There’s been an interesting series of events involving the UK’s Guardian newspaper and one of its trainee journalists, Dilpazier Aslam, a British-born Muslim.
Aslam joined the Guardian’s staff in October 2004 as a trainee, and began working on stories in a number of areas. Following the bombings in London on July 7th, the Guardian published a comment piece by him (We Rock The Boat), which created something of a stir, not only in its letters pages, but also in the blogosphere. That probably began with Scott Burgess’ piece ‘Sassy’ Suicide Bombers, but was rapidly picked up by others, such as Harry’s Place: Why is the Guardian employing an extremist Islamist?. It turned out that Aslam is a member of Hizb’ut Tahrir, a radical Islamic group (see here for a BBC report), which is banned in some countries around the world (including The Netherlands), but not, apparently, in the UK. Mind you, the UK does not ban the BNP either, and whether hate is spewed by far-right white supremacists or far-right Islamic fascists, it all sounds pretty much the same to me.
Hizb’ut-Tahrir is described in an internal Home Office briefing note as a "radical, but to date non-violent Islamist group." The note says of the organisation that it is "an independent political party that is active in many countries across the world. HT’s activities centre on intellectual reasoning, logic arguments and political lobbying. The party adheres to the Islamic sharia law in all aspects of its work." The note adds: "It probably has a few hundred members in the UK. Its ultimate aim is the establishment of an Islamic state (Caliphate), according to HT via non-violent means. It holds anti-semitic, anti-western and homophobic views."
The Guardian, to its credit, has looked at the facts with an internal inquiry and announced yesterday that Aslam has had his contract terminated. The background briefing, also published by the Guardian, is even more illuminating. It makes it clear that while the Guardian considers that Hizb’ut-Tahrir promoted violence and anti-semitic material on its website and that membership of the organisation was not compatible with being a Guardian trainee, Aslam is not willing to leave Hizb’ut-Tahrir and that, while he personally repudiated anti-semitism, he did not consider the website material to be promoting violence or to be anti-semitic. Given that, it would seem that the Guardian has done the right thing in terminating Aslam’s employment.
The Guardian, to its discredit, also published an unsigned piece on the same day stating that rightwing bloggers from the US were behind the targeting of Aslam. This is what is known as misdirection. Aslam was hoist by his own petard. The piece also contains inconsistencies – usually known as shoddy journalism. It quotes, approvingly, a comment by a blogger defending Aslam, claiming that Aslam is being quoted out of context:
"It is more than four years old, written when the author was a teenager, before 9/11 and during a really nasty episode early in the intifada. How many people posting on this blog would like to have their teenage scribblings used as an assessment of their politics as an adult?"
Er, I went back to the source, and saw that it was written by Aslam in April 2001. Let’s see, from the Guardian’s own background piece: Dilpazier Aslam is a 27-year-old British Muslim from Yorkshire. He was therefore no teenager when he wrote the piece, just over four years ago.
I would hardly characterise myself as a right-wing blogger, but I have no problem with the fact that the Guardian has decided to dispense with Aslam’s services. It’s just a pity that someone in the Guardian is trying to blame this on right-wing bloggers.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 