Columnist Peter Oborne slams media’s Muslim slurs as ‘un-British’

Peter Oborne

Published: 11 June, 2010
by JOSH LOEB

COLUMNIST Peter Oborne warned that Muslims were being unfairly represented in the media at a conference on Islamophobia on Saturday.

The Highbury-based journalist said his anger at Islamophobia stemmed from patriotism.

He said: “We should stand up for British values and that means examining how society treats Muslims.”

The journalist, who writes for the right-leaning Spectator and Daily Mail, spoke alongside left-wingers including Tony Benn and Islington North Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn at the conference in the Camden Centre, off Euston Road.

“I teased the audience about being on the other side of the barricades from them in, for example, the Cold War,” he said. “But I believe  in dialogue.” 

Mr Oborne, who made a documentary two years ago examining the rise of intolerance against Muslims, told the audience Islamophobia was “un-British”. He added: “One of the greatest things about being British is that we have an enormous sense of fairness and religious tolerance and decency and there’s this tradition of protecting minorities. 

“You are, in the media, able to tell lies about Muslims – to misrepresent them, fabricate stories about them in many ways that shame Britain. 

“There were, for example, those stories about how Muslims had tried to get piggy banks banned because of political correctness – but just imagine if some of those headlines had said ‘Jew’ rather than ‘Muslim’.”

 

Comments

The most discriminated minority in the UK

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 2010-06-12 00:10.

The Daily Mail, Daily Star, The Sun and some of the broadsheets should be ashamed of themselves. They constantly manipulate stories to their anti-muslim narrative. Half baked, half truth stories to whip up their anti muslim agenda. The fact this this is unchallenged by mainstream British society is the saddest part.

It is now socially acceptable to hate muslims. If these types of stories were directed at any other minority their would be outrage. How can this show the best of British society, this is not fairness and tolerance, this is mass propaganda and persecution of a largely non media savvy, generally poor minority by a trashy maligned media with a sinister agenda. It has overtones of another sad era in 20th century European history.

Yes there are problems with islam. Yes for the last 10-20 years terrorism has been a big global problem. If you look at the last 200 years.. slavery, imperialism, hiroshima, WW2, carving up of Africa, colonialism etc etc.. womens vote only in the last 100 years, gay equality only really in the last 5.. it hasnt all been a bed of roses. Dont whitewash your own history as it does not look that great to me.

All societies are on their own timeline of progress. to judge another society by our own standards and using that to discriminate against them is using the same logic as bin laden. Real change comes from supporting progressives on both sides, not whipping up fear and hatred - this hardens the progressives and radicalises more people and makes the problem worse. You havent learnt anything from your own history. How sad, the politics of fear, control and vested interests are alive and well.

Oborne

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 2010-06-11 18:20.

I can't understand Mr Oborne. He wrote a very insightful book last year about the political class, yet he now supports Cameron and comes out with politically correct drivel like this! What has happened? He seems to be very anti-Jewish too, which might I suppose explain his sympathy towards Muslims. Is he married to a Muslim woman, perhaps? How can he honestly think that there isn't a massive problem, (in terms of national security, as well as cultural incompatibility and threat to our western freedoms) with the level of muslim immigration, and the way whole cities, such as Oldham, Burnley, Bradford, Leicester, Blackburn etc, have been changed beyond recognition, to the extent that they no longer feel like part of England? I realise that living in Islington Mr Oborne doesn't have to experience such cultural conditions himself and is therefore to an extent insulated from the effects of the spread of Islamic communities in England, but it's still perplexing coming from someone who seemed to have such insight when writing about the political system.

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