BBC’s racist Reporting: 'Asians'

Yesterday’s conviction of nine Muslim male residents of Rochdale for the systematic grooming and repeated multiple rape of young English girls has now rightly been covered by the mass media. However, the manner in which this has been done is striking, insofar as the BBC in particular, and even The Daily Telegraph, have decided to describe the perpetrators of these crimes as ‘Asians’, whereas if they were to be accurate they would have described them as ‘Muslims’ or eight Pakistanis and one Afghan, for it is the Muslim identity of these men that is salient in this instance, it being a common denominator in the many other cases of systematic grooming of native English girls by these so-called ‘Asian’ gangs. It was not Hindus in Keighley who carried out the notorious mass grooming of girls in the town; it was not Thais in Blackpool, Sikhs in Blackburn, Chinese in Rotherham, Japanese in Derby, Burmese in Burnley or Vietnamese in Bradford. No. So, what was the identity of the men involved in the serious cases of systematic grooming in all of these towns and cities? Muslim males of predominantly Pakistani background.

Given the clear pattern displayed in these cases, why do the BBC and other media outlets choose to employ the language of race, casting a slur upon all ‘Asians’? It is quite straightforward really: these criminals are described as ‘Asians’ to render any criticism of this specifically Muslim, usually Pakistani phenomenon, ‘racist’. In doing so, the BBC it could be argued, is being ‘racist’. If I were a Sikh or a Hindu, my blood would be boiling with respect to this linguistic usage. 

At least Mohammed Shafiq of the Ramadhan Foundation has had the decency to condemn this type of crime. Today’s Daily Mail states:

The leader of the Ramadhan Foundation has accused Pakistani community elders of 'burying their heads in the sand' on the issue of on-street grooming.

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the group, said police should not let the 'issue of race' stop them from addressing the issue.

The Ramadhan Foundation is a Manchester-based moderate Muslim youth group that works for 'peaceful co-existence and dialogue for all communities'.

Mr Shafiq said: 'There is a significant problem for the British Pakistani community, there is an over-representation amongst recent convictions in the crime of on-street grooming, there should be no silence in addressing the issue of race as this is central to the actions of these criminals.

'They think that white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused without a second thought; it is this sort of behaviour that is bringing shame on our community.

'I urge the police and the councils not to be frightened to address this issue, there is a strong lesson that you cannot ignore race or be over sensitive.'

Mr Shafiq’s intervention is welcome, and he acknowledges that insofar as the perpetrators of these crimes are concerned, the ‘racial’ element comes into play in the selection of their victims: non-Muslim indigenous girls. The Rochdale case led to a protest in the Heywood district of the town in February, which was unfortunately infiltrated by a number of troublemakers who attacked a local takeaway and the police.

Despite the BBC's innate bias and reluctance to identify the ethno-religious specificity of the majority of crimes of this type, an interview with criminologist Mark Williams-Thomas on this evening's BBC News 24 was quite remarkable, for in spite of the interviewer trying to imply otherwise, Williams-Thomas was startlingly and refreshingly forthright in his insistence that this systematic grooming of English girls was carried out in the overwhelming majority of cases by males of Pakistani and Afghan origin. He emphatically reiterated this point several times, much to the discomfiture of his BBC interviewer. Could it be that this dreadful case from the streets of Rochdale will finally help to bring about a sea change, and force, albeit highly reluctantly, official recognition of the reality of this type of crime and its widespread nature? If so, the EDL should be accorded some credit for tirelessly seeking to highlight the issue of organised Muslim paedophilia. 

For the time being however, neither the mass media nor the mainstream political parties are truly willing to allow members of the public to give vent to their thoughts and feelings on this matter, as demonstrated by the fact that the comments facility on Brendan O'Neill's blog piece entitled 'Muslims, 'sex gangs' and white working-class women' in The Daily Telegraph this evening has been switched off. Likewise, whereas it is normally possible to comment upon Ed West's blog postings, his piece entitled 'Why liberals turned a blind eye to the 'grooming' of girls' also featured a disabled comments facility. Real debate about this issue evidently remains off-limits, and for as long as it does so, those who keep this a taboo subject aid the abusers and betray existing and potential victims.