Leading Nothing
Here it is again. Yet again. The BBC declaring the head of the MCB a ‘leading Muslim’. But what makes him a leading Muslim, who says he’s a leading Muslim? The MCB is a self-appointed, very reactionary ‘council’ that gets treated and deferred to as if it represented all UK Muslims in some way, but it doesn’t. It’s very annoying and unhelpful and lazy and obscurantist that the BBC keeps pretending it does, keeps handing it a giant megaphone by rushing to ask its opinion every ten minutes and by refraining from asking non-MCB Muslims and people of Muslim background for their opinion at the same rate. Why does the BBC do that? Why doesn’t it stop doing that? People keep complaining about it, so why doesn’t the BBC pay attention and do better? Surely it’s not that difficult to figure out! The MCB is not elected, not representative, and not the only possible strand of opinion that could be consulted, so why does the BBC treat it as if it were some sort of official body? Just because it’s too much trouble to spin the Rolodex, or what?
Munira Mirza says some good things.
‘I have forsaken everything for what I believe in. Your democratically elected governments continue to perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world.’ So spoke Mohammad Siddique Khan, the 30-year old ringleader of the London bombings, in a video message he recorded before his death…the audacity of Khan’s homemade video diary is breathtaking. First he whines to the viewer that he has sacrificed a lot for his cause, and then he claims to speak on behalf of all Muslims everywhere.
That’s the work all this community-speak does, I think: it hammers home the idea that there is such a thing as ‘the Muslim community’ and that it thinks and feels as one. It’s a small step to decide that that one is best represented by grievance-frotting narcissistic young men, that their worked-up rage about ‘their people’ is the truly authentic One that the ‘Muslim community’ thinks as.
What we see in these videos are not soldiers in a war, but self-righteous young men who believe that their own moral certainty absolves them of the need to explain themselves properly. Nobody elected Khan or Tanweer…Obviously, Khan or Tanweer did not show much interest in trying to win people over to their worldview – they thought that ‘democratically elected governments’ had less claim to act on behalf of people than they did. Khan and Tanweer took a remarkably narcissistic approach to politics, which short-circuited the need actually to engage with the people they claimed to speak for. Yet since 7/7, and straight away following the release of Tanweer’s video yesterday, journalists, politicians and so-called Muslim community leaders have all been duped into taking seriously these loners’ claims to be the voice of ‘the ummah’ and angry Muslims all around the world.
In much the way many journalists and politicians last fall took the rioters in the banlieues weirdly seriously as ardently political revolutionaries with rational grievances, blithely ignoring the obvious possibility that they were just testosterone-addled young males tearing things up.
Khan and Tanweer had no legitimate claim to speak on behalf of Muslims. Their connection to victims abroad was in their minds, created out of a desire to be part of something global. But in a world where any old hack can be called a ‘community leader’, it is hardly surprising that they also thought they were qualified to speak as one. What Khan and Tanweer’s terrible action shows is the price of endless, meaningless community consultation, where some people are rewarded political power for merely being the right skin colour or religion.
And it’s not just a Muslim thing, as Munir points out.
Animal rights extremists in Oxford have felt no inhibitions about using violent tactics against local scientists, feeling that their moral outrage against the building of a new laboratory is sufficient justification…We need to challenge the anti-democratic nature of contemporary politics and stop flattering individuals who have no claim to speak for anyone but themselves.
Listen up, Beeb. Seriously. Cut it out.
“Why does the BBC do that?”
To give the most serious guess at an answer of which I’m capable (made, of course, in ignorance of the inner workings of either the Beeb or the MCB), it seems difficult to conceive of the current relationship beginning in any way other than the MCB making themselves known to the Beeb and telling them that they were the people to be consulted whenever any statement on Muslim affairs was wanted. The Beeb probably continues (in spite of surely being aware of the kind of criticism you level at it) not merely because it is Rolodex-lazy but because the MCB has become useful shorthand, saving them the explanation of why the person they might choose instead is relevant. In a sense, then, yes, laziness, but of a different kind. Are these good reasons? I think not, but I fear they are plausible ones.
Yeah, but the trouble is, they’re such bad reasons that you would think by now they would start to think better of it. I mean the complaint is clearly widespread, including among Muslims, and it’s not as if there is any shortage of other people to talk to. So in a way the obvious reasons aren’t entirely plausible merely because they seem so lame. I really do find it puzzling. For one thing I wonder why it doesn’t bother their journalistic conscience. You know? I would think they would want to do something a little more energetic and probing and above all non-stale. I would think they would be sick to death of the MCB. They have to talk to Tony Blair and David Cameron a lot, obviously, but they don’t have to talk to the MCB. You’d think they’d want to find out something new and more interesting.
Well, I could even imagine a scenario in which a BBC journalist not entirely devoid of conscience realises that there are people of greater relevance than the MCB to talk to, but then thinks of the large public the BBC has already conditioned and thinks “they’re going to want to know what the MCB thinks about it.” But for all I know, maybe there exists an editorial guideline mandating consulting the MCB on stories with a certain content. That, surely, is something the BBC ought to be obligated to answer if put to it as a direct question. In any case, if you think about it realistically, the BBC has consulted and quoted the MCB so often that it is inconceivable there isn’t a kind of hotline in existence, at least between certain individuals on both sides. It may not necessarily be a case, then, of “conscience be damned,” but more one of “what Bunglawala said to me [when we discussed it, as we invariably do] was so juicy, there’s no way I can omit it from the piece.” None of the above is meant as justification, on the contrary; I’m postulating reasons, however bad, for why it is that way in practice.
You’re closest Ophelia with your Rolodex comment. If you watch widely you’ll notice that it’s not just the MCB; the BBC and indeed most news outlets have a shortlist of ‘experts’ they call on with the topics alongside their names.
You could call it laziness but think about it. You’ve got an item to cover, the deadline is ten minutes away and you need a comment. There simply isn’t time to go through the cuttings files and phone directories, especially when, as Stewart suggests, you’ve got someone who says ‘I’m always available, you can always call me, I’ll always give you a soundbite’.
That’s just the way it works.
Ophelia, thanks for linking to Munira Mirza’s article. A refreshing contrast to Karen Armstrong’s colluding with Muslim victimhood in the Guardian:
“When they see their brothers and sisters systematically oppressed and humiliated, some feel as wounded as a Christian who sees the Bible spat upon or the eucharistic host violated.”
It goes without saying that the only systematic oppression Armstrong has in mind is that by the wicked West.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1815769,00.html
With so much coming from the Grauniad’s “Comment is free” department recently, I was interested to come across the longer quote from the founding editor, C.P. Scott, from which it is taken (6 May 1926):
“The newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation, must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free but facts are sacred.”
A sentiment in need of refreshing, isn’t it?
One correction: it seems the date of that quote is 1921, not 1926. Doesn’t make it less valid, though.
From what I’ve read it does seem that the rolodex thing is pretty accurate – a sort of list of people who will comment on certain subjects (mainly on the list because they have commented on similar things before). I remember back in the Thatcher days a bunch of Tory MPs were called ‘rent-a-quote’ MPs because the tabloids solicited their outrage on whatever was the scandal of the day.
However, I think the biggest problem is the notion of ‘journalistic balance’, a splendid idea – in theory. Which means that the journo, especially in ‘impartial’ media like the BBC have to show ‘all sides of the story’, even if some of those ‘sides’ are not of equal worth.
Although, it could – and ought – to be argued that it is in fact the journalist’s job to weigh the relative values of each of those sides in relation to the others, rather than just treating them as all of equal worth.
‘but then thinks of the large public the BBC has already conditioned and thinks “they’re going to want to know what the MCB thinks about it.”‘
Yes, I’m sure they do think something along those lines – or perhaps more like ‘we’re supposed to tell them what the MCB thinks about it’ or ‘they need to know what the MCB thinks about it.’ And that of course is exactly what’s so irritating about it: that failure to take the next step, and think, ‘Wait, do they? Why? Why the MCB in particular?’
‘the BBC and indeed most news outlets have a shortlist of ‘experts’ they call on with the topics alongside their names.’
I know, it’s the same here of course, especially with all those awful talking heads shows. Eric Alterman has written good stuff about this.
‘You’ve got an item to cover, the deadline is ten minutes away and you need a comment.’
Yes…but they do it in think pieces, features, too, which presumably have much more gestation time. They treat the MCB as if it were a branch of the government, is what they do.
Thanks for Armstrong link, Allen, I’ll look at that. Sigh. She means well, but she is soppy sometimes.
‘a sort of list of people who will comment on certain subjects (mainly on the list because they have commented on similar things before).’
Yeh. Michael Frayn mocked that whole process hilariously in one of his early novels, about 1963 I think. A must read.