“Being in denial has much in common with living a lie. The distorted picture in your mind becomes ever more detached from reality as it is challenged, to the extent that the two eventually bear no resemblance at all. That’s an apt description of the political and media reaction to the July bombings. Instead of directing the heat at politicians whose neo-colonial and Islamophobic motives led Britain into a quagmire in Iraq, the chattering classes have been digging the nation into an ever bigger hole by pointing the finger at its Muslim minority. Notwithstanding fitful spurts of interest in foreign policy, ‘the problem with Islam’ has become the dominant narrative.”

Faisal Bodi in the Independent, 23 August 2005

Excellent post by Richard Seymour on Islamophobia in general and the Panorama programme in particular.

Lenin’s Tomb, 23 August 2005

Flooded by a torrent of support e-mails and messages from Muslims and non-Muslims, Britain’s biggest Muslim group demanded the BBC Tuesday, August 23, investigate and apologize for a “dishonest” piece of journalism made by the broadcaster on the respectable Muslim organization.

“Today, we sent a formal letter to the BBC with a point-by-point response to the Panorama program, demanding an investigation into the dishonest and distorted piece of journalism and a clear apology,” Inayat Bunglawala, media officer of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), told IslamOnline.net by telephone. “It is a calm and factual letter about the distortions in Panorama,” he added. “The BBC must apologize not only to the MCB but to all British Muslims.”

The program was broadcast Sunday night, August 21, entitled “A Question Of Leadership.” It suggested the MCB is “in denial” about extremist views among its members. The BBC program quoted former MCB member Mehboob Kantharia as saying the MCB was unwilling to accept the reality of the situation and therefore unable to deal with the issue in hand. But when contacted by the MCB, Kantharia said his statements were taken out of context.

“We have spoken with Mr. Kantharia, who asserted to us that he did not mention the MCB by name but his remarks were edited by the BBC to create suspicions about the MCB,” Bunglawala told IOL.

Earlier, MCB Secretary General Sir Iqbal Sacranie said in a statement e-mailed to IOL that the program was “deeply unfair”. He said the program used “deliberately garbled quotes in an attempt to malign the Muslim Council of Britain and with the barely concealed goal of drawing British Muslims away from being inspired in their political beliefs and actions by the faith of Islam.”

After Sunday’s broadcast, the MCB has received a torrent of support e-mails and messages from across the UK, denouncing the program for tarnishing its image, Bunglawala said.

“It has the opposite effect to what the Panorama team and the pro-Israeli lobby intended to do,” he said. “Instead of dividing British Muslims, it brought about an unprecedented unity and even Muslim organizations that have been critical of the MCB in the past like Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Human Rights Commission have issued statements of support on their Web sites.”

Islam Online, 23 August 2005

For the MCB’s letter to the BBC, see (pdf) here.

IHRC is deeply concerned at Last night’s Panorama, “A Question of Leadership”. A combination of factual errors, distortions, broad stereotypes and glaring inaccuracies shown up in the programme questions the integrity of the programme makers.

A transcript of the programme can be found at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4171950.stm

Whilst purporting to be an examination of the Muslim Council of Britain, the programme called into question several widely held Muslim beliefs and in particular demonised any aspiration of Muslims in whatever form if based on their religious faith. This extended from an aspiration for shariah to the wearing of jilbaab at school and integration of Muslims into mainstream society.

IHRC alert, 22 August 2005

Britain’s most powerful Islamic body is “in denial” about the prevalence of extreme views among its members, one of its founders has told the BBC. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) pledged to tackle extremism “head on” after the 7 July attacks in London. But in a BBC Panorama special, Mehbood [sic] Kantharia and other prominent British Muslims question the MCB’s commitment to meeting this challenge.

The MCB has branded the programme “deeply unfair” and a “witch-hunt”. Secretary general Sir Iqbal Sacranie said Panorama had used “deliberately garbled quotes in an attempt to malign the Muslim Council of Britain”. He said it had “the barely concealed goal of drawing British Muslims away from being inspired in their political beliefs and actions by the faith of Islam”.

“It is unfortunate that just when Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims are beginning to make progress in terms of their political participation in the mainstream, there are those who are purposefully trying to sabotage that process,” he added.

BBC News, 21 August 2005