And what better place to discuss rants than Rantburg:
Muslim leaders have accused Robert Kilroy-Silk of "anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views" after a newspaper piece entitled "We Owe the Arabs Nothing".
I like it already.
The Muslim Council of Britain denounced the BBC discussion show presenter’s piece as a "gratuitous anti-Arab rant".
"And we know gratuitous ranting, it’s a Arab invention."
In the Sunday Express piece, the former Labour MP referred to Arabs as "suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors".
Check
The Commission for Racial Equality has also reported the matter to the police.
| "Officer! Arrest that man! He told the truth!" |
The MCB secretary general Iqbal "Iggy" Sacranie said in a letter to BBC One controller Lorraine Heggessey that Mr Kilroy-Silk had failed to distinguish between the terrorists behind the 11 September attacks and 200 million "ordinary Arab peoples".
| Funny thing, that. The terrs didn't distinguish between civilian targets and... ummm... anything else in the 9-11 attacks. |
Mr Sacranie questioned whether if the word Jew or black was substituted for Arab in the piece, the presenter would not still be occupying a high-profile spot on television. A BBC spokeswoman said the corporation was carefully examining Mr Sacranie’s letter before deciding whether any action should be taken. The presenter was unable to give a comment due to his mother’s funeral.
| It killed her? Damn! That's some powerful ranting! |
Mr Kilroy-Silk’s piece started: "We are told by some of the more hysterical critics of the war on terror that ’it is destroying the Arab world’. So? Should we be worried about that?" Mr Kilroy-Silk went on to say that the toppling of despotic regimes in the Middle East should be a war aim, and questioned the contribution of the Arab nations to world welfare and civilisation. "Apart from oil - which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the West - what do they contribute? Can you think of anything? Anything really useful?... No, nor can I... We’re told the the Arabs loathe us. Really?... What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on 11 September and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders?" Are we sure that Kilroy-Silk is not Steven DenBeste?
He said Arab nations should be grateful for the aid and technology the West had provided. "They should go down on their kness and thank God for the munificence of the United States." Mr Sacranie said action should be taken over the "bigoted and ill-informed ideas" in the piece, which was "ignorant, extremely derogatory and indisputably racist".
If he had written the same piece about America, would Mr Sacranie have complained? I think not.
| I'm still trying to figure what was ignorant or racist about it. It sounds like it was on the money to me... |
The BBC spokeswoman said: "We’ve received an e-mail from Mr Iqbal Sacranie and are looking into how the Sunday Express column, which Robert Kilroy-Silk writes in his capacity as a freelance, fits with his on-screen work for the BBC. "We’d like to take the time to carefully consider the points Mr Sacranie makes."
Translation - "We’re checking with our lawyers"
CRE chair Trevor Phillips said: "This article is indisputably stupid and its main effect will be to give comfort to the weak-minded."
Weakminded = anyone who doesn’t agree with him.
"However, given the extreme and violent terms in which Mr Kilroy-Silk has expressed himself, there is a danger that this might incite some individuals to act against someone who they think is an Arab."
More likely Mr Kilroy-Silk will be in danger of having his car bombed by the Religion Of Peace. |