In this story, it’s not the savagery itself I wish to concentrate on, but the nomenclature used to describe both it and those who did it.
America’s ABC news, quoting an Associated Press report on the Islamic savagery being meted out by the Boko Haram group in Nigeria called the groups ‘Islamic extremists’ and ‘terrorists’. They didn’t play down the attack or use weasel words to describe the attackers. They said:
“Twin car bombs at a bustling city marketplace blasted buildings to rubble and tore apart bodies the same night an attack on a farming village razed every thatched-roof hut.
At least 90 people have been killed, officials and survivors reported Sunday, as Nigeria’s Islamic extremists step up attacks and criticism mounts of the failure of the military and government to suppress the 4-year-old Islamic uprising in the northeast.
In Maiduguri, capital of Borno state and birthplace of the Boko Haram terrorist network, the attackers chose a densely populated area with narrow alleyways that maximized the blasts and a Saturday night when the market was open late.
The victims include children dancing at a wedding celebration and people watching a soccer match at a cinema, survivors told The Associated Press.
Fifty-one bodies were retrieved by Sunday morning but many more are believed buried in rubble, said a Red Cross official who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. Some were burned beyond recognition in fires caused by the explosions.
In a village 60 kilometers (40 miles) away, suspected extremists also struck Saturday night, killing 39 people, according to cab driver Mansur Buba.
He said he returned home Sunday to find victims being buried in Mainok village, which has been attacked many times in the past year. A State Security Service agent said no huts were left standing there. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.
In Maiduguri, the headquarters of the army and air force offensive against Boko Haram, the first bomb came from a pickup truck loaded with firewood, said Hassan Ali, the leader of an anti-terror vigilante group.
Many more people were killed in the second blast, which was timed to catch people who rushed to the aid of those wounded in the first explosion, survivors said.
Survivors said they captured a man who drove the second car to the scene, jumped out, grabbed a tricycle taxi and tried to make off. He was badly beaten and taken to nearby Umaru Shehu General Hospital, where a security guard said all the wounded brought in had died. Most survivors insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Some bodies were blown apart, said market trader Mallam Sumaila. An Associated Press reporter saw a charred corpse at Umaru Shehu hospital, where wailing families were collecting bodies for immediate burial, in the Muslim tradition.
It was not known how many wounded are being treated in three hospitals in the city.”
ABC make the valuable point that it is now not only Christians who are the victims of the savages of Boko Haram, although Christians have made up a considerable number of the previous victims of this group. They are now attacking Muslims who they consider to be incorrect Muslims or Muslims who want to learn about the wider world. Boko Haram are attempting to devour alike both the Christians and the Muslims of Nigeria.
At least ABC described the attackers correctly as terrorists, Islamists and Islamic extremists. This is in stark contrast to how the BBC covered the attack on polio workers on one of their radio news programmes at the weekend. They described the attackers as ‘militants’ and didn’t use either the ‘I’ word or the ‘M’ word on this segment of the programme, as I can recall.
Even on the BBC’s web presence you can sense the discomfort BBC writers feel at having to report on yet another incidence of Islamic savagery. Here is the BBC’s web report from 1st of March 2014 on the attack on a polio vaccination convoy.
“A bomb attack on a polio vaccination team in north-west Pakistan has killed at least 11 people, officials say
A roadside bomb went off as the police-guarded convoy drove through a village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border.
The attack is the latest in a series targeting polio teams in the country.
No group has claimed responsibility, but the Taliban oppose the polio schemes, which they see as a cover for international espionage.
Initial reports said the convoy was struck by two separate bombs on Saturday.
The blasts were reportedly followed by a fierce gun battle between security forces and the militants.
Officials confirmed that people wounded in the attack were taken to a nearby hospital. Some of those injured are said to be in a critical condition.
Pakistan has witnessed a campaign of violence against health workers, who militants also accuse of being part of a Western plot to sterilise Muslims.”
Note that you have to go quite a way into the story to even see the ‘M’ word. Compare that with the ABC report that identifies the offending ideology straight away.
The BBC added:
“More than 40 people linked to the vaccination programme have been killed in Pakistan since December 2012.
Last month, unidentified gunmen shot dead three polio workers in the southern city of Karachi, a day after authorities began a new nationwide vaccination drive.
Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio remains endemic, along with Nigeria and Afghanistan.
According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan recorded 91 cases of polio last year, up from 58 in 2012.”
This playing down of the Islamic connection between a crime and the ideology behind it, frustrates me about the BBC. Every British household which contains a television has to pay a mandatory stipend of over £150 per year to pay for the BBC, for this we should, at the very least, expect them to tell the truth about news stories, and especially news stories about Islam.
For too long the BBC has been editing stories both domestic and foreign, to reduce any negativity about Islam that the story contains. This is not acceptable. The sort of people who kill innocent polio vaccination workers should be dignified by weasely descriptions, or by using the names of the groups suspected of the crime.
The truth should, and must, be told which is that these criminals are not ‘militants’, ‘extremists’, or whatever label they give themselves, they are Islamic Savages, the uncivilised dross of humanity. ABC to their credit, used the ‘I’ word in the first paragraph, you get the impression from the BBC story that the writer didn’t really want to have to write such bad things about the religion of death and destruction.
We in Britain are getting neither truth nor value for money from the BBC, it should not be that way, but it is. We are being forced to pay for a state broadcaster that is continually whitewashing the crimes of Islam and it is vital that the BBC is reformed so that it can again ‘educate, inform and entertain’, without being a mouthpiece for the political Left and their Islamic pets.
Links
The BBC Polio vaccination attack story
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26397602
The ABC story on the Islamic attack in Nigeria
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/blasts-rock-north-nigerian-city-feared-dead-22732336
Sadly, when it comes to the BBC, this sort of flagrantly biased reporting has been the case for the better part of 20 years. For the preceding 20 years that was also the case but back then, it wasn’t quite so obvious. One had to be aware of it and then look for it.
The BBC had come to realise that it didn’t matter too much what they report or how they reported it. The newsreaders became drones. No one, be it producer, director or reporter, ever gets fired because if one is forced out then a thousand would go down like dominoes. Now they’re all pretty much drone on to the same old tune. Reading the words set down on the screen without giving any thought at all to how the message might be received by the host nation. The host nation doesn’t matter. They pay all the bills, of course, yet they still hardly matter.
Five or so years ago, I wrote the BBC a letter expressing my concern about their increasingly left-wing reporting. Wanting to demonstrate that I knew the history of the BBC from its inception, It ran to slightly over 8,000 words. Although they’d replied to earlier (and shorter) correspondence they didn’t – or couldn’t – reply. So I’ve given up altogether now on the bloody awful bunch of treasonous scum which comprise the beloved BBC… and I know I’m not alone.
In fact I never watch any of their channels anymore. Should I inadvertently wander into one, I escape without one seconds delay. I have nothing whatsoever to do with the BBC… and they have nothing to do with me. Licence fee – you must be joking!
The BBC only understands violence I’m afraid. It seems to be the only way to get through. Ask the IRA. Peaceful protest didn’t work but violence paid handsomely… eventually.