Today's news refered to Irish terrorists yet on previous occasions they have refered to Islamic militants.
Does anybody else think this is a double standard?
(I have no sympathy for either group by the way)
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Its due to the fact that the previous lot of terrorists in Ireland were called militants.
Now the militants are sharing power, they need to differentiate themselves from the new lot.
And terrorists sounds a lot more worse then militants, doesn't it.
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I am a freedom fighter
You are a militant
He is a terrorist.
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Whilst i dislike much of the BBC's and others biased reporting i don't see a problem with this.
The vast majority of freedom fighters/terrorists/militants in the fight to free Ireland would be Irish.
Islamic freedom fighters/terrorists/miltants are drawn from many nations.
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I don't think this is necessarily a double standard or 'PC gawn mad'. The usage might depend on the context and although a terrorist might always be militant a militant is not necessarily a terrorist - I'm happy to be described as militant on the subject of cycling safety!!
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One man's militant is another man's bandit. Although far from blameless the beeb isn't too bad by world standards. English-speaking ones anyway.
The US media are spectacular performers in this sort of villainy. I was in California when the CIA succeeded in toppling the elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende. The radio news used to make me want to puke.
Later, Colonel Oliver North wept crocodile tears in support of what he called 'freedom fighters' attempting to overthrow the elected Sandinist government in Nicaragua. Bunch of Cuban and other Latino criminals and right-wing murderers armed to the teeth and sent down there by the US government to make the country ungovernable.
Oliver North deserved to be shot. And he wasn't the only one.
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The term that really makes my blood boil when referring to Islamic terrorism is "radicalise". Such an inadequate, ordinary word for the process of turning a law abiding person into a bloodthirsty terrorist. Also, a word that you simply never heard pre 9/11.
Similarly, Islamic terrorists are often referred to as "Radical Islamic Militants".
If someone has genuinely been persuaded to ditch a hitherto law abiding life to blow people up, they haven't been "radicalised". They've been brainwashed.
Why does the media pussyfoot around these people?
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>> Why does the media pussyfoot around these people?
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Chicken or egg?
If western powers and their lap dogs didn't bully their way round the world inflicting their versions of 'democracy' on countries quite capable of ruling themselves would this problem be as it is now.
I have no allegiance with anything here, many hundreds of thousands of innocent loved ones killed deliberately and as collateral damage on all sides.
I've said this before if a hostile kills my loved ones then he'll create the worst kind of enemy, one who cares for nothing except revenge.
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>> Why does the media pussyfoot around these people?
Because the BBC has to try and appear completely impartial. Around the world the BBC world news is possibly the nearest thing to the truth the local populace will ever see and hear. So much so, many countries try and ban it.
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Islam is particularly difficult for western media. It isn't a church, with a hierarchy that sets the rules and theological standards. Its traditions range from something quite comfortable and recognisable, a bit like the C of E, to demented insurgency led by crazed and sometimes deeply evil visionaries.
The problem for media organisations isn't condemning the out-and-out terrorists and suicide bombers. It is criticising those moderate Muslims who for one reason or another - fear, confusion or visceral sympathy - refuse to distance themselves clearly from the, er, bad guys. This makes the whole issue very slippery. Journalists get irritated and cut corners. It's a balls-up.
Some years ago I was offered the job of reviewing a new edition of an old translation of the Koran. The lit. ed. of the small paper involved seemed worried that the paper might get bombed if I said the wrong thing. It was an interesting job and no one got bombed. There's no need to pussyfoot around. No one except hypocrites will mind if you tell it as you see it. But you have to see it clearly and find out a thing or two first, not just bulldoze in with half-formed opinions. Educated Muslims are infuriated, usually justifiably, by the attitudes they see in our media. Yet the difference between these annoying views and views that can be defended is often very subtle.
As I said, slippery.
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Perhaps what we are seeing the the swing of the pendulum, back in our direction from the time when we invaded their lands, tried to force our religion on them, in an epsiode called The Crusades?
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Deja Vu?
www.cyclechat.net/topic/69678-bbc-double-standards/
Hadn't spotted you in t'other place before.
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>> Deja Vu?
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>> www.cyclechat.net/topic/69678-bbc-double-standards/
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>> Hadn't spotted you in t'other place before.
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I was just amazed that an organization which I always thought was impartial used two different words to describe two similar sorts of groups.
I suppose it all comes down to the personal opinions of the producers.
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Shock - Horror - I agree with Zero !
"Around the world the BBC world news is possibly the nearest thing to the truth the local populace will ever see and hear. So much so, many countries try and ban it."
Yes...and the numbskulls in our new government want to abandon the BBC World Service for the cost of what....prawn sandwiches and spring water at committee meetings.
Mad.
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>> Today's news refered to Irish terrorists yet on previous occasions they have refered to Islamic
>> militants.
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>> Does anybody else think this is a double standard?
No, I think it's just quibbling about the actual word used. I wouldn't know a terrorist from a militant. What's the difference?
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A militant may do no more than hand out leaflets, go on demos and make fiery speeches when stoned in the evening, although real ones for real causes put in a lot of unpaid, devoted work. You could say that party campaigners at election time are part-time militants. Some indeed are the real thing.
A terrorist will do worse things than those. It's a burned-boats, overcentre move to commit crimes and atrocities in the hope of changing the state in some desired direction, doing away with it or whatever. Most decent people understand militancy but abhor terrorism.
Of course armed resistance to an external enemy or its proxy local forces may be portrayed as terrorism by media with an axe to grind. Even if terrorism isn't involved. It's a wicked world we live in.
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In Islam you can get stoned, commit adultery and then get stoned again. A sort of buy one get one free!
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I suppose I should add that government or party rentamobs in countries like Iran, Iraq and Pakistan, to name a very few (the US also springs to mind in a small way) are sometimes carelessly described by the British media as consisting of militants. For all their clamour they are often nothing of the sort but idlers with nothing better to do assembled by the secret police or party heavies with wads of cash. The ostensibly furious banner-waving crowds outside the US embassy or whatever have no interest in or understanding of the issues they are supposed to be addressing.
(A bit like Perky Penguin, he added crossly).
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 25 Sep 10 at 17:03
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Actually, sorry Perky Penguin, I didn't remember your reference to the crusades which was much more to the point than the stoned joke. The crusades are a very sore point with all Muslims and they are constantly referred to by silly carp-stirring imams.
George W Bush used the word in a speech shortly after the World Trade Center attack. No sane person could believe that he wanted or had been allowed to say it. It was just about the most stupid and indefensible utterance one could imagine. Certainly did immeasurable harm.
Despicable damn chimp.
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I support Portsmouth Football Club.
Staggeringly popular in the middle east.
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AM - my apologies! I am at work, very bored and some of my posts are more from the hip than the brain, as you can see!
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Whilst on the subject of the Irish troubles.
Recently spent a weeks holiday in deepest Southern Ireland. A conversation with a local about the troubles and unification resulted him telling me that they would not want unification with Northern Ireland as its a money pit.
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>> they would not want unification with Northern Ireland as its a money pit.
... and nest of mad rattlesnakes Fc? Perhaps money pit is bad enough...
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>> they would not want unification with Northern Ireland as its a money pit.
Ha! Ask the Egyptians if they would like Gaza back! No way - they are blockading it even more than the Israelis.
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BBC - double standards? - Zero
