Kilroy Silk - What do you think?

[DaBeeeenster]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/med...sp?story=47907
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3376633.stm

What are people's thoughts on this? Is it racist? Should he lose his job? Or is he just saying what his readers think?

[Big RICHARD]

I think he is probably saying what a lot of people are scared to say. I think he hasn't made the distinction that the Arab terrorist regimes are not representative of all Arabs, but there are an awful lot of Arabs in Arab states who have a particular distaste for the West and would love to see the West in tatters. When something awful happens in the West there is often partying in the streets by Arab nations' citizens and it isn't just 1 or 2 hundred that attend, there are tens of thousands present , cheering at the misfortune of the West. These are not the Arabs who live here (with the exception of a minority), these are the Arabs who live in 2nd and 3rd world states.

Why? I don't know. Maybe it's jealousy. Maybe it is because they feel opressed by the West. But why don't they get their fingers out and start working towards gaining what the West have earned, instead of trying to take it from us?

Anyway, I don't think that he has made any racist comments. I think that he has addressed views which sometimes go unsaid. Unfortunately the article appears badly written and people have misunderstood which Arabs he refers to. It appears that he is referring to the Arabs in their 'homelands' (ie Arab states) who seem to think that we (the West) owe them something.

[TiG]

In his position as a member of the BBC sadly his views should be impartial, I'm afraid although he may be expressing public opinion (which i personally feel is wrong and the true reason for fundamentalism being HATRED breeding hatred) he should probably lose his position of power (that being a talk show of all things)

Harsh, yep quite possibly but i doubt that the BBC will be able to do anything else if too much is made of this.

My personal view is that if we really want to sort out racial hatred a lot of that change comes from the media, positive racial messages over long periods of time will set into the nature of a population a message that fixes racial hatred.

Hate and views like this should have no place in modern society.

However having said this there is a limit. That limit is when the tolerant people become intolerant of intolerant people.

Much like why no-one _wanted_ to be forced into fighting in WWII. Tolerance was breed into people after the human cost of WWI.

My 2p anyway.

TiG

[Saracen]

Should he lose his job? In my opinion, no.

Is it racist? Ummm. Maybe slightly. But one needs to define "racist" before you can answer that. Are we talking generically or legally?

Is he saying what many of his readers think? Well, maybe, but even if he is, that's no excuse for a supposedly responsbile journalist saying it in print.

Do I agree with what he said? Partly, but only partly.

Two MAJOR points of divergence, though. Firstly, being Arab does not necessarily make you Islamic. Also, being Isalmic does not necessarily make you Arab.

And the real doozy of a difference - whilst, in recent terms at least, if you're a terrorist there's a pretty good chance you're Islamic (or rather, claim to be), that is a very VERY long way from saying that if you're Islamic you're a terrorist.

If Kilroy-Silk said one thing in there that really offends me, it's the implicit, or borderline explicit, tarring of all Muslim's with the terrorist brush. Such claim, or even inference, is arrant nonsense.

Having said that - he does make some valid points too. Many, maybe most, Arab states are by our standards repressive, even brutal. And having that opinion, and even expressing it, is fair enough.

Maybe, just maybe, the people's of these Arab states would wish to be ruled in such a way. If they'd ever actually been ASKED, then fair enough. That's where I part company, for instance, with US policy on Iraq. The US seems to be determined to try to ensure that Iraq does not have an Islamic government. My preference, despite my personal opinion on many such states, is that the IRaqi people should be governed how THEY choose to be governed.

Kilroy-Silk is largely correct, however, in what he says about where science, medicine and technology originate. Little of it originates from the Arab world. The US, UK, France, Germany and so on, yes, but little from the Arab world.

KS may have gone a bit over the top with this one, but IMHO, accusing him of inciting racial hatred with this piece (as has been done) is as fatuous as some of the things he said in that article.

It DOES seem, however, that people can accuse the US of being all sorts of things, and the CRE say not a word but as soon as it is said about Arab nations, they're up in arms. My respect for the CRE varies from little to none, and their reaction to this did nothing to enhance that view.

[Moby-Dick]

I think he has overstereotyped.

As for his comments on oil - sadly it doesn't matter if the yanks discovered it , they need it and as such will either appease those who have it or take it by force.

as an odd aside - look at the related threads link at the bottom of the page

[Big RICHARD]

Originally Posted by Saracen

Long waffling post

Again, Saracen's post explains my thoughts better than my own did!

[DR]

His Son runs Jolt.co.uk and is an arrogant tosspot too...

[DaBeeeenster]

LOL! I'd be bending over ready for some legal administration by him if I were you David!

I'm not quite sure what medicine or technology has to do with all this. Are we allowed to flame Africans because they did not discover penecillin or the electron? Are the actions of Europeans in Australia in the middle part of the 20th century towards the Aborigines (silent genocide, and nothing less is the correct description) fair because they did not split the atom?

This is just hate stirred up by Silk.

[Big RICHARD]

Originally Posted by DaBeeeenster

This is just hate stirred up by Silk.

In your opinion. You are entitled to your opinion, Robert Kilroy Silk is entitled to his.....

[nichomach]

I'm largely in agreement with Saracen over this (with the proviso that actually the modern practice of medicine originated w/Arabs - while we were still trepanning skulls to let the demons out ). Tarring all Arabs with the terrorist brush is unbelievably foolish. That said, while I can sympathise with Arabs or Muslims who feel unfairly tarred with the same brush, and although the number of actual terrorists is very small, the number of people who were prepared to dance in the streets at the humiliation of "The Great Satan" was significantly larger. I don't equate "Muslim" with "terrorist", but to pretend, as the CRE and MCB would appear to wish to do, that they are entirely dissociated from each other is both disingenuous and bordering upon hypocritical. Islamic doctrine may not sanction terrorism, but then Christian doctrine never sanctioned torture and murder either, which didn't slow down Tomas de Torquemada appreciably. Faith groups who don't accept that things done in their name, even if they don't approve of them, WILL be inevitably linked to them regardless of their approval or disapproval are just burying their heads in the sand.

Silk should NOT have referred to Arabs as a whole in the way he did, and he included Islamic countries in his statement which aren't even Arab to start with (like Iran). I do feel however that there is too much of an impulse to try to stifle any discussion of terrorism which makes even the slightest reference to Islam, and that's just stupid.

[Skii]

I think he's saying what the silent majority already think. I wonder if a prominent Arab said the same thing about western culture, would it get the same media frenzy and outrage ? No.

[steve threlfall]

I agree. If the boot was on the other foot and an arab person was saying this then his comment would go unnoticed.

[floppybootstomp]

I voted mildly out of order. That just about sums it up for me.

It is possible to be Nationalist without being racist. If I wasn't fond of the French and I criticised them, is that racist?

Foolish, perhaps, condemning a whole nation for the actions of a few, but racist? Dunno.

[jcoquillon]

His comments were unbelievably naive and racist. He made huge generalisations and basically in my opinion is of the opinion the entire arab world are terrorists. I don't feel like going itno too much depth of explaining how i feel and why he was wrong and criminal to say what he did because it will just make me angry and won't change what he did. He's always been obnoxious but he overstepped the boundary, to think of the fuss that was made of anne robinsons comments about the welsh, this is a million times worse.

[Skii]

Fair enough.

If we are going to light the pitchforks and fires on Kilroy Silk for making such huge generalisations and sweeping comments on Arab people, shouldn't we be equally hard on those who do the same about America

- deal ?

[Rave]

Maybe they should sack him for this, but they definately should have sacked him a long time ago for being a crap talk show host. Seriously, the BBC employ this fool and yet they sacked Angus Deayton for a bit of coke taking and shagging? That makes me so angry I want to hit something. Frankly, I wish terrorists would blow up Television Centre, that would be a start.

Rich :¬)

Edit: There should be an option in the poll: "He should be sacked for being a total ignoramus". I don't really agree with any of the options.