Someone Doesn’t Get It

Open season on Muslims

The Channel 4 News presenter Fatima Manji has questioned whether the press regulator will ever prohibit hate speech on the grounds of religion after it clearedKelvin MacKenzie over his criticism of her wearing a hijab while reporting on the Nice terror attacks.

In an unsuccessful appeal against the ruling of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), she said its decision was “fundamentally flawed” and legitimised discrimination.

In the appeal, Manji, said she and her family had to take safety precautions after she was “singled out personally by Kelvin MacKenzie because of my religion.”.

Sigh…

The judgement was just fine. It was a refreshing result for free speech – you know, the one where people get to be offensive without getting locked up. Manji is offended. Well, so be it. MacKenzie had every right to express an opinion on the matter – and, frankly, he wasn’t alone in his thoughts. As for Manji, well some of us find her insistence on flouting her religious beliefs somewhat offensive. Why is it that Muslims seem to think that their religion is so damned important that we have to have it thrust in our faces every time we see them? Not least given that the vile hijab is a cultural affectation and not a religious one?

Okay, that’s a rhetorical question, for I know the answer – indeed Manji’s actions and comments give us the answer – no one must dare to criticise her beliefs or her choice to wear the Wahhabi cultural clothing that symbolises everything that is an anathema to civilised western society. So, all in all, Ipso got it right. Manji has no right to be shielded from criticism given that she chose to appear on television screens flaunting her religion all over it, for that is what the hijab is doing here. She made a choice. Therefore, she has to accept that people might criticise. Tough shit. Get over it. And, no, it isn’t hate speech and in a civilised, liberal society such laws wouldn’t exist anyway.

8 Comments

  1. I like the line: “singled out personally by Kelvin MacKenzie because of my religion.”

    She singled herself out by wearing provocative clothing, (or as our BBC friends call it, ‘controversial’).

    Didn’t Channel 4 owe her a ‘duty of care’ by insisting that she wear clothing appropriate to the job? I don’t think newsreaders should even wear poppies, it’s about appearing disinterested.

    • I’m with the French on this one – no outward displays of religion. Keep it to yourself. But Muslims are different… They have to shout their primitive superstition to the world and the world is obliged to respect it. Well, I don’t respect it and it seems MacKenzie doesn’t either.

      • That comes from one of the main aim of the revolution, to create a France that was as one, something that can’t be achieved by permitting an open display of separation.

        • I read a book on France a few years ago, and was shocked to discover that only 19% of the population spoke what would now be called standard (Parisian) French, when the Revolution happened in 1789. The powers that were, set about rectifying that, but still haven’t managed it. Neither have the Italians, Greeks etc. I stayed in a village south of the Loire a few years ago and nobody could understand their local butcher because he still spoke and obscure local dialect, so they just used to point.

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