Panorama: The Battle Against British Muslims

Panorama: ‘The Battle for British Islam’ broadcast on BBC 1 (8.30pm, 12/1/15) was predictably biased, inflammatory and a disgracefully poor example of journalism.

John Ware has a long track record of biased reporting on Muslims (remember his attacks on Muslim schools, charities, groups and individuals). It was unsurprising that key figures who should have contributed declined to be interviewed by such a man. It was obvious that Ware had constructed the entire documentary to support his narrative, rather than investigating in any open-minded and illuminating way. It leaves me fuming that my licence fee should be used to allow someone with such a clear anti-Muslim agenda to tackle such an important and complex topic as the ideological conflicts within Islam in Britain today.

John Ware looked at the British Muslim community exclusively through the prism of terrorism. For instance the opening scenes of a documentary supposedly about the British Muslim community as a whole began with an emotive reminder of the action of murderers who were French Muslims. Would the BBC begin a documentary on British Christians with a reminder of the murders committed by a Norwegian Christian? (Anders Breivik — whose attack was the worst terrorist atrocity in Europe in recent years). Would a Panorama documentary on British Jews open with distressing scenes of the war crimes committed by the Jewish State of Israel? This Panorama documentary did not of course care to mention the French Muslims who were murdered in the Paris attacks, or the Malian Muslim who saved many Jewish lives from the terrorists.

The ‘Battle for British Islam’ was lacking in essential context throughout, thus creating an extremely distorted and misleading picture. For example it totally ignored the body of academic research into extremism and terrorism — it seems that where the facts did not support the story Ware wanted to tell, they were simply ignored. The recent report by Prof Kundnani on Radicalisation and Extremism is just one example of rigorous research and hard facts that were brushed under the carpet in favour of ideologically driven polemic.

When it came to his cherry picked and unrepresentative examples of ‘good British Muslims’ John Ware failed utterly in his journalistic role of critical questioning. He also neglected to ask the French politician he interviewed about the many examples where the French government curtails free expression, and simply provided her a platform to proclaim (repeatedly) the supposed commitment to this principle.

Ware’s narrative held up examples of ‘good Muslims’ — those who pretend that Muslim violence and hatred has nothing to do with the violence and oppression of Western foreign policy, and who deny or downplay the fact that Muslims suffer oppression and injustice, whether globally or here in Britain. It is chilling how this divisive categorisation resembles the view of ‘good negroes’ as distinct from ‘uppity negroes’ that was prevalent in America before the civil rights era.

Most alarming and outrageous of all was the inflammatory nature of the documentary, especially in a period of such heightened tensions in the aftermath of events in Paris (within hours of the first attack the hashtag #KillAllMuslims was trending on twitter!). It associated the entire British Muslim community with terrorism and extremism, and implied that ordinary Muslims are guilty on account of having allegedly failed to stop the rise of extremist ideology, which is allegedly the gateway to murderous acts of terrorism. Ware blatantly shows his agenda of fear mongering by emphasising that there will be further role calls of victims to come. I found it sickeningly ironic that he could claim in his conclusions to be against division and dehumanisation, when this is exactly the affect that this documentary will inevitably have on ordinary British Muslims.

My complaint to the BBC — edited to fit the BBC’s limit on the length of complaints submitted online:

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/)

John Ware has a long track record of biased reporting on Muslims so it was unsurprising that key figures who should have contributed declined to be interviewed. It was obvious that Ware had constructed the entire documentary to support his narrative, rather than investigating in any open-minded and illuminating way.

Ware looked at the British Muslim community exclusively through the prism of terrorism. Would the BBC begin a documentary on British Christians with a reminder of the murders committed by a Norwegian Christian? (Anders Braevik). It did not mention the French Muslims murdered in these attacks, or the Malian Muslim who became a hero.

The documentary was lacking in essential context throughout. The recent report by Prof Kundnani on Radicalisation and Extremism is just one example of rigorous research and facts that were brushed under the carpet in favour of ideologically driven polemic.

Ware failed to critically question his cherry picked examples of ‘good Muslims’ and also neglected to ask the French politician about the many examples where the French government curtails free expression.

It is chilling how his view of Muslims resembles the categorisation of ‘good negroes’ as distinct from ‘uppity negroes’ that was prevalent in America before the civil rights era.

Most alarming and outrageous of all was the inflammatory nature of the documentary, especially in a period of heightened tensions in the aftermath of events in Paris e.g. emphasising future deaths.