The BBC reaches a new low by asserting that those who sacrificed their lives rather than renounce their faith were essentially the same as those who murder innocents and are killed in the process. From the incomparable Melanie Phillips, with thanks to all who sent this in:
I was watching Boris Johnson's BBC2 TV programme The Dream of Rome this evening, marvelling at his re-invention in yet another new guise as telly presenter, when I nearly fell out of my armchair having heard him say that the Christians who martyred themselves for their faith under the Romans were the equivalent of modern Islamic suicide bombers. What astounding moral illiteracy. The Christians were real martyrs; that is, they were killed, or sometimes actively sought their own killing, for their faith. The Islamic suicide bombers are mass murderers; they kill others for their faith. The Islamic suicide bombers use their bodies as lethal weapons to do mass murder. That is not martyrdom but homicide.Shouldn't the Tories' higher education spokesman know the difference?
Maybe they just don't want their hapless victims to know it.
I am absolutely speechless. I know moral relativism has no bounds but equating sacrifice with murder. Victoomhood with opression. I honestly think that these pinkos and their left leaning ideology are worse than the Islamofascists.
I would be grateful for any information that fellow readers might care to provide on this clown Boris Johnson.
What does he do? Politics or journalism?
Anthony:
"Shouldn't the Tories' higher education spokesman know the difference?"
Would seem that Mr. Johnson is a politico, but then the notion of an objective media is a rather passe one in the post-Robert Fisk era, isn't it?
I saw that programme. It was pretty good up until the part where he said that. I have a lot of time for Boris generally. He is usually fairly robust when it comes to matters Islamic, and anyone who hates the EU as much as he clearly does can't be all bad. However, this time he has really lost the plot. The point he was trying to make was that the Romans could not understand how Christians could voluntarily embrace death rather than swear an oath of loyalty to the emperor. But to compare these genuine martyrs with suicide murderers is quite wrong.
Boris is also confused about Turkey. His normally logical mind managed to think that Turkey shows that a country can be Muslim and secular - "look at Ataturk, what a reformer". But this is confused thinking. Ataturk constrained and suppressed Islam, which is how Turkey got to be more modern and secular than other Muslim countries. It could revert, like a dog to its vomit, at any time.
He is the great-grandson of the last interior minister of the Imperial Turkish government, which may explain his sentimental attitude.
isnt it about time that this bombastic, attention-seeking public-schoolboy-who-never-grew-up extreme right-wing basket case had his stupid mouth firmly closed, and got booted out of public life?
first his lunatic assertions about liverpudlians, and now this. at least howard dealt with him in a reasonably firm way. i cannot imagine the present blairite leadership of the tories doing anything substantial
With respect to Melanie Philips, I think she got Boris wrong. He was trying to explain the sheer incomprehension with which the pre-Christian Romans regarded the Christians' willingness to endure martyrdom for their faith instead of even making a token, but life saving, acknowledgement of the Roman deities. He used the analogy of our own incomprehension of Islamic suicide bombers - but crucially he then added the qualification that of course the early Christians didn't seek to perpetrate mass murder.
For those who don't know, Boris Johnson is one of the more colourful Conservative MPs at Westminster. He writes for the Daily Telegraph and was until recently editor of the Spectator; his journalism is perceptive and amusing, though he wears his considerable learning lightly. He often espouses views which lie outside the conservative mainstream, but he's no moral idiot.
(By the way, I'm not being paid to write this! Just don't want to see someone written off unfairly as a dhimmi...)
You can just hear those early Christian martyers now: "Death to all lions!" as they charged with belts of grass, ready to bloat them up with gas-
...yyyyyeah.
first his lunatic assertions about liverpudlians
No, he was spot on about the "mawkish sentimentality" of those Liverpuddlians who wept and wailed over Ken Bigley, someone they didn't even know. As an ex-near-Mancunian, I approve of Scouse-bashing - of the verbal kind.
Despite his buffoonish manner and strawberry blond mop, Boris is extremely intelligent. The Spectator, which he edited until recently, flourished with him in charge.
Mchedgehog - I agree, Mel P has rather taken Boris' remarks out of context. But his remarks were silly.
There is no theologically sanctioned tradition in Christianity of blasting innocent civilians to smithereens. Mr. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is the Shadow Minister for Higher Education and should know better than comparing Christian martyrs to maniacal suicide bombers. Maybe his ancestry got in the way of his good sense. According to Wikipedia he is the great-grandson of the last interior minister of the Turkish Caliphate, Ali Kemal. To the BBC I could add that this is an excellent way of loosing your credibility, both as an information provider and, by extension, as a nation.
interested - he said a good deal more than pass comment on the ken bigley business
Yes, much of it true.
Leave Borris alone. He's a great British institution . A bit of a bumbling twit, but beneath the bafoon-like exterior there is a sharp whit about him.
He's heavily involved in The Spectator and I heard him say the other day, on the radio, that his magazine tried to publish the cartoons months ago, just after they went live in Denmark. He said that they were unable to secure publishing rights, otherwise they would have gone ahead with it. I got the impression from listening to that interview that he fully understood the menace that is Islam.
God have mercy on us....when a society is too stupid to believe in self defense...
Allah T'alah knows best
God have mercy on us....when a society is too stupid to believe in self defense...
Posted by: Carolyn2 at February 7, 2006 10:04 AM
Amen to that! I know I'm an outsider looking in, but the general attitude in Britain, or rather the impression I get from what I see and read, is truly astonishing to me. Blair supported the war in Iraq, and I find it difficult to believe that he was coerced by Bush or anyone else. Yet he behaves like a man who would sell out his own country to Islam, and for what? What does he get in return for his unctuous dhimmitude? His behavior is paradoxical.
Muslims took to the streets to protest the cartoons, which weren't even published in Britain, making threats that are unbelievable. If those "protesters" threatening beheadings, murder, suicide bombings, and world domination weren't guilty of violating the hate speech laws that Blair has been hell-bent to impose on his country, what were they doing? As I said, from my perspective as an outsider, what I see is very disturbing because it appears that muslims are the only British citizens who are not held culpable for inciting hate, and are given free license to express their ubiquitous contempt over any perceived insult. The fact that there is not mass outrage by the "real" British people in response to this egregious double standard simply baffles me.
Perhaps I'm not getting the whole story or seeing the big picture but based upon Blair's fawning attitude toward muslims, and Jack Straw's truckling comments and demeanor, I get the impression that Britain is being held hostage by a diabolical, invisible demon that they are obliged to appease at any cost. Either that or British leaders are resolved to sacrifice Britain at the altar of multiculturalism.
If the BBC is merely an arm of the establishment as some say it is, the official policy on Islam is quite clear. According to the BBC, Islam is beyond reproach. What a pity. I want to believe that this grovelling attitude toward muslims and Islam by British and American leaders is only temporary, a necessary tool to reduce hostilities while troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I can't really buy that, no matter how hard I try.
The television commentator's words seem to be aimed at providing the viewers with a balanced account of Christian martyrdom vis-a-vis Islamic martyrdom.
When weighing the evidence in any matter, however, one weighs against agreed standards. One does not simply heap up evidence on once side or the other until the scales hang evenly. To do so is to thwart judgement. The West is losing its ability to objectively judge in favor of its desire to accommodate.
With "balanced" presentations such as these, truth is left to wither and die.
In times such as those we now live in, a journalist like Boris needs to be extra careful. If he were writing a book, he could afford to be subtle; but not on the "telly".
What to say!!! I am ashamed by these european and relativistc people, it´s disgusting.
Comparing me Saint Valentine for example with these monsters. Horrible!!
First, let us be very clear about one thing: this is not the BBC, this is Boris Johnson. Every British reader here knows the difference. Boris represents himself - only himself, and all of himself - in the round. He does not speak for the BBC. The BBC gave him a certain amount of time to produce a program, as they would to many other "star" authors or writers or showmen from Peter Acroyd to Lord Winton to Paul Merton. What they say is not, except in a very, very general way, expressive of a BBC "line"; only to the extent that the BBC would not give a mike in the same way to discredited extremists such as John Pilger or Nick Griffin. But Robert is quite wrong in ascribing Boris' opinions to the BBC, any more than a New York Times guest op-ed piece reflects the Times' views.
That being said, I would say that Melanie Phillips has exaggerated the significance of this - as she does tend to do. (Anybody here ever read her moralistic rants against the National Lottery? To judge by her tone, we were all about to be beggared by destructive addiction to gambling one pound a week.) I speak as a Catholic, and certainly do not appreciate aspersions on the great martyrs of our Church. But what comes across to me in Johnson is the total, utter, complete failure of the British middle and upper classes to understand religious feeling, its place in the world, its impact on the individual. The British ruling classes have spent decades trying to uproot religious feeling from their country; they fear it as a disease, and dislike it as a failure in taste and gentlemanly balance. I have no doubt that Boris sees the difference between martyrs and murderers; the point to him is rather that it would never occur to him to dedicate his life, or give it up, for anything - he would regard that sort of behaviour as unbalanced and incomprehensible. His sympathies would be with the philosopher Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, whose reign witnessed some of the most savage persecutions, and who reacted to the heroism of the martyrs with nothing but distaste: they were, he said, just show-offs.
Stuck on stupid!
An ex-CEO of the BBC even complained that you can't mention the pervert-prophet without adding the "pbuh" on the beep.
I am listening to Fleming Rose, the editor of the Jyllands Posten while I am typing this, on FOX NEWS TV in Guam, Micronesia.
He apologizes and sez:
'We treat Muslims just like everybody else, they are part of Denmark and the Danish people, not outsiders, and we apologize etc. etc.'
Little does he know! "Part of Denmark?" hardly.
They are infil-traitors, the fifth column behind enemy lines. They are our mortal enemies and the only answer to their assault on us is internment and deportations.
Lets get started!
Fake history. Couldn't operate a decent Jihad without it.
DISLOYAL HARVARD DISLOYAL GEORGETOWN DISLOYAL UMICH DISLOYAL USC
Maybe Oxford and Cambridge could do a cultural exchange with Harvard and Georgetown. They could bring in Victor Davis Hanson from Stanford to deliver a lecture on Unicorns. I anxiously await C-Span's reverential coverage of this august event.
Boris Johnson - Contact Details
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I am totally with mchedgehog on this issue. How sad it is to see so many people going by what Melanie Phillips said on her non-interactive website where not one of us can come back to her....
However, you are all very welcome to come over to boris-johnson.com where a good and open discussion is to be had!
Melissa @ Boris Johnson MP's Office
BBC your tax money supporting this crap! You Brits need a tea party of your own!!
"Perhaps I'm not getting the whole story or seeing the big picture but based upon Blair's fawning attitude toward muslims, and Jack Straw's truckling comments and demeanor, I get the impression that Britain is being held hostage by a diabolical, invisible demon that they are obliged to appease at any cost."
SusanP
That is exactly what is happening in the UK. They are proving themselves bigger dhimmis than the French.
INTERESTING RESPONSE - DOES'NT EXACTLY ANSWER THE QUESTION THOUGH
yes, we saw that - taken from Melanie Phillips's website - solely her
impression and views on a site where no-one can respond ... is that
democracy?....
Melissa
for Boris Johnson MP
-----Original Message-----
From: PK
Sent: 07 February 2006 21:49
To: JOHNSON, Boris
Subject: Please learn
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/010067.php
Boris please learn