There's Songs of Praise for the Christians every Sunday. There are special messages from the head Rabbi for Passover and Yom Kippur.
There’s Songs of Praise for the Christians every Sunday. There are special messages from the chief Rabbi for Passover and Yom Kippur.
So why not have prayers for Ramadan?
Channel 4 will screen a three minute chant by Hassen Rasool, a prayer call leader, from the start of Ramadan next Tuesday. Thereafter it will mark the first prayer of each day at 3am before resuming it’s regular schedule.
It will, however, interrupt this schedule for 20 seconds at four other prayer times during the day for the 30 days of Ramadan.
In other words, if you’re watching Channel 4 at 3am your programming will be interrupted for three minutes. Later in the day, you will also lose just over a minute of television.
I can see how that could be quite upsetting.
Some perspective is needed, though.
According to the front page of today’s Sun, the actions of Channel 4 in choosing to broadcast Ramadan could “inflame tension”.
In other words, there are people who are so angry they are going to lose around four minutes of television a day that the peace may be compromised.
And as if the Sun actually wanted to inflame community tensions, the paper follows this by quoting an obnoxious Islamist by the name of Abu Zakariyya – of the Islamic Emergency Defence Group – who wants to see Sharia Law in Britain.
You’d think the Sun was implying that all Muslims who will take part in Ramadan prayers want Sharia Law or something.
In the end Channel 4’s decision is down to a mixture of two things.
Firstly, like the Sun it actually wants to “provoke” the wrong sorts of people for the purposes of publicity, much like when it made the atrocious decision to broadcast an ‘alternative message by the Holocaust-denying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – although in the case of the latter it would have been wrong not to be provoked.
There’s also a detectable strain of Islamophilia amongst some half-baked progressives, which Channel 4 seems to epitomise. In polite company Christianity can be cursed to the skies, yet criticism of Islam comes with a risk attached – you may be branded Islamophobic; the implication being that you suffer in some way from colour prejudice.
As George Orwell put it in Notes on Nationalism:
“Almost any English intellectual would be scandalised by the claim that the white races are superior to the coloured, whereas the opposite claim would seem to him unexceptionable even if he disagreed with it.”
Personally I would like to see a lot less religion on television. But that doesn’t mean I’m the sort of person who is going to be “provoked” by four minutes of Muslim prayer each day for a single week. You should probably worry about anyone who is.
29 Responses to “What sort of person would three minutes of Muslim prayer at 3am ‘provoke’?”
chdfhfdfdgf
I am provoked it is ok to ban xmas decorations, councils stop the British flag flying. The Muslims takeover is starting. Channel 4 has lost the plot. This is sickening. Petition to ban sharia law in the UK, enough is enough, stop Islam. If it gets to 100,000 it goes to Parliament.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48352
Over 14,000 signatures
Tommy's friend
I’m no christian but christianity has been gradually and constantly embedded in the fabric of this society over nearly two millenia. Islam has been foisted on an unwilling population in less than 2 decades by marxist philosophies unsanctioned by democracy.
Graham Thompson
When was the referendum on Christianity then? I assume Christianity was ‘sanctioned by democracy’?
cbinTH
His response does cut to the heart of it. “Colonised” is a bit strong, but essentially this has to be carried off tastefully by Channel 4, and introduced as a pleasing bit of colourful variety in the normal schedule, or it will come across as both weird (like interrupting programming for the Lord’s prayer 3 times a day) and as “official” – that is if done badly will come across as the incorporation of Islam into the official areas of public life.
I mean, this is a one off, but imagine if we still hadfour/five channels, and all of them did this every Ramadan. That would be uncomfortable, wouldn’t it?
Graham Thompson
If I remember correctly, Christian countries have invaded and conquered most of the world.
Islam is a wimp.