From Newsgroup: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy

In a week when BBC bosses unveiled yet another round of swingeing cuts rCo this time of around 550 jobs in news, nations and TV and radio rCo you
might be forgiven for assuming the Corporation would have more pressing
issues on the mind than tackling Islamophobia.

But last Monday, the new Deputy Director-General, Rhodri Talfan Davies, informed staff, via the BBC internal website, that as part of the CorporationrCOs anti-discrimination training, they will have to do a compulsory rCyIslamophobia and anti-Muslim hostilityrCO online module.

Davies gave a generous six-month timeframe for this task to be completed
rCo a period that many of my colleagues will be spending fretting about
their futures, with further job losses coming down the pike as part of a savings plan designed to save -u500 million.

One might consider such training to be advisable were the BBC blighted
by anti-Muslim sentiment. Yet in more than two decades at the
corporation, I canrCOt recall witnessing or hearing of a single instance
of so-called Islamophobia, not once. I have, however, seen a Muslim
colleague reading texts from the Quran at work. No one batted an eyelid.

Indeed, one of the BBCrCOs strengths is that the workplace is, on the
whole, a friendly and tolerant environment, just so long as you are not
daft enough to voice any wrong-think sentiments. (You know, saying
something outrageously bigoted like men shouldnrCOt be allowed into
womenrCOs changing rooms just because they pop on a wig, lippy and fishnet tights.)

So why, at a time when hundreds of journalists are facing unemployment,
is money being wasted on such initiatives?

The content of the training is telling. I have written before about how progressive groupthink and identity politics have skewed the BBCrCOs
coverage, undermining impartiality and corroding public trust. In my
view, the Islamophobia online course reflects this mindset.

After a preamble about how many Muslims there are in the world (around
1.9 billion) and the UK (about 3.9 million), the module states a
definition of Islamophobia as: rCyan intense dislike or fear of Islam, and encompasses hostility or prejudice towards Muslims.rCO

It goes on to outline a ludicrous scenario for staff to test whether
their Islamophobia radars are working. A fictitious character called rCySophierCO takes a Muslim colleague called rCyAhmedrCO to task over some violent incident overseas, berating him by saying, rCyWhatrCOs going on with your people? Why do they always do things like this?rCO

An exchange like this would never have happened at the BBC back when I
first joined. The corporation was already painfully politically correct
then; itrCOs woke as a joke now. So the likelihood of a rCySophierCO sounding off like a latter-day Bernard Manning in the newsroom in 2026 is
practically zero.

Next come various rebuttals to prejudicial views on Islam. If you think
Muslim women are oppressed, Muslims are linked to extremism and
violence, or that Muslims donrCOt integrate, think again. TheyrCOre all just tropes or stereotypes.

Obviously, making crass and offensively negative generalisations about a
whole group of people is wrong, but isnrCOt the BBC supposed to care about
the more nuanced reality?

Millions of Muslim women are oppressed across the world as a direct
result of the interpretation by their male counterparts of the religion
they share. Just ask any woman in Afghanistan. Do it quietly though,
because the Taliban has banned women from raising their voices.

And the oppression is not just apparent overseas. Here in the UK, Muslim
women are regularly seen entirely shrouded in black from head to toe,
with only their eyes visible. Are we seriously supposed to believe all
of these women are choosing this stifling clothing freely, with no
pressure whatsoever from their menfolk? And what about the low rate of employment among Muslim women compared to Muslim men? Again, is it
entirely their choice to stay at home doing the dishes? The BBC training course doesnrCOt shed any light on this.

As for extremism and violence, itrCOs true that only a minority of Muslims have such links. But itrCOs not an insignificant number. Speaking in 2024, MI5rCOs Director General, Ken McCallum, said roughly 75 per cent of the agencyrCOs counter-terrorism work was centred around Islamist extremism.
And of the more than 40,000 people reportedly on terror watchlists, the majority are Islamist extremists. ThatrCOs about one in every 100 British Muslims. Even allowing for the possibility that this figure is well wide
of the mark, half that number would still be alarming.

When it comes to integration, there are some areas of the UK that are
almost unrecognisable compared with what they looked like half a century
ago, and where yourCOre just as likely to hear Arabic or Urdu on the
streets than English. Mosques are visible in every major town and city.
Scores of Sharia councils operate across England and Wales. Can this
really be described as integration?

The training module goes on to suggest a list of ways to boost
rCyinclusionrCO by, for instance, providing halal catering options. It never ceases to amaze me that in a country of professed animal lovers, halal slaughter is so rarely discussed. According to an answer to a
parliamentary question in March 2025, of the more than one billion
animals processed in English and Welsh slaughterhouses in 2024, nearly
21 per cent were slaughtered to produce halal meat, of which 2.6 per
cent were slaughtered for halal meat without being stunned. ThatrCOs an estimated 27 million animals bleeding to death without stunning. And yet
the purported cruelty of fox hunting is somehow the obsession of the rCycompassionaterCO left, and has drawn far more coverage by the BBC.

BBC managers are also urged to consider offering private spaces for
Muslim staff to pray, and to demonstrate flexibility around Ramadan for colleagues who are fasting. There is even a suggestion to check whether
Muslim staff are comfortable giving handshakes.

The module concludes with an exhortation to help build rCya BBC where
Muslim identity is not only respected but celebrated.rCO I find this
actually infuriating. Why should I rCycelebraterCO Muslim identity? Or
Jewish identity, for that matter? Or Christian identity?

Perhaps naively, I still believe that Britain should be a free country
where people are entitled to dislike all and any religion if they so
choose. Atheists like myself should be at liberty to state openly our
scorn of the magical thinking shared by God botherers the world over.
Sure, we shouldnrCOt be deliberately unpleasant but neither should we be
told by anyone, let alone our employer, that we must celebrate beliefs
we see as archaic and regressive.

You might disagree with me and wish to tell me so. I can promise that if
you did, even if you lambasted my opinions in the strongest terms, I wouldnrCOt issue a fatwa against you. Neither would I band together with
an aggressively intolerant mob and drive you into hiding. This was the
fate of a teacher from Batley who gave an RE lesson in 2021 that some
Muslim troublemakers took exception to and who is now living anonymously
in the shadows with his poor family rCo a scandal that shames a democratic country that is supposed to be underpinned by free speech.

A BBC spokesperson said: rCyAny form of discrimination is unacceptable at
the BBC, and this training is designed to help staff understand how Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hostility can show up in the workplace, and
how to address it. The examples in the training are not exhaustive, but
are used as a framework for understanding.rCO

If I had any say in the matter, the BBC would tell its staff rCo all of
them, whatever their creed or colour rCo that the newsroom is a place for work, not worship. Instead, a cadre of philistine executives who have
overseen outrageous lapses in BBC impartiality are axing venerable
programmes like Radio 4rCOs The World Tonight whilst continuing to
squander licence fee payersrCO money on progressive propaganda. I may not
be religious, but I know a sin when I see one.


Charlie Walsham
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