Far-right riots: UK media gives racial hatred the veneer of patriotism
For more than three years now, there has been a constant lament on certain British "news" channels.
It goes something like this: they would not say something like that if they were talking about a Muslim; they would not do that if it were a Muslim; that would not happen if it were a Muslim.
The conspiratorial claim that British Muslims receive special treatment, which white Brits do not, is just one item in a feast of Islamophobia served regularly across the British media. A collective of politicians, journalists, ideologues and so-called comedians all make a living out of it.
The alleged privilege afforded to Islam and Muslims has, according to these professional whingers, come at the expense of white Brits and their Christian heritage. Thus, churches becoming mosques, halal meat being served in schools, Prophet Muhammad's sayings appearing on train station notice boards and Islamic festivals being held in public spaces join the long list of grievances fuelling the anger on Britain’s streets.
If all else is quiet, then the incident at Batley Grammar School, where Muslim children were subjected to caricatures of their prophet, and the controversy over so-called "grooming gangs" are two favourite obsessions that are regularly wheeled out.
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The cumulative effect of this on audiences is measurable. A hate speech detection tool found that there is an “almost statistical correlation between GB News viewers and hate crime”.
The study showed Muslims were referenced on 1,137 occasions in the comment sections under videos posted on its YouTube channel. The next most referenced group was Jews, with 68 mentions.
Indeed, Muslims in Britain are receiving special treatment from the media outlets determined to spread hate against them.
Hatemongering
After the recent far-right riots in Southport, which followed the stabbing of three girls at a dance class, GB News ran a poll asking if the “left elite” was to blame for the public disorder.
Excuses for racists come thick and fast. The same chant about Allah - now used by far-right thugs as they burn hotels, loot shops and assault police and non-white people - was defended as "irreverent British humour" on GB News just two months ago.
And GB News is not alone in hatemongering. It has a stablemate, Talk TV, has presenters and guests who refuse to believe the evidence before their eyes, continuing to ask: Who is to blame for the riots?
Note that this privilege of exploring the larger context behind events is not afforded to minorities.
In Leeds, for example, where the removal of Roma children from a family home sparked a night of unrest, there was no quibble on these channels as to who was responsible.
When a Muslim family was rescued by police in Hartlepool as far-right thugs went on a rampage, a former Metropolitan police officer was touring between the two channels, talking about the “Islamification” of Britain.
The anger on the streets of Britain can, at times, also be found in the TV studios, where guests are shut down and sometimes physically accosted because they refuse to agree with the presenter’s narrative.
This is not journalism as we know it; it is a collection of talking heads who nod along and enthusiastically confirm the views of anyone willing to say Muslims are bad people. Those who disagree with this framing are called an “absolute disgrace”.
Furthermore, those who pump out the bile do it not through gritted teeth but with a dose of humour chucked in.
Two months ago, the same mosques that are now being attacked across British towns and cities were mocked as having a culture of “sitting on rugs”, with one of the presenters saying that if he went into a mosque in Afghanistan, he would be “beheaded with a sword”.
Casual racism as comedy
Amid the xenophobic jostling, one panellist said to another that Muslims were currently worried about Jews and they would come for him, in response to the panellist saying he was fine with a mosque being built near where he lived. This, by the way, came in a story describing Pope Francis anointing a teenager to become a millennial saint, which had nothing to do with Muslims.
Even when a story is not about Muslims, ways are found to malign them - casual racism disguised as comedy.
The more mainstream legacy media has also played its part.
Even as mosques were attacked and worshippers barricaded inside, as happened in Southport, there was a discernible omission of the entrenched Islamophobia that is motivating the hate.
On 26 July, for example, when three pigs' heads with Islamophobic graffiti were left outside a primary school in London, not one national newspaper covered the story.
Several months prior, a study found that British Muslims gave four times as much to charity as any other group in Britain. A positive story where Muslims legitimately stood out was not featured in any mainstream newspaper or on any news channel.
Beyond this, mainstream news channels have equated the rampaging of racists with anti-racists, conflating and comparing those protecting their communities with those attacking them. Alongside language portraying rioters and thugs as “protesters” and “pro-British”, this gives outright racism the veneer of legitimate patriotism.
The 'Foxification' of British television... means that conspiracy theories, tropes and racism disguised as commentary or robust interviewing get an easy pass
There is much for Muslims in Britain to be grateful for, and significant achievements have been made within various communities across the UK.
Yet, almost all would agree that they live in an atmosphere of heightened Islamophobia.
The blame for that is placed at the door of the media. The "Foxification" of British television, with a hands-off regulatory attitude from Ofcom regarding hate directed at Muslims, their identity and beliefs, means that conspiracy theories, tropes and racism disguised as commentary or robust interviewing get an easy pass.
When a barrage of anti-Arab and, by extension, anti-Muslim tropes was directed at a Palestinian commentator because he questioned why he was being constantly interrupted, Ofcom deemed this acceptable in the proper context.
Emboldened, no doubt, that same presenter is now framing the riots in Britain around the idea of western liberal supremacy.
The killing of three little girls in Southport is said to have ignited the anger of those now rioting.
But the beliefs many hold and the sentiments they now openly echo have been handed down to them for many years by rote.
Theirs is a two-tier worldview, where white British people are seen as good and wholesome and Muslims as bad and evil.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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