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July 12, 2005
The Memory Hole
In the aftermath of the London bombings, the BBC did something amazing: it called the perpetrators terrorists. Without even using scare quotes. Given that the perpetrators of such attacks in the past - with the same background, ideology, methods and targets - have been called militants, gunmen, fighters and even activists by the BBC, this is nothing short of stunning. But that was when the targets were in Israel. Of course, once the immediate reaction of being targeted wore off, the BBC has been pushing 'terrorist' down the memory hole again.
Thing is, Europe has a problem: they are beginning to approach the point in some countries where the Muslim immigrant minority is large, unassimilated and radicalized, and it's a good bet that Europe could be in Israel's position (interleaved large radicalized Muslim population willing to kill and die randomly while posturing as victims) within a decade or so - and the position is actually worse, because Europe is not as segregated as Israel and the territories are. Will they simply wall off the European cities and evacuate the non-Muslims from them?
As long as this reality continues to be denied and minimized, the odds increase that Europe will slip into disaster. And the BBC, Reuters, AFP, the European Left and pretty much all of the involved governments seem content to travel that path, hoping that the obvious can be wished out of existence, that the lessons of history are irrelevent because history has truly ended, and that at least if they keep their heads down and feed the crocodile, it won't be they themselves targeted by the terrorists...yet.
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» When Terror Isn't Terror from UNCoRRELATED
Something very unusual happened last week. The BBC, the left-wing Guardian and Reuters actually called the perpetrators of the London bombings "terrorists". The bombers weren't insurgents, militants, guerrillas, activists or fighters--they were simply ... [Read More]
Tracked on July 12, 2005 12:20 PM
Comments
Funny, I was just reading the Telegraph piece on this story while I was waiting for this page to load and was going to blog about it.
Anyway, my favorite bit was this:
"The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments".
Consequently, "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and its use should be "avoided", the guidelines say."
It seems the BBC has failed to notice that its credibility has already been undermined out of existence, for a whole host of reasons, not least of which is failing to call terrorists, terrorists.
BBC is notorious for using (or sometimes omitting) words that make emotional value judgements, whether it be in its rampant anti-American, anti-British Iraq coverage or its anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian Middle East coverage. I guess it's okay to make those value judgements, just don't judge the terrorists, it may hurt their feelings.
And claiming the word "terrorist" is a barrier, not an aid, to understanding? Is the word "bomber" more of an aid to understanding? I say it saps the "understanding" of what happened out of the story. How do we understand events when we neuter the words describing them?
Posted by: Brian at July 12, 2005 12:49 PM