Friday, July 22, 2005

The Guardian - gutless and stupid beyond belief

This article in The Guardian may be the most self-serving piece of journalistic crap that ever I have read. The article purports to explain why a Guardian trainee named Dilpazier Aslam was fired by the newspaper.

First, the newspaper devotes 6 full paragraphs to patting itself on the back for all of the great contributions it makes to Great Britain in general and to the Muslim community in particular. Then it goes on to explain how it was duped by Aslam into giving a job in journalism to a member of the radical Islamist political party, Hizb ut-Tahrir. Hizb ut-Tahrir is legal in Britain but is banned in other countries, including Russia, Germany and Holland and the British National Union of Students has barred Hizb ut-Tahrir from its unions, claiming the group is "responsible for supporting terrorism and publishing material that incites racial hatred".

Apparently neither the Guardian editorial staff nor its personnel department was aware of any of this when hiring the aspiring young Dilpazier Aslam (he's in his 40's). Following the 7/7 attacks in London, the Guardian editorial staff asked Aslam to write a commentary on the events. The editors reviewed his commentary, edited it - that's what editors do - and then it was published in the newspaper. This is the article that he wrote for the Guardian at the request of the Guardian which was edited and then published by the Guardian, and, in my mind, is the position of the Guardian newspaper.

In the article Aslam says that the British should not be shocked at the 7/7 terrorist suicide murders because Fallujah is not forgotten, nor are the 8 times more Iraqi dead than died on 9/11 forgotten, nor is Britain's participation with America in the GWoT forgotten by the "sassier" young Muslims. He did not mention that the vast majority of the Iraqi dead have been murdered by Iraqi and foreign terrorists, like himself, for instance. He says that the 2nd and 3rd generation British Muslims are sassier than their fathers.

After his commentary was published, the Guardian was shocked - shocked! - to be informed by several of its readers about Aslam's membership-in-good-standing in Hizb ut-Tahrir and that furthermore, Aslam was called its middle eastern correspondent by Khalifah.com, the website of Hizb ut-Tahrir. This is INCORRECT. The website is KHILAFAH. com. A search for Khalifah.com gets you one of those crummy search pages and a good dose of spyware. A little joke on the part of the Guardian editors, perhaps. Aslam had written at least 3 articles which were published on Khilafah.com. The Guardian does admit that, "Subsequent to joining the Guardian, Aslam made no secret of his membership of this political party, drawing it to the attention of several colleagues and some senior editors." However, they took no action, except to ask him to comment on the 7/7 bombings.

Now, with the public in an uproar and Aslam refusing to quit and repudiate Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Guardian must, sadly, terminate him from its employ. There is not one word in the Guardian article about why Aslam was not confronted about his membership in an organization that the National Union of Students says supports terrorism and incites racial hatred. There is not one word about why the Commentary senior editors were not made aware of this fact. But saddest of all, there is not one word in the Guardian explanation about erring in publishing such trash on its commentary page in the first place.

After reading the Guardian's explanation of events and then the offensive commentary by Dilpazier Aslam, it becomes apparent that The Guardian has no problem publishing this type of tripe in its newspapers. It is also obvious that the Guardian has no problem with sassy 2nd and 3rd generation Muslims who belong to groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir or write for Khilafah.com. They just all can't be the same person. In other words, according to Guardian standards, you may write for only one terrorist supporting, hate spewing, racist organization at a time. Preferably the Guardian.
The World’s powerful nations are divided in their conferences
but united against you O Muslims.
Khilafah.com homepage
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