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afro-americans, cbc, civil rights, Islam, James Baldwin, radio, religion, United States of America, Wahhabism

On today’s Sunday Edition (CBC Radio One) – a rare example of intelligent programming – the exceptional Michael Enright interviewed Karen Armstrong, an ex-nun who has become the most important popular voice on religion, and is now almost the only non-Muslim to write knowledgeably and equitably about Islam’s relationship with terrorist factions. The podcast is a free download available on CBC.ca/thesundayedition. On it you will hear one of the very few mentions broadcast by media of the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi sect, or heresy, being responsible for the spread of terror. She likens it to a radical U.S. fundamentalist church controlling all the petro-dollars, backed by massive armed forces, attempting to take over Christianity. She also points out that, of the 41 mentions of ‘Jihad’ in the Koran, only 10 are related to actual warfare; and she also cites a Hadith where the Prophet, Mohammed, returning from battle says, “Now we have finished with the Lesser Jihad, we can return to the Greater one,” this latter meaning the inner struggle between our upper and lower natures. Ms. Armstrong quotes from a poll conducted with millions of Muslims over many continents after the 9/11 attacks. Answering the question, ‘Were the attacks justified?’, 93% said No, all citing religious reasons. Of the 7% who answered Yes, all cited political reasons. My old friend, the late Christopher Hitchens, never understood the difference between religion used as a political tool and religion as an inner communion with the Divine, calling Ms. Armstrong ‘an apologist for Islam’. His misguided and ill-researched atheist manifesto, God is Not Great, promotes a tautological argument, based on a pitiful ignorance of spiritual texts, especially the Koran. Listen to Mr. Enright’s superb interview and you will be far better-informed about the nature of true Islam, the contents of the Koran, and the pseudo-Muslims – most of them Wahhabi converts – who commit atrocities for solely political goals. You will also hear an irreducibly concise account of the Crusades and their effect upon the development of Islam over the past millennium.

The interview might incline you to lobby an MP or government Minister over Saudi Arabia’s support for Wahhabi terror, as outlined in my own previous blogs.

James Baldwin would have been 90 this year, had he lived. The most articulate and brilliant of Afro-American artists and activists from the 1960s, all of his books and essays are still relevant to endemic U.S. racism, which seems no different in Ferguson today that in was in Watts in the late sixties. The Sunday Edition also presented  a moving tribute to Baldwin this morning, including audio clips of his potent, eloquent, and supremely intelligent voice addressing concerns that, sadly, remain 40 years later. I have long-awaited his equal in vain, yet still with the hope that young Afro-Americans will read his works and draw their own fresh inspiration from them. By wiping the floor with right-wing pompous TV pundit, William F. Buckley, during an interview, Baldwin proved to the world that there were far better ways of combatting racist ideology than by violence. Happy Birthday, Jimmy!

Love from,

Paul William Roberts

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Jian Ghomeshi

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Canada, cbc, jian ghomeshi, radio

While it is always disturbing to watch a trial by media violate fundamental human rights by an assumption of guilt before a court of law finds such to be the case, it was especially dismaying to find that the media in question, on tonight’s The Fifth Estate, were possibly as culpable in the allegations made against Jian Ghomeshi as Mr. Ghomeshi himself. Never have I been so ashamed of the C.B.C., whose program was a disgraceful attempt to exonerate itself from any responsibility in the affair by putting a patsy, a Mr. Boyce, in a seat hotter than he had been prepared for or, it seemed, warranted. Being blind, I have often listened to ‘Q’ over the past several years, during which time I gradually became aware of Mr. Ghomeshi’s personality quirks: his chronic insecurity and susceptibility to flattery; his sometimes oddly strained relationships with floor crew etc. But on his regular Friday thanks to staff, I do not recall the mention of a ‘Boyce’. I do, however, vividly recall his thanks to an executive producer who was the only person termed ‘Mister’ – it was something like ‘Mister Haram Shamani’; I do not have the means to confirm the exact name, but it did sound Arabic or Iranian – and I wonder why this man was not interviewed on the show. Since we know that two members of CBC staff viewed the videos Mr. Ghomeshi showed in apparent defense of his sexual conduct, I also wonder why the second man was not questioned or mentioned. Why also was the reason Mr. Ghomeshi would show such seemingly-incriminating videos not discussed? One is forced to assume that Ghomeshi felt they exhibited exonerating evidence of consensual activity, no matter how vile. Yet Boyce, the fall-guy, was seemingly there to take full responsibility for the public corporation’s actions – or inaction – when we had already heard of complaints to Human Resources and the well-known ‘toxic environment’ surrounding the show, which made women weep and console one another in washrooms, and others quit their jobs in despair. The Unmaking of Jian Ghomeshi did a fair job of documenting the making of Mr. Ghomeshi, a threadbare job of unmaking him, and an embarrassingly miserable job of justifying its own inability to say mea culpa. Ever-critical of police investigations into police malfeasance; and government committees to examine government misdemeanors, The Fifth Estate demonstrated astounding hypocrisy by presuming its ability to investigate its own parent, or boss. It was like listening to a Crown Attorney charged with aiding and abetting sexual assault interrogate a defendant charged with that sexual assault.

To add insult to injury, there was no mention of why it is not possible for other women who have complaints against Ghomeshi to come forward under guarantees of anonymity. It can be dome in the case of Mafia informants, and under-age victims of sexual abuse. It can surely be dome here, if only by means of sealed affidavits only available to legal staff. Such a probe might have assisted Ghomeshi in his long journey from allegations to convictions; yet instead one felt that the CBC was mainly interested in blaming the entire fiasco on this hapless Boyce – a strategy I suspect will not wash, since a scapegoat has to be higher up the food-chain. If ever anyone, but Charles I, was so concerned with the efficacy of the axe-man’s blade, it must be the CBC giving the Fuhrer in Ottawa a full go-ahead for dismantling a broadcaster which cannot even cast broad enough for its own safety.

Paul William Roberts