BBC and propaganda
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Regular readers of this list will know i am no friend of the BBC.
Another article that explains why none of us should be.
Yes indeed. What a pathetic criticism of the BBC from someone employed by a rival state-owned broadcaster, that owned by Qatar whose political system is still “oriental despotism”. He seems to want to suppress the fact that African rulers also played a part in the transatlantic slave trade (as well as locally).
No mention (of course) of Arab slavers in the service of orientalist despots or of Islam’s theological justifications of slavery. Nor of the link in Arabic between the word for slaves and blacks. You’ll never here anything about any of these on Al Jazeera.
The author is not an employee of Al Jazeera, AFAIK, but a freelance journalist and political commentator from South Africa who also writes for the Huffington Post outlet
As for suppressing the role of Arabs or Africans i’m sure he could as a critic of contemporary African politics and tribalism he could write a critique.
From another of his articles
“Where our ancestors crossed the Atlantic Ocean bound in chains and wallowing in dreadful, inhumane conditions, today men, youths, women and young children from across the length and breadth of Africa elect to embark on similar journeys across the Mediterranean — and, as they did 400 years ago, many will perish at sea, all at the hands of “slave masters” of all hues.”
But the point of the article was to highlight the selective theme of the BBC by purposefully “spreading” the blame and ignoring another relevant family source.
For Sudan’s slavery and the persistence to modern day of racism Arab anti-black racism, see here
https://socialistbanner.blogspot.com/2020/07/sudan-slavery-and-racism.html
(ironically taken from the BBC website)
“I regret the behavior of the Arabs… They brought African children to North Africa, they made them slaves, they sold them like animals, and they took them as slaves and traded them in a shameful way. I regret and I am ashamed when we remember these practices. I apologize for this.” – Gaddafi, 2010
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade#Historical_and_geographical_context
As an aside, on the other topic, Mexico and Marx, there is an interesting reference to the fact that Marx and Engels supported Texas independence and the American in the Mexico invasion ignoring that it meant the spread of slavery. This despite many Chartists understood the situation directly from Frederic Douglass lectures.
https://louisproyect.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/1-marx-i-racism.pdf
South African? Interesting article here on slavery in the Cape region. Some of the slaves came from outside Africa, from India, Indonesia and Madagascar. A few even from West Africa.
https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa
Same word: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_(Arabic)
(edit)
Also: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF#Arabic
It’s one news purveyor taking a dig at another. Is there any news source we can go to which isn’t biased?
At least the BBC doesn’t pepper you with intrusive adverts (though it does spend a lot of time advertising itself).
The Arabs Islamics was one of the first groups which started the trade slavery in Africa, and now they are talking about black nationalism. There are two books written by the Nation of Islam claiming that the Jews were part of the US slaves trade, but they do not mention anything at all about the Islamic black slave trade
I remember when I was very young when BBC London had very good radio programmes, they had languages and cultural programs, and sometimes they were much better than Moscow Radio, Peking Radio, and Tirana Radio
In this recent article involving sociologically-significant gradiations of skin pigmentation in Sudan and environs can be seen a reference to the word ‘abid’ as used as term of racist abuse: light skinned toward the darker skinned, and darker skinned toward the still darker skinned. (Arabs toward non-Arabs, and also among Arabs themselves.): https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/black-lives-matter-sudan-200813141537238.htmlOur Africa blog has posted on this story
https://socialistbanner.blogspot.com/2020/08/sudans-race-question.html
https://socialistbanner.blogspot.com/2020/07/sudan-slavery-and-racism.html
And from a few years back
https://socialistbanner.blogspot.com/2015/10/was-slavery-all-black-and-white.html
Plus numerous other blog-posts of tribalism and xenophobia
Media Lens focuses once again on the BBC bias
Over The Rainbow – Disneyfied News And The ‘Unprovoked’ Invasion Of Ukraine
‘Is there any news source we can go to which isn’t biased?’
rodshaw – would you say that the contents of the Socialist Standard are biased? A Marxian analysis would insist that we have a working class bias because their/our perspective is progressive and represents the future. The perspective of the ruling class is biased in representing their interests – which, of course, is sometimes hotly disputed between sections of that class.We only need to look at the BBC non-coverage of the anti-Corbyn manipulation of the Labour Party as revealed by Al Jazeera and the Forde Report.
Nothing should over-shadow Starmer’s rise to stardom
Once again Media Lens reveals the manipulation of the media
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