When Populism Is Dangerous For Democracy - To The Media Gallows With 'Controversial' George Galloway
Media Lens (repost) | 04.04.2012 07:01 | Analysis | Other Press
George Galloway’s stunning victory in last week’s Bradford West by-election afforded a rare opportunity to witness naked imbalance, establishment scorn of any challenges, and blatant anti-Muslim propaganda in the corporate British media.
The excellent News Sniffer website exposed how the Guardian hurriedly fixed political editor Patrick Wintour’s ugly analysis of Galloway’s 10,140 majority win, with a staggering swing of 36 per cent from Labour to the Respect party. Wintour’s shoddy journalism had initially focused on how the constituency’s ‘Muslim immigrant community’ had largely abandoned Labour. The offensive trope of ‘immigrant’ Muslims appeared three times in his piece. And Galloway’s popular call for the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, and ‘a fightback against the job crisis’, was disparagingly cast as ‘fundamentalist’.
It was shocking to see such elitist disdain for majority British views and for ‘immigrant’ communities expressed by a senior Guardian journalist. Someone on the newspaper, perhaps spotting the danger of the nation's flagship ‘liberal’ newspaper appearing so illiberal, acted swiftly to hide the evidence. Too late, News Sniffer was on the trail. This is what Wintour wrote:
‘It appeared that the seat's Muslim immigrant community had decamped from Labour en masse to Galloway's fundamentalist call for an immediate British troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and a fightback against the job crisis.’
This was amended to:
‘It appeared that the seat's Muslim community had decamped from Labour en masse to Galloway's call for an immediate British troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and a fightback against the job crisis.’
Further key changes are easily visible here.
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'The Muslim Vote'
It is customary for the media to cast an honest, uncompromising political voice as ‘controversial’ and ‘maverick’ (or worse). And journalists did not disappoint. On the News at Ten, celebrity presenter Fiona Bruce, reportedly on a BBC salary of half a million pounds per year, referred blithely to ‘controversial ex-Labour MP George Galloway’. (March 30, 2012). The British public will wait in vain for her to refer to the ‘controversial’ Prime Minister David Cameron or the ‘controversial’ President Barack Obama.
In a News at Ten ‘analysis’, the BBC’s Iain Watson reported, with the broadcaster’s version of impartiality, that Galloway had compared his victory to the Arab Spring and ‘cheekily suggested he was challenging the entire British establishment’. (March 30, 2012)
But perhaps Galloway’s suggestion was accurate, ‘cheeky’ or no. Galloway was, in fact, pretty devastating in challenging the British media establishment in interview after interview. On Channel 4 News, Midlands correspondent Darshni Soni asserted that Galloway’s ‘fiery rhetoric on Iraq and Afghanistan specifically targeted young Muslims’; as though only ‘young Muslims’ should be concerned about Iraq and Afghanistan. (‘“Young Muslims defied elders to vote for Galloway”’, C4 News, March 30, 2012)
Soni tried to trip up Galloway:
Soni: ‘But what do you say to people who say you played that race card - you specifically targeted young Muslim men?’
George Galloway: ‘Well, I think it was Labour that put up the Pakistani Muslim candidate, not us. So that’s a ludicrous charge, to be honest.’
Soni: ‘But you talked a lot about Iraq, Afghanistan.’
Galloway: ‘Well, Iraq and Afghanistan are not issues only for Muslims.’
Also on Channel 4 News, Cathy Newman sought, like so many before her, to outwit Galloway - only to come out of the encounter with egg on her face. (‘Cathy Newman interviews George Galloway’, C4 News, March 30, 2012)
Newman: ‘George Galloway - you’ve described this as the most sensational upset in history. I think you got a little carried away – there were two previous results with bigger swings. But it is pretty sensational nevertheless. What do you put it down to?’
Galloway: ‘No I don’t think I was exaggerating, if you’ll forgive me, I’m a bit of a student of these matters. No party to the left of Labour has ever taken a Labour seat in a period when Labour has been in opposition.’
Newman pressed on:
‘You’re defining your terms very clearly and quite narrowly, but within those terms a sensational victory – what do you put it down to?’
Galloway responded amicably:
‘I don’t know why you’re being so churlish about this. I know more about left-wing history than you do, I assure you. But anyway, I put it down to a tidal wave of alienation in the country, and not just in Bradford, against the Tweedledee-Tweedledum politics of the major parties.’
This is surely right. When much that matters is so clearly going wrong in this country and the world at large, no wonder the public is thoroughly sick of the fodder that is dished out as ‘responsible’ policies, debate and reporting.
Galloway continued:
‘I think we saw what I described last night as “a Bradford Spring” moment – a kind of uprising, a peaceful democratic uprising of especially young people.’
Newman responded with barely disguised disdain:
‘Isn’t it slightly presumptuous or even arrogant though to describe a ... to compare a by-election victory with a revolution that has claimed tens of thousands of lives across the Arab world?’
Galloway exposed the biased stance of C4 News:
‘Well I can see you and I are not getting on very well and probably that’s a sign that I should go and do one of the many other interviews that are waiting for me. You obviously weren’t listening or you’re not hearing me ...’
Newman: ‘I’m hearing you perfectly well...’
Galloway: ‘...I said a peaceful democratic uprising, a peaceful democratic uprising – that’s what I think it was. You evidently don’t. We’ll see if it comes to anything. Thanks very much – because I really do have a lot of very important interviews to do.’
As one of our regular readers later reminded us on the Media Lens message board, the encounter was reminiscent of Jeremy Paxman’s remarkable May 2005 interview with Galloway after he had won the Bethnal Green and Bow seat from the war-supporting, Blairite MP, Oona King. In a dismal lowlight of a long BBC career, Paxman repeatedly asked Galloway:
‘Are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?’
Galloway rightly disparaged Paxman’s question as ‘preposterous’ saying that: ‘I don’t believe that people get elected because of the colour of their skin. I believe people get elected because of their record and their policies.’
There was more to come from the BBC. In an extraordinary segment on BBC Radio Five Live, reporter Anna Foster fired a series of hostile and loaded questions at Galloway. Just hours after his electoral victory, Foster kept asking why he had come to Bradford – an issue that he rightly said he had dealt with on numerous occasions before the election. Galloway took her to task for focusing on ‘the’ Muslim vote, as though Muslim voters were a homogeneous mass:
‘This is very incendiary and inflammatory language which the BBC keep using.’
After giving Foster several more minutes of his time, Galloway rightly described the interview as ‘a hatchet job’ and left the studio, leaving the BBC reporter flabbergasted.
Later that day on BBC2’s Newsnight, reporter Peter Marshall recycled the same discredited language:
‘It’s said you’ve relied very heavily on the Muslim vote. I mean, you yourself have said in the past that you used (sic)... you have the Muslim vote...’
Galloway responded:
‘I really reject this concept of “the” Muslim vote. Muslims are individuals just like everyone else. You wouldn’t say that there’s a “Christian vote” because Christians vote in all sorts of ways. And the Labour candidate, I remind you, was a Pakistani Muslim. So I really don’t think that’s a valid question. Every voter is an individual and every voter has to be appealed to.’
Marshall managed to include the standard description of Galloway as ‘a singular figure, a political maverick’ who ‘in triumph’ is ‘unrepentant’. What he was supposed to be ‘unrepentant’ about wasn’t made clear. Perhaps for appearing on Celebrity Big Brother, pretending to be a cat licking milk from Rula Lenska's cupped hands: stock footage that news broadcasters are seemingly obliged to repeat whenever Galloway is mentioned.
The Wolf Man
The Observer played its part as well, publishing not just one but two anti-Galloway comment pieces. The first, by Andrew Rawnsley, set the tone, referring acerbically to Galloway’s ‘blushing modesty which makes him such an appealing character’. This was a dig at the Respect politician supposedly acclaiming Bradford West ‘the most sensational victory in British political history’. But, shooting himself in the foot, Rawnsley had got the quote wrong. Galloway had called it ‘the most sensational result in British by-election history’, not ‘political history’ – a crucial distinction. As we have seen, Galloway had clearly explained the basis for his claim.
For Galloway to draw any kind of comparison with the Arab Spring was, said Rawnsley, ‘a very advanced form of narcissism’. The Observer columnist then added the sly comment that Galloway had ‘declined to offer his fusion of Marxism and Islamism to voters at the five previous byelections of this parliament’. Whatever counts as a ‘fusion of Marxism and Islamism’ was not spelled out. It was instead left hanging in the air as something to be regarded by right-minded people as dangerously anti-capitalist and un-Christian; perhaps even unpatriotic and anti-British. But arguably the most blatant propaganda element of the Observer piece was the accompanying sinister-looking photograph of Galloway, reminiscent of Lon Chaney Jr as The Wolf Man.
By an amazing coincidence – or not – a second Observer hit piece by Nick Cohen deployed a similarly sinister photograph of Galloway. The Observer’s picture editor had obviously been busy scouring the pictorial archives and struck gold not once, but twice. The comment piece also had a cartoon-like flavour. For example, Galloway's ‘claim’ that his by-election victory was the ‘Bradford spring’ exhibited, Cohen said, ‘contemptible willingness to exploit the suffering of others for the purposes of self-aggrandisement’ which ‘no politician can beat’. No politician? Not even Cohen's hero Tony Blair, who exploited the deaths of millions in the Middle East for his own self-aggrandisement as a ‘peace maker’?
Almost in a parody of himself, Cohen wrote that:
‘Galloway and others on the far left believe that Muslims can replace the white working class that let them down so badly by refusing to follow their orders to seize power.’
One had to check the date of publication. Yes, it was published on April 1. But, nonetheless, Observer readers were forced to accept that this was indeed not a spoof piece by a spoof Cohen.
The attitude was summed up by the title of a Liberal Conspiracy blog, run by Sunny Hundal: 'When populism is dangerous for democracy'. Hundal, the Guardian's 'blogger of the year' in 2006, was himself busy on Twitter. He referred to Galloway in responding to a questioner: ‘I don't want any part of a left that supports dictators thanks. Maybe you do.’
We were intrigued by this and responded: ‘Yet you write that Obama's re-election “is worth fighting for”. Does Obama not support, indeed arm, dictators?’
The following day, Hundal replied. Here are some highlights from the subsequent exchange:
Sunny Hundal (SH): ‘answer to that question is simple: as Us Prez Obama can't easily call for dictators to go. But Galloway isn't leader: he can.’
Media Lens (ML): ‘You can't reject George Galloway for dictator “support” and then back Obama who arms them, actually helps them kill.’
SH: ‘can you name me one dictator that one Obama has cheerleaded for?’
Writer and activist Ian Sinclair replied:
‘Mubarak “is a stalwart ally... a force for stability and good” - Obama to BBC, 2009 http://bit.ly/H2ZeLg’
We responded to Hundal:
ML: ‘Simple questions 1) Has Obama armed dictators? 2) Is that more or less important than what he/Galloway says about dictators?’
SH: 1) ‘Has he personally sanctioned arming of dictators? No. They can buy weapons from China/Russia too, as Libya did.’
SH: ‘he [Obama] didn't support Mubarak.’
We replied with a quote from 2011 in The Times on US aid to Egypt:
ML: ‘"the Mubarak regime is still receiving $1.3 billion of military aid each year from America.” (The Times, January 31, 2011)'
SH: ‘Just for your info, since you guys set yourself up as a major source of info and critique: “military aid” is not guns/ammo.’
ML: ‘True. Do F-16 jets, M-1A1 tanks, Harpoon, TOW, Hellfire, and Stinger missiles count? http://tinyurl.com/5rwx7zf’
SH: ‘might help if you recognised that most of it referred to stuff over a decade, not during Obama. Now, answer my question?’
ML: ‘Details here: http://tinyurl.com/2ekorm9 May 2009 Apache attack helicopter sale here: http://tinyurl.com/7djfdzl'
And indeed Hundal’s position was completely untenable. To sample at random, the Washington Post reported last December:
‘The Obama administration on Thursday announced an arms deal with Saudi Arabia valued at nearly $30 billion, an agreement that will send 84 F-15 fighter jets and assorted weaponry to the kingdom.’
And so on. Hundal wriggled and dug himself ever deeper. For us, it was another encounter with the curious capacity for ‘selective inattention’ found at the intellectual fringe otherwise known as ‘the mainstream media’. For Hundal, Galloway’s words really are far worse crimes than Obama’s active participation in the arming and diplomatic protection of murderous dictators who use his support to kill large numbers of people.
Closing Remarks
In our 2005 media alert, Ambushing Dissent, also analysing media treatment of Galloway, we noted how ‘across the spectrum, “rogue” thinkers, politicians and parties are relentlessly smeared and mocked by the elite media. The effect is as inevitable as it is intended - to persuade the public to revile and turn away from radical voices threatening established privilege and power.’
The response to Galloway’s latest electoral victory from the Guardian, the Observer, Channel 4 News and the BBC piles on the evidence. It shows – once again – that the supposedly liberal media, purveyors of 'open journalism', will fight tooth and nail to neutralise anyone who challenges the establishment status quo.
And yet it could hardly be more obvious that the British political system has degenerated into a grotesque, neo-feudalist fraud representing the same elite interests under different brand names. Our politics is structurally addicted to greed-based 'humanitarian' militarism, to exacerbating the catastrophic threat of climate change, and to denying the public any serious choice on the major policy issues of the day. An honest media would welcome any small sign of hope that the iron grip of this corrupt and oppressive system might be subject to serious challenge.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Please write to:
James Stephenson, BBC News at Ten editor
Email: james.stephenson@bbc.co.uk
Patrick Wintour, Guardian political editor
Email: patrick.wintour@guardian.co.uk
Twitter: @patrickwintour
John Mulholland, Observer editor
Email: john.mulholland@observer.co.uk
Jim Gray, Channel 4 News editor
Email: jim.gray@itn.co.uk
Sunny Hundal, blogger and Guardian columnist
Email: sunny@pickledpolitics.com
Twitter: @sunny_hundal
Please copy us in on any exchanges or forward them to us later at:
Media Lens (repost)
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http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=675:when-populism-is-dangerous-for-democracy-to-the-media-gallows-with-controversial-george-galloway&catid=25:alerts-2012&Itemid=69
Comments
Hide the following 20 comments
Hamas and Hezbollah
04.04.2012 07:39
Martin
Martin should work for the BBC
04.04.2012 08:23
Galloway and Hamas
George Galloway on Hamas:
Charity Commission clears George Galloway charity of giving funds to Hamas
Galloway and Hezbollah
Transcript of Sky News Debate transcript
Anna: How can you justify your support for Hizbollah and its leader Sheikh Hassen Nasrullah?
Galloway: What a preposterous way to introduce an item! What a preposterous first question! Twenty-four years ago, on the day my daughter was born and I have just celebrated her 24th birthday, I had to dash at the maternity to see giving birth, from a mass demonstration in London against the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. Israel has been invading and occupying Lebanon all of my 24 years of my daughter’s life. The Hezbollah are a prt of the Lebanese Resistance who are trying to drive, having successfully driven most Israelis from their land in 2000. Israel from the rest of their land and to get back those thousands Lebanese prisoners who are kidnapped by Israel under the term of their illegal occupation of Lebanon. It’s Israel that is invading Lebanon! It’s Israel that is attacking Lebanon, not Lebanon that’s attacking Israel! You’ve just been carrying a report "Ten Israeli Soldiers on the border getting ready to invade Lebanon, and you ask us to mourn that operation as if there were some kind of war crime! Israel is invading Lebanon and has killed 30 times
Galloway on Hezbollah:
distorted discourse
Biased article
04.04.2012 08:31
Galloway also is on record saying he believes being gay is a choice, which proves he has no understanding on gay rights and doesn't want to have anything to do with them. When you begin telling the truth and the fact that Islam has both good and bad beliefs in it I'll begin to belief such articles again.
Islamaphobia is a made up nonesence - those who oppose Islam are not racist because Islam is a religion not a person. It'd racist if you didn't like an individual because of his skin colour etc, but to oppose someones religion isn't racist. Stop supporting a backwards religion - you'd criticise Christianity so stop being biased and criticise all religions - be it Islam, Hinduism etc - they are all shit.
Atheist
Pinkwashing helps us ignore the genocide?
04.04.2012 09:07
Biased Atheist wrote: (offering zero sources)
Wikipedia tells us a different tale
Record on LGBT issues
Israel’s gay PR campaign
Eli 'no right to allow the consumption of abominations' Yishai
Homepage:
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2009/06/11/israeli-minister-and-rabbis-call-for-pride-parade-to-be-banned/
galloway said "gay a choice" to a gay website
04.04.2012 09:23
wikipedia is not the most reliave source in the world - at the end of the day hes a politician - a person i throught most left/ anarchists mistrusted
the left/ anarchist movement have dumped gay rights in regards to islam and is now homophobic thats why they call any gay or lesbian who dares raise the issue an islamophobe - which if people call me that i don't give a shit - islam is a backwards belief system, like all other religions. what you don't like is that some people tell the truth - support islam and you support homophbia and are homophobic
atheist
The War against Galloway
04.04.2012 09:36
I note you still haven't provided a source for your claim. A quick google suggests you're being biased (ie telling a lie)
"wikipedia is not the most reliave source in the world - at the end of the day hes a politician - a person i throught most left/ anarchists mistrusted"
Its unlikely that wikipedia would claim he voted for the reduction of the age of consent for gay men to 16 and for the right of gay couples to adopt if he didn't. That in itself is sufficient to undermine your claim that:
"he has no understanding on gay rights and doesn't want to have anything to do with them"
And yes he is a politician, and is despised as such by many anarchists - however he is being attacked in the comments here with the same lies that are used by zionist trolls and supporters of war on Iran, rather than for being a politician.
English Dunce Legends
i'll find it and put an artilce up bout it here then
04.04.2012 09:41
atheist
printed it
04.04.2012 09:53
atheist
He is a self serving, millionaire, champagne socialist, homophobic..
04.04.2012 09:54
Anarchist
english dunce legends printed the source - apologise please
04.04.2012 10:19
someone who believes being gay is a choice can't be trusted on such issues - a friend of mine was killed for being gay so i take gay and lesbian rights seriously because they are a matter of life and death in some cases
will you do the right thing and apologise to me for calling me a liar? if you call me and they turn out to be telling the truth have the decency to admit you were wrong
atheist
Choice and Galloway
04.04.2012 10:34
For some reason atheist printed his evidence as a separate article, which qualifies as non-news.
It is from a 2006 interview with Benjamin Cohen in Pink News:
It seems self-evident to me that some gay people choose to live openly gay lives, whilst others choose not to. In fact many gay people never come out publicly and some choose to marry and live in hetero-sexual partnerships. The emphasised part of his answer appears to fatally undermine the claim that he is homophobic, as does his voting record.
A greasy politician, with some dodgy business dealings and expensive suits he may be, but the basis of the attacks on this thread are easily refuted.
English Dunce Legends
dont misrepresent meanings
04.04.2012 10:37
galloway said he believed gay people were gay because they choose to - you do not choose to be gay you are born gay - do you honestly think i'd choose to be a sexual orientation where you can be killed for it in many countries in the world
atheist
representing meanings
04.04.2012 10:42
Kudos to the atheist if he can read what is in Galloway's head in a framed interview.
English Dunce Legends
look it up on the internet then yourself - pinknews galloway brings it up
04.04.2012 10:52
you may want to twist and lie but other people read this interview and came to the same c0nclusion i did
all you are is trying to be all things to all people - its better to say the truth that all people, races and religions have good and bad in them and work from that principle - not your principle one sides good (left) and one side completely bad (right)
all you do by this things like this is make the world see you can't be trusted on gay and lesbian issues and you'd sacrifce them to maintain your worldview
atheist
We will soon discover the break down of the vote.
04.04.2012 11:36
I am currently waiting for the Respect party to get back to me with regards to my request to meet Galloway in one of the MP surgeries AND to send me their policy documentation, complete with risk assessments and number crunching with regards to how they are to solve the issues, they campaigned on. One of the Respect party's members told me Galloway intends to rejuvenate industry in Bradford through accessing sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East.
The proposed industry? Luxury cars ffs!! Yes this is a very asinine idea given the current economic crisis and the increasing scarcity of resources, the green agenda etc. It is because of such ill-conceived policies that I requested the 'detail' in writing. Once I receive that I can revisit my opinion as to whether such policies are ill-conceived or not.
Interestingly on the night of celebrations, Galloway's arrival was proceeded by a procession of flash cars, limousines, quad bikes etc. The show of crass materialism that night was shocking, as well as the religious rhetoric that I heard. Whilst Galloway can articulate the issues, both national and local, I am still waiting to receive the thought out plans on how they are to be addressed. I imagine I will be waiting some time.
Returning to my opening paragraph. After every election a list of who voted is released. This is called the 'marked register'. I have been chatting to some of the academics at the London School of Economics and I intend to parse this list to assess the claims that it was the Muslim vote, particularly the youth vote, that enabled Galloway to win. In addition the council will also publish, in time, a breakdown of the vote in units of 3000 per ward. There are several ways you can compare marked lists and extended council data.
Once I have that data and have performed the analyses, I will also revisit the campaign literature I have of Galloway, recordings of the speeches that the Galloway campaign car transmitted in my area, transcripts of interviews with Galloway voters/supporters etc. Taking all that data and comparing the marked register this time round with previous marked registers, should enable us to engage with some of these claims more fully.
My current position is one of cynicism with regards to Galloway but I am willing to change that opinion based upon the evidence.
JimAKirk
Change will not come
04.04.2012 11:39
Also, he works for presstv! which did an amazing 9/11 article yesterday. I'd advise you to have a look at it if you aint seen it.
PRESSTV WAS KICKED OFF THE AIR FOR A REASON.. He amounts to a thorn in their side, can't hate on that.
But, overall.. change will not come from a politician. When enough realize this, we will have change.
blablablabla
We all know what Press TV is about.
04.04.2012 12:10
Oh one other thing! I do not have to agree with war on Iran in order to agree with criticisms of Iran and that nation's 'attitudes'. Likewise, to critique other cultures is not to suffer from a -phobia. Capitalophobia anyone?
anon
Homepage:
If you knew some genuine
the missing link?
04.04.2012 14:27
It's bloody strange censorship when the quote and the link are provided. So everybody can read the entire article for themselves. As you might not be the only person who doesn't 'get' hyperlinks, here is again:
"you may want to twist and lie but other people read this interview and came to the same c0nclusion i did"
It doesn't surprise me that you hang out with people who think that they can divine everything from a one word answer. You can't even see a link and a quote - so I have no faith in your ability to discern the meaning of a text.
Anyway, regardless of what Galloway thinks about the causes of homosexuality, it is absurd to brand him a homophobe : "I’m against discrimination, against anyone on grounds that they either are born with or have chosen, their right to have self determination over their own lives"
English Dumb Legends
In reply to 1...
05.04.2012 20:51
04.04.2012 07:39
George Galloway supports Hamas and Hezbollah, so he's an Islamic extremist sympathizer basically.
Martin
...
from my understanding he opposes oppression only
Oppenminder
Hoxton West
07.04.2012 17:17
Or perhaps: Who is more influential?
Metro Reader