Like Esmerelda, I was disappointed with Channel 4's Dispatches programme It Shouldn't Happen to a Muslim. Channel 4, and Dispatches in particular, has produced some incisive documentaries on Islam. This wasn't one of them.
The presenter, Peter Oborne, writes occasionally for The Spectator and the Evening Standard. He is well-meaning but has little understanding of Islam.
One aspect of the programme I agreed with was his dissection of a few "no piggy-bank" stories. As I have argued many times, particularly in my Pajamas Media piece, these stories are often overblown by the tabloids. Some are based on the flimsiest of evidence, or even no evidence at all. These stories mask the true dangers posed by Islam.
Oborne drew a fatuous moral equivalence between "Islamophobia" and anti-Semitism. Look at these headlines, he said to random passers-by: "Jews demand their own laws," "Jews are dangerous". Awful isn't it, but if you substitute "Muslims" for Jews, these are real headlines.
Oborne is the wrong sex to be a dozy bint, so I'll call him a dozy berk. (This is Cockney rhyming slang - think Berkshire hunt.) If you substitute "Jews" for "Muslims" in headlines about terrorism, hostility to the unbeliever and world domination, you get something that makes no sense. Jews do not do any of these things. Jews are not a threat. Islam, and those Muslims who truly follow Islam, are a threat.
Still, even if the wrong conclusions are drawn, it is useful to take a close look at Islam and British attitudes to it. This programme showed the extent of hostility towards Islam among non-Muslims. As Esmerelda pointed out, 51% of those interviewed for a poll believe that the tenets of Islam itself were responsible for the murders of 7 July 2005. Peter Oborne calls this Islamophobia. I call it sense. It is a pity that, because our politicians, church leaders and even judges are so mealy-mouthed about Islam, people's hostility sometimes breaks out in acts of violence and support for the BNP.
There is an online discussion of the programme here.
