Can I be a martyr too please? Part II

Anyone clicking the link to 'Porter sacked by hospital after he asks for 'multi-faith' prayer room crucifix be made visible' in my last post will find that the article has been disappeared from the Daily Mail website, and get a 'not found' error.

Instead, there is a much abbreviated version of the story at 'Christian porter sacked by hospital after argument over a crucifix in a prayer room'. Note the 'multi-faith' bit isn't there any more, scare quotes or no.

A copy of the older version is available here. It should go without saying that I don't endorse the wingnut forum it's on and I'm only linking for the purposes of showing the original article, but I'm saying it anyway.

I didn't quote all the relevant bits in my last post, so here are the important bits of the story that have been dropped.

After pointing out that the porter was released by the police without charge after being questioned over an alleged aggravated assault, the original version had this:

He denies the allegations and must wait to see if police take any action.

He said he was unable to comment on his sacking as the police probe and his plans to appeal were ongoing.

And the last line of the original said:

Police said a file had been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision over any further action.

These references have gone. Of course, removing these makes it look as though the assault allegation has been dismissed and it's all over, when it isn't. It makes the porter look more reasonable.

This has also been dropped in the new version:

The friend said Mr Protano went into the prayer room about six times a day to check that the statue and crucifix were not left covered because he felt could be upsetting for visiting Christian parents to find them covered up.

A guy who goes into the chapel six times a day to check if the cross has been covered up sounds just a tad less well adjusted than someone who just happened into the room and noticed it was covered.

The changes could be because the original article seems to be directly lifted from this one in the Manchester Evening News 'Hospital porter fired in crucifix row', but whatever the reason, the result is an even more one sided version of events that even further downplays the porter's alleged actions and paints him in a far more favourable light.

Contrast the paper's treatment of this story with the one I covered in 'Who always starts the race row?', 'The Mail, balance?' and 'Chuck Berry?', in which the paper reported that a 10 year old boy had been attacked by a Slovakian woman with a metal bar after throwing a berry at her, despite other reports pointing out that the police had said there was no evidence that a metal bar had been used, and that the berry throwing incident had come the day before and involved a different woman, whom he also allegedly punched.

Why is this one treated differently? You'd get a much better tabloidy headline out of 'Hospital porter sacked after 'aggravated assault' on patients', if not better.

Of course, the trouble is if the paper had reported things that way around, the Christian would look like the religious nutter and the Muslims would have looked like victims. Can't have that, can we? Have to make it look as though the alleged assailant was in fact a victim if the actual victims are Muslim. Or the wrong sort of foreign.

Nice one, the Daily Mail!

Can I be a martyr too please?

Moving away from the Express for a bit, which is a relief, it's over to the Mail for some typical Daily Mail fodder about how poor Christians are terribly persecuted in this country where Christianity is the national religion, its representatives get unelected positions in the second house, the head of state is also the head of a Chritian sect, where the Prime Minister has to be a certain kind of Christian and the national anthem is an extended Christian prayer.

The article is 'Porter sacked by hospital after he asks for 'multi-faith' prayer room crucifix be made visible'. Great image, that headline. You can just see the timid porter in his uniform, wringing a cap in his hands and looking at his shoes as he mumbles, 'mmblmm can we er mblmblm cross?' toward a forbidding looking woman behind a desk the size of a small car.
'What? Speak up man!' booms the woman.
'Umm...it's just...d'you think we can show the uh cross in th-'
'Whaaaaat? Uncover the cross? You're sacked, you insensitive little man. Don't you realise this is a multicultural society? Get out of my sight!'

The Mail are great at this sort of thing - that is reducing whatever someone the paper has sympathy for is supposed to have done to the most innocent, unassuming sounding thing possible when the reality is likely to be a bit different.

We see it every time some pretend martyr pops up whingeing that they're not allowed special treatment. It usually happens when they're not allowed to wear jewellery but Muslims are allowed to wear scarves. Except scarves aren't jewellery.

We've seen this before, with Nadia Ewedia, the BA employee who insisted on not only being allowed to wear a cross, but to wear a visible one. The papers were all over her, her sad put upon face became splashed across front pages and she even boasted support from a number of MPs. Guess what? Turns out she wasn't quite so innocent and hard done by, and BA had bent over backwards trying to accommodate her insufferable, god-bothering demands.

This story looks as though it's about a similar situation, as it later reveals:

Mr Protano, a Roman Catholic who has worked two years at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, entered the room when three Muslims were using it - two patients and a doctor.

An argument broke out after he asked them to remove a cloth covering the crucifix and statue and to turn a picture of the Virgin Mary face up.

And:

Police quizzed him for four hours last month, on suspicion of religiously aggravated assault, but he was released without charge.

And a little later, in amongst a bit of testimony from a friend, we get:

They are saying he should not have gone into the prayer room and it is alleged he used racist language, which he totally refutes.

So instead of being sacked after he asked for the cross to be uncovered, it appears he was sacked after interrupting people who were using the room, and some sort of assault and the use of racist language has been alleged. Perhaps the headline should be changed. And I doubt he 'refutes' the claim, I suspect he just 'denies' it.

Later still in the article comes this:

The friend said Mr Protano went into the prayer room about six times a day to check that the statue and crucifix were not left covered because he felt could be upsetting for visiting Christian parents to find them covered up.

Six times a day? Are we to conclude that this sort of behaviour is normal?

One final bit of support for the guy comes in the second last paragraph, with:

The case has angered many hospital staff, who think he has been treated unfairly.

Many hospital staff. As the Express has demonstrated in the past so well, sometimes 'many' actually means 'none'.

There are currently four comments on the article, all supportive of the porter. This is my favourite:

I can see civil war breaking out in this country before too long. The politically correct extremists are creating the fertile grounds for this to happen. I don't hear the church making much of a fuss, because they too are scared or part of the extremists agenda for a total breakdown in society and war on our streets. Its not muslims (apart from the extremist muslims) that are to blame for this, and it's not the catholics, it's the poltically correct extremists that are creating the problems for us all.

- Bob, merseyside

Perhaps, Bob, nobody's making a fuss because the bloke sounds like a nutter who just might possibly have assaulted someone while throwing about racist language. It's now Political Correctness Gone Mad to suggest this sort of thing is unnacceptable.

And what does this article imply without saying? It comes out and says that the porter was sacked just for asking to uncover the cross, but by mentioning that he entered the chapel and glossing over the alleged racially aggravated assault, what is the article implying about Muslims? It implies that he walked into a room, asked the three Muslims, one of them a doctor, to uncover the cross, 'an argument broke out' and then the Muslims pretended he'd assaulted someone and threw around racist language.

In short, it paints the Muslims as crazed fanatics who start arguments and lie about racially motivated assaults that result in someone's sacking when that person merely asks them to do something. And it does that without actually stating they did. This is where the Mail is much better than the Express, in allowing its readers to draw their own conclusions from the heavily slanted evidence it gives them.

Political Correctness Gone Mad in the Telegraph

I'm used to seeing stories with a little kernel of truth getting exaggerated almost beyond recognition in the Mail, with a less clear and more exaggerated version in the Express. I wasn't really surprised today when I decided to take apart a Mail story, but found a less honest version in the Express. It's what the Express has been for since it started trying to out hate the Mail and became Der Sturmer. It's more unusual to see a less honest version of a story than the Mail in the Telegraph. It's usually the Telegraph that covers those details the other two papers leave out when they want to mislead their readers. Maybe it's because the Mail's version didn't appear online until after 11 this morning, and probably didn't make the print version. Who knows.

Whatever the reason, the story is 'Schools to "ban" pupils wearing crosses' in the Mail, 'Outrage over new ban on the cross' in Der Sturmer and 'School ban for crosses but not Muslim lockets' in the Telegraph.




As usual, nothing's been banned. Private Eye says that any question in a tabloid headline usually has the answer 'no'. A new rule I've learned since starting this blog is that when a paper says something has been banned, it's a good bet nothing has. We can find that out by looking in the local paper (which happns a lot) and the article 'Council cross over claims of a crucifix ban'. It says:

However, the council claims the reports were inaccurate and said headteachers had not been told to ban religious symbols.

Surprise, surprise.

According to the local paper article, this is what happened. The Council released a draft set of guidelines to school governing bodies. So nothing was published, and nothing was sent to school headteachers. The document didn't mention Christian symbols because, according to Councillor Maria Gatland:

we are living in a Christian country and on the whole headteachers know about Christian traditions, not least because school holidays are built around them.

"The draft guidelines are intended to help them with their knowledge of other faiths and in particular how they should relate to sports and PE.

"There is absolutely nothing prescriptive in the guidelines, which have been drawn up in the manner of questions and answers.

And just to reiterate:

Croydon Council would not entertain banning the wearing of religious symbols.

So, on to the dodgy papers.

The Mail's version is an outstanding example of the 'Withdrawn!' tactic, withdrawing the headline's claim in the first two sentences:

Schools could be forced to ban their pupils from wearing crosses - while allowing them to display symbols of non-Christian religions.

The rules being considered by one education authority would see jewellery forbidden from PE lessons, apart from in "exceptional circumstances".

Check out the 'could' and 'being considered', and in the next sentence, there's an 'apparently'. It's still a misleading article though. If you didn't aleady know nothing had been banned, you wouldn't be any the wiser from reading this, but all the tentative language shows that whoever wrote the article knew nothing had been banned. Didn't stop them from going with the word in the headline though, even if they did use scare quotes. One thing this article has in common with the other two is that it leaves the most important piece of information - that the document is only a draft - until right at the end.

The Express is also sort of an example of the 'Withdrawn!' tactic, but doesn't withdraw its claim of a ban completely, and doesn't even try until way, way late in the article. Unlike the Mail version, it just bloody lies in its opening. Not a surprise, eh? It says:

The officials have told headteachers to ban jewellery [...]

But we know nobody's told headteachers aything. There are some lame quotes that illustrate what I said in '"This is outrageous!" says Tarquin FitzTory'. Someone with a vested interest, a Tory MP and someone from the Campaign for Gullible Marks Against Political Correctness.

The Telegraph version, which seems to be the one the other two were based on, opens with a big fat fib:

Schools have been told that they should ban crosses and crucifixes, but allow Muslim children to wear symbols, even though they are not compulsory.

Schools haven't been told anything. A draft set of guidelines sent to governors said something about other religious symbols, but nothing about crosses. We get the same person with a vested ineterst and the same Tory MP quoted. It saves it's withdrawal until right at the end, when it decides to make it look as though the Council's claim about the document being a draft is a lie.

It's so easy to see what's really happened here. Someone left out Christian symbols from the list because they assumed the headteachers would already be familiar with them, they got picked up and that's it. Someone cocked up, that's all. It wasn't even the final draft of the document and it hadn't been published. And catching this kind of mistake is exactly the reason why a draft was sent out in the first place.

What else to the 'it's Political Correctness Gone Mad' brigade actually think? That evil lefties are so unsure of their own position that whenever they're challenged they change their mind and pretend their reasoning was different all along? Do they imagine donkey jacketed Council officials shuffling shiftily in front of a whiteboard saying, 'Oh, of course we didn't ban chocolate fingers for being racist. We just think it would be dangerous to jam them down children's throats with a plunger,' as they try to cover the words 'CHOCOLATE FINGERS=RACIST'?

*UPDATE* Since this story appeared, the PCC made one of its rare decent decisions and found that the Express version, at least, is misleading. The paper had to publish a lame correction, apparently. Hurrah!

More moaning about things being un-Christian?

Depressingly, there is more about making things more Christian in the Mail, this time with 'Less Christianity, more Islam and Hinduism'. It seems the paper (and other tabloids) might be taking Melanie Phillips' suggestion* that Britain re-Christianise a bit seriously.

From the article:

Councillors accused authorities of a cover-up, saying that while the need to teach children about other world religions is obvious the lack of education on Christianity in a Christian country was going too far.

and:

However critics reportedly insisted the nation's religion was being turned in to a sideshow in the name of political correctness.

In both of these are the 'Britain is a Christian country' theme that's mentioned in the Sun's rubbish story from my last post. That's worrying for people like me who are not Christian, and follow no religion at all.

The important bit from this article though, is this:

However when the lack of time devoted to Christianity sparked protests, Buckinghamshire education authorities reportedly removed those numbers from official documents.

You know what that means? Removing things from official documents means they are no longer Council policy. Reporting that things have been removed from official documents but not making it clear that they are no longer policy means tha the paper, again, is not interested in giving their readers an accurate impression of the truth and only in whipping up hysteria about Britain becoming - horror or horrors - secular. Like when they say Christmas has been banned.


*And the BNP's. Funnily enough, the BNP like the 'keep a proper Christmas' stuff as well. Just visit their website for more if you don't believe me. I'm not fucking linking to them.

It's ONE-LEGGED BLACK LESBIAN DAY for MUSLIMS now!

Right, the Daily Mail are beginning to piss me off. If they're not careful, I'll turn up at their office with my official PC brigade badge and force their asses to change the colour of their type to lime green and drop the word 'Mail' from the title and replace it with 'Non-Gender Specific Being' so as not to offend feminists. And Muslims, probably.

Here's a tip for how to tell whether a story about Political Correctness Gone Mad (to give it its full title) is exaggerated, distorted or made up in the Mail. Ready?

If it's in the Mail, it's bollocks.

Today, we have 'Campaign for a real Christmas: Religious leaders unite against political correctness'. Here's a fact (I was going to say 'interesting fact' but that would have been stretching the truth). The only people to actually ban Christmas in the UK were Christians. Cromwell did it in 1644. I could do a Melanie Phillips now and scream, 'See, even Christians don't want Christmas! When will our supine government finally stop appeasing these evil madmen?' but that would be silly.

Now, let's have a look at the Mail story. There's a nice change in that they at least don't appear to be blaming Muslims this time, which is their tactic for everything else. Here's the second paragraph:

Leaders of the two faiths warned that attempts to suppress Christmas bring a backlash and Muslims get the blame.

Yes, Muslims do often get the blame for a lot of things that aren't their fault. The Mail knows this because they're often the ones doing the blaming. Have a look at my post from the other day, 'Classic PC gone mad Mail', which mentions a story that blames certain Christmas things being stopped on Muslims, even though Muslims are not specifically mentioned and nothing's been stopped.

It's a pity that the leaders of the two faiths hadn't realised that the 'attempts to suppress Christmas' don't actually exist, and its only the exaggerated reactions to innocuous nonsense that make people think they do. They might have realised they were wasting everyone's time.

The next paragraph gives us a clue:

And they said that while Christmas causes no offence to minority faiths, banning it offends almost everybody.

Yes, I'd bet that banning Christmas would offend nearly everybody. It would offend this atheist, who rather likes the excuse to get horribly pissed up and overeat. It'd be impractical as well, and just drive the practice underground. You'd have to visit shady East-End pubs to approach big, bulldog looking fellas with gruff voices to buy smuggled 'crackahs' having no idea whether or not they'd been used in the commission of a crime. You'd have to go to shifty looking blokes on street corners and disguise the exchange of money for mince pies with a funny handshake, and end up crouching behind bins to stuff your face with, well, stuffing. I'm not even mentioning cold turkey.

Nobody's banning Christmas, and nobody bloody wants to. Surely, if there were a plan to prohibit buying fir trees in December or something we'd have heard about it. Perhaps the Mail have a scoop we don't know about. We can find out in the next paragraph:

Notorious local authority attempts to stamp out Christmas include Birmingham's decision to name its seasonal celebrations 'Winterval' and Luton's attempt to change Christmas into a Harry Potter festival by renaming its festive lights 'Luminos'.

Seriously, is that it? Is that all they've got? Birmingham change the name (which I admit is fucking stupid, but not the same as banning), and Luton tries (and fails, we must assume from the word 'attempt') to call Cristmas lights something else to be a bit more 'in with the kids'. And notice the claim that Luton were trying to turn Christmas into a Harry Potter festival. No they bloody weren't! They suggested calling the lights something out of Harry Potter, that's all. From this we're led to believe that there have been attempts to ban Christmas? I don't think I'll be worrying about SWAT teams crashing through my windows and doing commando rolls all over the carpet because they've seen a glimpse of tinsel just yet.

Plus, have a look at the Birmingham City Council website. What's that in massive letters slap bang in the middle of the page? It's not 'BIRMINGHAM AT CHRISTMAS' is it? It can't be, because that would mean that the Mail is more full of shit than even I suspected.

What follows is a bunch of quotes from the letter these 'faith leader' buffoons have sent demanding and end to the banning of Christmas, which is not happening anyway. Ironic that. People with entire belief systems based on made up stuff complaining about things happening that are just made up. I'm going to write to my MP to demand that Fred Flintstone be stopped playing the trombone behind the Question Time panel with his willy out, because it ruins the tradition of Question Time being about listening to people speak and not including cartoon characters or visible willies.

Then we get to a bit about the Royal Mail stamps this year having Father Christmas and reindeers and stuff on rather than religious things. A couple of points:

1. Father Christmas. His fucking name includes the word Christmas. His other name is a shortening of Saint Nicholas, a Christian saint. Why is a depiction of a Christian saint not Christian enough?

2. Last year's stamps were full of Jesusy goodness. The two or three years before were Father Christmas again. Why pretend the Father Christmas thing is new? And why pretend the idea of Jesusy stamps are out of the question when they were on last year's?

Most of the rest of it is a lazy retelling of what's already been said. Interestingly, they include years for the Birmingham 'Winterval' and Luton Harry Potter things. 1998 and 2001 respectively. So we're expected to accept that there is currently a nefarious plot to ban Christmas on the evidence of two Councils changing - or trying to change - the name of something five and eight years ago. One of them didn't even end up happening.

There are then a couple of moans about how Christians aren't allowed to do anything any more - not even discriminate against gay people. I ask you, what's the point of being a Christian if you're not allowed to reject gay rights rules?

It'll be a while yet before we see news of a bearded man with a rucksack shot several times in the head, with a police spokesman saying, 'We thought the beard was false. And it would have been a disaster if it was. He could have had toys in that rucksack. Toys!'

BA cross lady says 'HRRRN! I ain't flyin' fool!'

Of course, a couple of non-rabid stories about Muslims don't mean that the Mail has stopped being the idiot voice of hard-right Britain. Far from it.

Today's headline is on the left. The online version is 'Archbishop accuses BA of 'nonsense' for refusing to back down in cross row'.

I'm having an attack of 'this is the most important thing happening in the world?' syndrome again. Is it? Is it really?

The first thing that srtikes me is the inclusion of the Archbishop's birthplace in the headline. There are a few implications that including the birthplace makes. It implies that the issue shouldn't be a problem, and the answer is so straighhtforward that it takes an outsider to point that out. The second implication is one that's familiar to people who have heard the argument, 'I know a black bloke who thinks Bernard Manning's hilarious, so he can't be racist.' In effect, the headline is saying, 'look, a black foreigner thinks we're doing too much to prevent offending foreigners, so we must be'.

This second implication is a bit ironic, because according to one of the Mail's three other articles on this issue, Ms Ewedia is 'a Coptic Christian with an Egyptian background'.

So it's a bit odd that the archbishop, Dr Sentamu, says:

British Airways needs to look again at this decision and to look at the history of the country it represents, whose culture, laws, heritage and tradition owes so much to the very same symbol it would ban.

Aside from the typical Christian overstatement of how much the country owes to Christianity, Dr Sentamu has missed the fact that Britain owes sod all to Coptic Christianity - a rare sect in this country. And BA haven't banned a symbol. She's allowed to wear it.

And BA are not trying to ban anything. I'll be going over old ground here, but she is allowed to wear a cross if she wants, just under her clothes.

Dr Sentamu says some more nonsense:

Dr Sentamu said BA's position undermined its right to be Britain's national airline because it was failing to recognise the country's Christian culture and heritage.

Again, Britain owes nothing to Coptic Christianity. Also, Dr Sentamu seems to be saying that every British institution should be explicitly Christian. That's non-devisive.

And he appears to have said more in the past:

Last month the Archbishop risked a row with the Muslim community by suggesting Islamic women should not wear veils in public.

The Ugandan-born cleric told the Daily Mail that "no minority" should impose its belief on the rest of society.

I'm going to repeat myself. Coptic Christians are a minority. And why should this Christian - a minority of one who thinks they have to display a cross as far as I'm aware - impose her beliefs on the rest of society, if that's what wearing religious attire does. How is wearing a veil imposing your beliefs on anyone anyway?

It's funny that he says:

This decision by British Airways is a nonsense and is based on flawed reasoning.

Because he seems to have only a passing acquaintance with reasoning himself.

Dr Sentamu says:

Under BA's current reasoning, an employee who turned up to work wearing a three foot long cross must be allowed to wear it, because to hide such a cross under their uniform would be impractical.

But this is what BA said:

Our uniformed staff, many thousands of whom are Christian, have happily accepted the policy for years. The policy recognises that it is not practical for some religious symbols such as turbans and hijabs to be worn underneath the uniform.

You can't hide a turban or a hijab under a uniform, and neither are jewellery. Banning these things would effectively ban people who wear them from working for BA. As far as I'm aware, it isn't a Coptic tradition to wear a cross and display it openly at all times. The most I've been able to find is this 'What the cross means to non-western Christians':

Coptic Christians in Egypt see their cross as the greatest glory of their church and as a symbol of their long martyrdom. They tattoo it in pride and defiance on the inside of their right wrist as an indelible mark of their identification with their church and community, although they know that this visible mark might bring them scorn and discrimination in their Muslim-majority society.

A couple of points:

• Ms Ewedia's cross is not a Coptic cross. It's a plain one.
• A cross tattooed on the inner right wrist would be covered by long sleeves.
• A tattoo is not an item of jewellery.
  

And there is no religious tradition anywhere to wear a three foot cross.

I actually disagree with Shami Chakrabarti, which is unusual, when she says:

British Airway's policy appears to be fundamentally misconceived and has led to a bonkers result. This woman's cross is clearly as important to her as a turban or a hijab to someone else.

She is allowed to wear a cross, and a turban or a hijab is impossible to cover with a uniform.

Miss Ewedia's MP talks some rubbish too:

This is very disappointing. British Airways have behaved very badly. They are treating different faiths inconsisently [...]

No. They've said religious attire that can be hidden under a uniform must be hidden. That's treating them the same.

Ms Ewedia herself isn't innocent of talking nonsense:

But despite this they stuck by their decision to refuse to let me wear it. I find their stance confusing. It makes no sense to me.

They haven't refused to let her wear it. She also says:

I am glad that a Christian like him has spoken out. I hope it encourages other Christians to start praying and persuades BA to change its mind.

God, I fucking hope not.

Just to reiterate - I don't care if she can wear a cross visibly. I just hate the rubbish reasoning behind the arguments her supporters are using.

*UPDATE* I've revised my earlier post to take out references to things being necessary to various religions. I'll produce another post on this later. Lucky you.

Swivel-eyed fish burst the barrel

I've been caught napping while Melanie Phillips has said some particularly dumb nonsense.

Curses!

It's been picked up all over the place because it's so boneheaded - see Pickled Politics, Shuggy's Blog, Ministry of Truth (twice), Stumbling and Mumbling, and Not Saussure - but as two fish seem to have grown to be particularly enormous to the point of outgrowing their barrel, they're begging to be shot.

I was going to be brief, but bugger it.

Firstly, from 'Dying to submit':

And that is why I, a British Jew, argue that it is vital that Britain and Europe re-Christianise if they are to have any chance of defending western values.

Okay. Easy answer number one - when Britain had a more explicitly Christian population, Jewish people didn't exactly fare very well. Given that they were forced to convert or were expelled from the country and that.

Easy answer number two - Britain is already an explicitly Christian state. I'll do the little list again. Our head of state is head of a Christian church (and must be protestant Christian by law), our Prime Minister is Christian (and has to be a protestant Christian by law), most of our cabinet are Christian, the majority of our population is Christian, a number of Christian bishops are given automatic seats in the House of Lords, our national flag is made up of symbols of various Christian saints, we have a blasphemy law that only applies to Christianity, the first word of our national anthem is 'God' and the rest of its content is an extended prayer asking him to do various things for the head of the Church of England.

Easy answer number three - this has already been covered elsewhere - Melanie Phillips doesn't want to convert to Christianity herself. It's precisely because of our Christian Government's secular approach to the population's own religious beliefs that Phillips is able to make the choice to remain a non-Christian. I presume she isn't calling for the re-introduction of inquisitions, but I fear I may be too generous.

A couple of other bits:

The useful idiots who believe that only a secular society can hold off the forces of irrational belief at the heart of the Islamic jihad have got this diametrically the wrong way round.

Now, I'm only speaking for this secularist, but I think Christianity is also an example of the forces of irrational belief. To say to a secularist like me, 'Hey, you know how to fight irrational belief? Adopt an irrational belief system!' Is so dense it hurts my head.

There is something else I want to say about this idiocy, but it's relevant to the next bit I want to quote, so I'll do that first:

Dying for a cause, however noble, becomes an absolute no-no. It’s better to be dhimmi than dead – the view that has now effectively prevailed in Britain and Europe.

Now, I can only speak for myself but I'm pretty sure quite a few people on my side of the fence in this argument would agree. What Phillips has done here is used a false opposition to set up another of her strawmen. I do not accept that there is an evil force of Islamisation creeping across Europe. I think that idea is a paranoid exaggeration, believed by gullible people and pushed by racists in a similar way to the idea of a Jewish conspiracy that was popular until the right found another scapegoat.

I don't think it's 'better to be dhimmi than dead' becasuse a) I think 'dhimmi' is a horrible word, used in a similar manner to the term 'n*gger lover' and I do not accept the premise that would lead me to believe that such a thing exists in the same way Melanie Phillips does, and; b) because I do not think that 'resisting the irrational belief at the heart of the Islamic jihad' (which is a nicer way of saying 'being nasty and paranoid about Muslims') would lead to my death. Mel seems to be doing alright out of it.

It's not that I'm not prepared to die for any cause. I'm not prepared to die for your cause. Because it's not noble. It's imaginary racist shite.

But this is my favourite bit:

The Islamists, whose shrewdness and perspicacity are consistently overlooked by racist European liberals who believe that Arabs and Muslims are too backward to have anything intelligent to say [...]

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [PANT!] HA HAHA HA HA HA HAHAHA HA HA! [PANTPANTPANT!] NO, STOPPIT! [PANT!] HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAH! I think a bit of wee came out.

Because we don't accept that the Muslims are evil and shrewd and plotting to take over the world, we're racist?

Quick heads up. It's not because we don't think they're clever enough, you numpty! It's because we don't think they're inherently evil! This is like saying, 'You're racist for not believing black people are resourceful enough to be muggers!' or, 'You're anti-semetic because you think Jews lack the shrewdness and perspicacity to be able to engage in a global conspiracy!' It's too funny.

And another thing, when anyone says Mel's racist for saying nasty things about Muslims, she argures that she can't be because, 'Islam is not a race but a religion.' But when she says her opponents do it, it suddenly becomes racist to criticise Muslims. Make your bloody mind up!
(Plus, it is bloody racist. Bartlett's Bizarre Bazaar has a good post on the subject).

At this point though, I've started to wonder whether Phillips herself believes this idiotic nonsense. It's become like watching some bloody medium on Living, where the only relevant question is not whether they can talk to the dead, but whether they know they can't. Does she know this is complete cack, or is she deluded enough to actually believe it?

Compare & Contrast

All the front page images I've used come from Mailwatch.

Double standards? Not in the Mail, surely?

More on the BA cross lady from the Mail in 'BA worker in 'cross' necklace row faces disciplinary action'.

Of course, the stuff I said in 'Odd one out' applies here. Turbans and scarves are not jewellery, so it's no surprise that they're not included in rules about jewellery. It's not a requirement of Christianity - even Coptic Christianity - to wear a visible cross, but it is a requirement of Sikhism to wear a Kara bracelet. But this is pretty academic, because according to the BBC:

"British Airways does recognise that uniformed employees may wish to wear jewellery including religious symbols. These items can be worn, underneath the uniform."

It's perfectly possible to wear a bangle under a buttoned sleeve. So, I'd like to see evidence that Kara bracelets are allowed to be visible before I accept that they are. And even if they are they're different because there a requirement of those that follow the religion.

The interesting thing about the Mail's position (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the press) on this issue is that it is completely the opposite to one it's taken before. Earlier this year, the paper was completely unsympathetic to another female who faced disciplinary action over her choice of religious attire and pretty much said she could bog off somewhere else where it was allowed.

The difference? That was a Muslim.

The arguments the Mail used at the time can easily be applied here. (I've republished my old comments about that case. Lucky you, eh? Just look in the March 2006 folder):

• They argued that uniforms are a way to promote a sense of belonging, so she should adhere to the uniform rules. Ditto here.
• They argued that she wasn't discriminated against because she could wear other forms of Islamic attire. This woman can't be discriminated against because she's actually allowed to wear a cross.
• They argued that the girl wasn't discriminated against because she could enrol in another school that allows a jilbab. So this woman can't be discriminated against as she can get a job somewhere else that allows visible crosses.
• They argued that the girl was to be blamed for the people lining up to defend her and the money it would cost, whereas this woman is feted for the people lining up behind her, and no mention is made of how she'll finance her prosecution.
• They argued that a rule in favour of the girl would have been a disaster, as schools would not be able to have uniform rules anymore. Strangely, the argument that airlines will not be able to choose a uniform for their staff is absent here.
• They argued that if the girl was allowed to wear the jilbab, other girls might be pressured into wearing it too. Again, we have no argument that women will be pressured to wear visible crosses.
  

Most of these arguments can also apply to the girls and their chastity rings. Especially the last one.

Now, I argued that Shabina Begum should be allowed to wear a jilbab, but I don't necessarily argue that Nadia Ewedia should be allowed to wear a visible cross, so am I being as one-sided and contradictory as the Mail? Obviously, I'm going to say no, aren't I? But here's why.

Nadia Ewedia hasn't been told not to wear a cross because it is a cross, but because it is visible jewellery. Shabina Begum was told not to wear a jilbab because it was a jilbab. There were supposedly other forms of Islamic dress that she could have worn (this isn't strictly true though. The shalwar kameez, which she would have been allowed to wear is not specifically Islamic dress), but this specific one was against the rules.

I am not sure that Kara are allowed to be worn visibly by BA or the school stopping chastitiy rings, but even if they are, to the Sikhs who wear them (which is the majority), to wear one is a required part of being a Sikh. To say that employees or pupils are not allowed to wear one is discriminating against these people.

For Muslims who wear the jilbab, this is a required part of their faith, backed up by passages in the Qu'ran and Hadith. From Wikipedia:

Some modern Islamists insist that the contemporary jilbab and the garment described in the Qur'an and the hadith are exactly the same, and that the Qur'an therefore requires the believer to wear these garments.

To say that pupils at a school are not allowed to wear one, you are specifically discriminating aginst these Muslims. Especially if other forms of Islamic dress are allowed, and especially if those forms of dress are not specifically Islamic.

While Christians might like to express their faith by wearing a cross, or express their vow of chastity by wearing a ring, there is no part of Christian doctrine to say they must. To say employees or pupils can't wear one is not discriminatory in the same way. But the important thing is that crosses are allowed to be worn by BA, just not visibly. Whether or not Muslims and sikhs are allowed to wear turbans or scarves is irrelevant because neither are actually items of jewellery.

I don't actually give a stuff either way if Miss Ewedia is allowed to wear her cross visibly. The important thing is that this paper is showing its hypocritical treatment of Christians and Muslims, and that its arguments, both in favour of Miss Ewedia and against Miss Begum, are appalingly bad and designed only to reinforce its prejudices and those of its readers.

Odd one out?

I find myself a little bit scared of the current mood in the press and in government, if I'm honest. It seems to be open season on Muslims, with stories like the godawful Melanie Phillips column in 'Like shooting swivel-eyed fish in a barrel' appearing all over the place. Crimes blamed on Muslims even though they're not comitted by Muslims. Ignorant pronouncements about attire worn by a teeny tiny minority of Muslim women popping up all over the place, with even the Prime Minister joining in saying someone shuld lose their job for dressing a certain way. First of all, I wonder what our attention is being diverted from with all this. But secondly, I'm scared that so few people seem to recognise the naked and irrational hatred that sits behind the 'debate'.

So, we clearly need a stupid song to lead into the taking apart of one of these stories from our favourite reactionary rag.

Two of these kids are playing together
Two of these kids are kind of the same
But one of these kids is doing her own thing
Now it's time to play our game
It's time to play our ga-haaame!

I'm going to mention three objects and you have to pick the odd one out? Ready? Here goes.

• Ring
• Scarf
• Bracelet

That's right! It's the scarf as it's not a piece of jewellery! But this simple fact seems to have eluded those fine upstanding journalists of integrity at the Mail in the article, 'School bans Christian chastity ring but allows Muslim and Sikh symbols'. From the article:

Millais School in West Sussex has banned the silver 'purity rings', arguing that they fall foul of the school's no-jewellery policy, which only allows pupils to wear simple single stud earrings.

But the school has been accused of double standards as it allows Muslim pupils to wear headscarves and Sikh pupils kara bracelets as a means of religious expression.

Headscarves are not jewellery. End of. So why are they included in the article? Because if they weren't, there'd be no way to attack Muslims with this drivel.

And drivel it is. See, no Christian denomination or sect of any kind include the wearing of a chastity ring as a requirement. But from the Wikipedia article on Kara:

The Sikhs were commanded by Guru Gobind Singh at the Baisakhi Amrit Sanchar in 1699 to wear a steel slave bangle called a Kara at all times. This was one of five articles of faith, collectively called Kakars that form the external visible symbols to clearly and outwardly display ones commitment and dedication to the order (Hukam) of the tenth master and become a member of Khalsa.

There's your difference right there. BZZZT! NEXT!

The worrying thing is, that's the only mention of the Kara or Sikhs, but it's not the only mention of Muslim headscarves, even though they're not bloody jewellery. We get:

Rev Brown, 78, a retired Church of England vicar said: 'The ban is totally discriminatory, compared with the way Muslim girls in that school are treated, they are allowed to wear head scarves, symbolising their faith.

Rev Brown is full of crap, for the reasons outlined above. School rules say no jewellery, scarves are not jewellery so they're not against the rules. Also, I wonder whether the guy ever even knew that Kara bracelets were allowed or was even bothered. But without mentioning Kara bracelets, the difference between scarves and ring would be too obvious.

I do find the inclusion of Sikhs in this article, and in their other article about the BA cross lady worrying. As well as Melanie Phillips' extra bonus inclusion of Hindus in her column. In including Sikhs and Hindus along with Muslims, who they've long demonised, the Mail are now widening their outrage net to include more brown people. Here, we can see their 'it's not racist because Islam is a religion and not a race' start to slip.

Scary times.