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Sunday, July 24, 2005

Guardian makes non-nonsensical decision

They have kicked out Dilpazier Aslam:

On Monday July 18 Aslam was advised that the Guardian considered that Hizb ut-Tahrir had promoted violence and anti-semitic material on its website and that membership of the organisation was not compatible with being a Guardian trainee.

The following day Aslam told the editor, Alan Rusbridger, that he was not willing to leave Hizb ut-Tahrir and that, while he personally repudiated anti-semitism, he did not consider the website material to be promoting violence or to be anti-semitic.

The matter was subsequently treated under the paper's grievance and disciplinary procedure. Aslam was invited to a meeting with GNL's chief executive, Carolyn McCall, at which he repeated his refusal to leave the organisation or repudiate its material.

So M(r)s. McCall did the right thing. She may have to do it again very soon, if this article from the Guardian's media section is anything to go by:

The episode was a striking illustration of the way that blogs and bloggers can heat up the temperature and seek to settle scores - as well as raise legitimate concerns about journalism and transparency - when something awful happens in the streets of London.

Er, such as printing an article in which you excuse the murder of 56 Britons as a legitimate act of Muslims 'rocking the boat'?

You know, about ten years ago, I participated in anti-racism demonstrations. At that time, the main promoters of European bigotry were still right-wingers. When I went out to demonstrate against the cowardly attacks on Turkish women in the German city of Solingen, the left was there. The right wasn't, or not as much as it could have been. Helmut Kohl even denied attending their funeral.

Where is the left now? Queen Beatrix has still not met with the parents of the murdered Theo van Gogh. Prime minister Balkenende has, quite correctly, consoled the victims of the mosque arsonist attacks in the wake of Van Gogh's murder, yet failed to do the same for the churches that got torched in the same period. And as far as the Guardian is concerned: don't tell me that excusing murderers, or excusing those who excuse them, doesn't amount to precisely that which you claim others are guilty of: hatred, pure and simple.

The left has become everything they claim the right is: intolerant to ideas others than theirs, intellectualy conservative, and full of irrational anger.

(Incidentally, see the article below for more examples of the Guardian trying to turn things upside down.)

(Thanks to Filtrat for pointing me to Harry's Place.)

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Hi Arjan,
Couldn't find your email link. Your title
"Guardian makes sensical decision" should, I think,
use the word "sensible" vice "sensical". Things can be non-sensical but I am unable to find a definition for just the latter.

Bear in mind I could be completely wrong about this,
as English is my second language, after American. ;-)

Tim

Cousin (ip:63.151.152.105) 24 July 2005 - 12:57 uur


Yeah, I know it's a neologism. It was intended to be a pun. Turns out it's a bad one ;-)

Email addresses can be found in the left column of this site. My MSN address is there too. Don't use the addresses you get when you click on them (those are fake to annoy spammers), but copy them manually.

Arjan Dasselaar (ip:82.161.93.35) 24 July 2005 - 13:01 uur


Nah, Arjan, feel free to mangle the language. We do it all the time just to watch the Brits go nuts. American English is closer to Dutch (& Frisian even more) than is British English. We speak a dialect that branched off in the 17th century, about the time you guys were having a hell of a war. I heard a couple of Dutch tourists talking on the subway here, and it was astonishing: I could hear them plainly, and it sounded like English, but I couldn't understand a single word.

Back to the topic:
It's amazing how many current right-wing looney-tunes (myself included) are former leftists. Even more amazing is how this fascist Aslam seemed to fit in so seamlessly with the currently orthodox leftists at the Guardian. They knew who he is, and what he represents, but it wasn't a problem until someone called them on it. The left seems to see the Molotov / von Ribbentrop pact as a great achievement, even 50 years after Stalin's unlamented death. I'm sure they would sign a similar pact with Osama bin Laden without the slightest hesitation.

Utterly disgusting. The left should declare moral bankruptcy and go out of business, selling those damned Che shirts at 2¢ on the dollar.

Mitch (ip:4.23.180.2) 24 July 2005 - 6:07 uur


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