmatic approach, but because the letter proceeds thus rather than urging an immediate and outright ban, he seemed to think it advocated a retreat from traditional Church teaching, even wondering aloud whether their eminences’ pragmatism would draw fire from the Vatican. The Cardinal, to his credit, was very patient in the face of all these foolish questions.

Later, this interview appeared in the ‘listen again’ section of the BBC Radio 4 website, bizarrely labelled Is the Catholic Church softening its position on abortion?

The good people at Broadcasting House may have completely internalised the culture of moral relativism and absolute autonomy of the individual, but Melancholicus can hardly believe they are stupid enough to really believe that the contents of this letter mean the Church is changing her position on abortion. On the contrary, it is not beneath the BBC to create the impression in the public mind that the Church is on the point of changing her teaching. Why would they do this? Simple. It plays into the hands of the liberal agenda. Conflicting public reports about the Church’s teaching on abortion only serve to make it more difficult for the Church to make her genuine teaching clear.

The BBC is not, and has not been for a very long time, an impartial and unbiased source of news and information on current affairs. The BBC is now little more than a mouthpiece of the culture of PC nuttiness, an organisation infatuated with Mohammedanism and buggery (strange bedfellows, those), the perceived grievances of minorities and deeply hostile to the Judeo-Christian foundations upon which western civilization is built. The BBC still has a formidable reputation in the world of media and communications; but the longer it continues to sacrifice its integrity in the relentless pursuit of the zeitgeist, that reputation will soon be lost and may well be impossible to recover.