Birmingham: Not a “no-go zone” (cc photo: Pete Ashton)
Steve Emerson appeared on Fox News Channel (1/11/15) to make the claim that in European cities there are “no-go zones” where national “governments…don’t exercise any sovereignty,” where
you basically have zones where Shariah courts were set up, where Muslim density is very intense, where the police don’t go in, and where it’s basically a separate country almost, a country within a country.
As an example, he offered Britain, where
it’s not just no-go zones; there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.
Birmingham is Britain’s second-largest city; needless to say, non-Muslims go there all the time, given that only 20 percent of the city’s residents are Muslim (Guardian, 1/12/15).
On his website, Emerson offered a retraction and an apology for this absurd claim:
My comments about Birmingham were totally in error. And I am issuing this apology and correction for having made this comment about the beautiful city of Birmingham. I do not intend to justify or mitigate my mistake by stating that I had relied on other sources because I should have been much more careful.
Ramzi Yousef: not Yugoslavian
Yes, he should have been more careful than to pass on a fact a xenophobic fantasy akin to claiming that people who don’t speak Spanish no longer enter the city of Chicago because of all the Mexicans there. But Emerson has a long history of being less than careful.
Emerson (CNN, 3/2/93; Extra!, 4–5/93) announced after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 that the “bomber or bombers may be from one of the former Yugoslav republics.” In fact, the bombers were mostly Arabs or Arab-American, led by Ramzi Yousef, whose background is Pakistani and Palestinian.
Tim McVeigh: Not Middle Eastern
A couple of years later, he was misidentifying the perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing, who were white Christian Americans, as Muslims: “This was done with the attempt to inflict as many casualties as possible. That is a Middle Eastern trait,” he told CBS News (4/19/95; Extra!, 7–8/95).
After the Boston Marathon bombing, Emerson (Washington Journal, 4/16/13; FAIR Blog, 4/17/13) appeared to take credit for casting suspicion on a “Saudi national” injured in the blast. “We found the Facebook page of the person of interest last night before the FBI did,” he said. “There were interesting entries that showed an animus toward the United States.” Such as? “There were lots of pictures of his friends. Some of them showed anti-American animus, such as support for the Muslim Brotherhood.” The Saudi with the incriminating friends turned out to have nothing to do with the attack (New Yorker, 4/16/13).
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: Not Saudi Arabian
In 1998, Emerson helped push a story that claimed that a “senior Pakistani weapons scientist who has defected” was saying that “Pakistan was planning nuclear first strike on India” (Observer, 6/28/98). The supposed scientist turned out to be “a former low-level accountant at a company that makes bathroom fixtures” (San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/3/98) and a fraud (USA Today, 7/7/98)—but not before Emerson’s behind-the-scenes promotion of the bogus tale helped push rivals Pakistan and India closer to nuclear war (Extra!, 1–2/99).
Yeah—maybe he should be a little more careful.
Featured image: On Fox News, Steve Emerson tells a credulous Jeanine Pirro that non-Muslims no longer enter Britain’s second-largest city. (video clip from the Guardian: http://bit.ly/1xUsNrG)
There really ought to be a law against such irresponsible behavior. This numb nut could have started a war! It amounts to a negligent and depraved indifference.
Factless fearmongering = FOX’s forte
This imbecile appears to be mainstream so little wonder the USA is seen as being spectacularly conservative and inward looking – not to mention gung-ho and trigger happy. From the way he rants, I’m surprised he’s travelled outside of his home town, let alone to Europe and specifically England. No surprise then that Americans are seen as having a serious lack of worldliness whose xenophobia is frowned upon – a kind of red neck cousin/ real life Beverly Hillbillies, with an abundance of money and grave shortage of common sense. He suggests that England have a virtual religious thought police roaming the streets (it genuinely couldn’t be further from the truth) where in fact the vast majority of the population follow no religion at all. We also have relatively little racial violence and low police brutality, particularly when compared to the USA whose police (if reports are correct) have killed over 5000 of their own since 911. Perhaps he should hold a little cash back from his promised charitable donation (to make amends for this embarrassment of a broadcast) and book a tour of England – a reality check might do him and his viewers some good.
Thank you kindly, Art.
FOX and its slightly more sedate corpress colleagues are dedicated to the propagation of a propaganda that seeks to eviscerate that venerable truism
That we seldom fear what we understand
By ensuring that we lack to capacity to understand what we’re told to fear.
@ Rob – It is amazing how people condemn entire societies based on the example of an awful few. It’s almost, like, the definition of bigotry and stuff.
Janson – touché with regards to your bigotry comment if it refers to the red neck/ hillbilly dig, but this is just one of numerous bullshit sensationalist items that originate from your mainstream media. The UK is by no means perfect but Steven Emerson and the like really do your nation a disservice. The constant scaremongering and sweeping generalisations coming from your side of the pond are an embarrassment to your country and extremely irritating (possibly even hazardous) to the rest of us. I don’t wish to offend all Americans but remain pretty comfortable sticking with the inward looking, lack of worldliness, xenophobic conservative comments with regard to a large portion of your people. Unfortunately it’s just these sorts who are likely to buy in to crass broadcasts such as this one.
@ Rob – Not to play the American apologist, I just wanted to stress your primary point that when judging a foreign community, it’s best to not inform one’s opinion solely on media impressions. People are simply people, I’ve found in my experience, for better and worse.
@Rob, you’ve hit the moron square on the head, with respect to the Fox News (aka Fux Snooze Nitwork). This is the pet project of Roger Ailes.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roger Eugene Ailes (born May 15, 1940) is president of Fox News Channel, and chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush and for Rudy Giuliani’s first mayoral campaign (1989).
That alone should clue everyone in as to why the leanings are nearly vertical, and why Fux Snooze hates anything that is truthful, or not ‘Hard Right’ propaganda.
Sadly, though too many people see this, and think ‘Oh this is the U.S.’. Fox News makes sure that nobody who isn’t one of their Tea Bagging Moron Trolls get little to no air time, because it doesn’t work to try and blotivate and Lie, if the next person on punches enough holes in your argument to make it look a fishing net that met edward Scissor hands.
Janson – Excuse the long (and final) reply but this story really got my goat and I saw this and other blogs appear so considered it worth a bit of time.
For starters, as well as being a pretty naff song by Depeche Mode, people are people is rather sweeping and doesn’t really cut it. Yes, some people are fine, good even, but others really are not.
Your paranoid right wing agitators have huge power and must be taken to task. They are either deliberately misinforming your people, are deluded or both. Regardless, the misinformation they spread suggesting that certain countries from the EU (generally the most liberal) are allowing a degree of Islamic Sharia (law) to be enforced is complete rubbish.
The irony is that it’s your Hawks whose policies are those that look to be far more compatible with Islamic nations living under Sharia –
Death penalty – Abolition is a pre-condition for entry into the EU whereas 32 states in the U.S. still have it.
All countries within the EU guarantee human rights and respect for and protection of minorities – based both on religion and sexual orientation. This is prerequisite but just today news has come out from the Virginia General Assembly that Virginia’s proposed anti-gay law could mean that denying service to lesbian, gay, and bi people is perfectly legal.
A 2014 Gallup poll shows that in the U.S., 42% believe the creationist view of human origins and just 15% say humans evolved without the assistance of God – we have a share of these people over here but that’s pretty dodgy in my opinion and clearly shows that a large percentage of your population are perfectly happy to ignore the facts and believe utter nonsense – and there’s the rub!
Rob – I understand your need to assert superiority. I’m just saying that it is what it is.
Janson – It is what it is. I take it you mean, just leave it, turn a blind eye to this and other major issues or risk being accused of attempting to be somehow superior or condescending by speaking the truth? Oh dear, you may want to brush that chip off your shoulder before you go out.
I’m saying that it’s unfortunate that Americans learned their colonialist instincts from mother Britain, but it would be a shame to demean all Britons for this history of subjugation.
Wow, let’s go back a tad further and perhaps I should have a pop at the Normans or maybe even the Romans – think you’ve drifted off subject and far from current affairs
Muslim mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb tells extremists who ‘don’t like freedom’ to ‘f*** off’ – not entirely compatible with the Emerson religious police and no go areas broadcast is it -http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/muslim-mayor-of-rotterdam-ahmed-aboutaleb-tells-extremists-who-dont-like-freedom-to-f-off-9975459.html
FOX – Follow Our Xenophobia
A couple of thoughts occur here. First, so far none of the usually trolls that post here have bothered to chime in. Of of course this development does make their side look ridiculous. Not a hard thing to do. And of course one of the posters here correctly remarked that the US media establishment as a whole needs to be taken to task, not just the most boliviating sector-Fox. Also i would be remiss if I didn’t comment on the Hillbilly angle. Being from West Virginia (the only state in the US, wherein all 55 counties are classified as part of Appalachia) I am sensitive to slights directed at our culture and ethnicity. As a Hillbilly, many of us have mixed emotions when it comes to the show the Beverley Hillbillies I am not sure as to the intent of the creatures of the show-for example, on the one hand, the general theme running through the show, is that the Hillbillies home spun charm, and common sense always win out against the greedy banker and his snob of a wife. On the other hand, taken as a whole, the gross over exaggeration of the Hillbilly stereotype serves to add fodder to mix. A guy named Williamson wrote a book about Hollywood and it stereotyping of Appalachia taking in broad strokes often looking at how the white under-class generally has fared in Hollywood depiction. Any way, it is interesting that some one chimed in about Virginia and anti-gay rights, the EU, and the death penalty. With regards to the later, wouldn’t publicizing this help to put a crimp in that so called Atlantic trade deal (TRIP?). As regards to Virginia, at least gives us some credit, that in 1863, we realized a loosing hand when we saw it, as we broke away from Virginia, and created our own state of West Virginia. By the way, we don’t have the death penalty, and not much haggling over Gay marriage here either. Also, I must mention that the University of Virginia pep band performed a skit at the half-time of the Carquest Bowl in Charlotte, where they lampooned us for our backward ways. Of course I would be remiss if I did not mention that Virginia was the last state to do away with the anti-miscegenation laws, and they had an extremely high rate of forced sterilizations during the heyday of eugenics. Also, a note to bloggers on FAIR from outside the US and thanks for your input, but I would strongly suggest not using the culturally loaded term redneck, as for Hillbilly that would be ok. Man High School’s mascot in Logan Counts is the Hillbilly.
Like the USA ‘no-go’ zones of responsible journalism and Detroit…
This scumbag goes away back with his factless nonsensical claims, the above article only scratches the surface. His neofascist rants are irresponsibly and dangerous, spreading such hateful garbage, and the networks that embrace him and his ilk are equally if not more guilty as their charge is to broadcast NEWs on the public’s airways, instead have long become parrots of colonialist capitalism, overrunning the commons with military imperialism throughout the world.
@Art Glick: Economic thugishness and racism go hand-in hand. Because it goes beyond race doesn’t avoid it. Individual experiences while instructive cannot cover the spectrum of social disparities.
The vacuousness of such consensuses, their complete missing of the point, is scary. When the West commits overwhelmingly worse atrocities, say in the drone bombing of Afghani or Pakistani wedding parties and funeral processions, support for Israel’s genocide and
apartheid of Palestine, deposing democratic governments around the world and assassinating their presidents like Arbenz, Lumumba and Allende on just the very short list, and installing corporate friendly despots which is to say fascists in their stead, when it razes three countries and slaughters three million in Indochina, when Christian zealots like Pat Robertson openly call for the assassination of the president of Venezuela or Gary Bauer leads the Christian wing in the illegal war of aggression on Iraq in 2003 on the completely bogus pretext of Saddam’s possession of WMD, ad nauseam, they go completely unremarked upon and consigned to the annals of instant amnesia in the Western corporate media and consciousness. Great example of a first-rate piece of FAIR reporting, especially in throwing light on the stark deficiencies of the corporate media. The corporate media is embarrassing and dangerous. I had the local Chicago news on in the background yesterday, and the lead story was the young couple accused of murdering their socialite mother in Indonesia and newly acquired access to her alleged victim’s trust fund. How in hell does a story like that impact other than very peripherally a few compared to the rest of the 7 billion plus on the planet?
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