BBC Radio 4: abuse of women has nothing to do with religion

The BBC is often accused of a leftwing bias. Why, even its ex-boss Mark Thompson manfully admitted the accusation isn’t wholly unfounded.

Following that bout of self-deprecation, inveterate reactionaries (among whom I mournfully number myself) have had a field day.

The BBC’s general tendency to place itself to the left of every mainstream party on just about every issue has been pointed out. Its choice of The Guardian as the only paper privileged to run the BBC’s appointment ads has been castigated. Its knee-jerk touting of PC, multi-culti rectitude has been rebuked.

Well, I’m man enough to admit that we, reactionaries, have been wrong. That is, we weren’t wrong in pointing out that the BBC violates its charter by eschewing objectivity.

After all, as even inveterate reactionaries like me pay the licence fee, it’s not immediately clear why we should be subjected to clearly unbalanced journalism. At least, with The Guardian we have the option of not buying the paper, an economy measure denied even to listeners of BBC radio stations (we pay for them through our taxes).

However, the leftwing bias must have something going for it. It evidently enables its possessors to delve the depths of human nature inaccessible to fee-paying reactionaries.

This dawned on me as I drove down the A40 yesterday, listening to a Radio 4 report on what was coyly identified as ‘grooming’ prevalent in the Bangladeshi community. This, contrary to what you may think, has nothing to do with meticulous attention to one’s appearance.

As the report eventually made clear, ‘grooming’ is the BBC for rape. Apparently older men chat up young girls, rape them and then pass them on like so many relay batons among their friends who rape them too. The girls go along with this because they are too ashamed and, more to the point, scared to complain.

Radio 4 lamented the indisputably lamentable fact that this practice has reached endemic proportions. It then discerned the discernible link between ‘grooming’ and forced marriage, another widespread practice among British Muslims.

So far, so good. But then came one of those startling insights for which the BBC is so justly famous. It’s tempting, said the report, to ascribe such manifestly un-British behaviour to the offenders’ culture or religion. But of course the real reason lies much deeper than that.

That’s when I realised the error of my ways. I, along with every inveterate reactionary of my acquaintance (and to my eternal shame there are many), thought nothing was much deeper than culture or religion.

They aren’t the sole motivators of human behaviour, but the others have a dubious claim to greater depth – and no claim at all when they are explained in Freudian terms.

Alas, the report didn’t identify the real triggers, which made it harder to accept its assertion that such rather cavalier treatment of women has nothing to do with culture or religion. The simpletons among us thus feel justified in clinging to our reactionary beliefs.

BBC gnosticism, like any other kind, is based on facts known to the gnostics only. The rest of us have to rely on facts in the public domain, and these seem to suggest that culture and religion do have something to do with the propensity to abuse women.

According to St Paul, “…there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” This is, to put it mildly, not exactly the position taken by the holy book of Islam. The Koran, for example, states unequivocally that “men are a degree above them [women] in status.” (2:228)

Though the Koran prohibits rape, this pecking order is reflected in its treatment of relations between the sexes. Thus, “. . . If you fear highhandedness from your wives, remind them [of the teaching of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them.” (4:34) Or else, “Women are your fields: go, then, into your fields whence you please.” (2:223)

Numerous studies show that such seeds fall on fertile ground. For example, a 2008 survey by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights found that more than 80 percent of Egyptian women have experienced sexual harassment. Nor did they ask for it by wearing unchaste Western clothes: the majority of the victims wore Islamic headscarves.

In all fairness, abuse of women is typical not just of Muslim countries but of all those untouched by Judaeo-Christian morality. This month’s UN study of various parts of Asia has revealed an interesting fact: an astounding proportion of men admit to having committed rape at least once.

Papua New Guinea Bougainville Island leads the way with 62% (a piece of avuncular advice to girls: don’t go to Bougainville on holiday), but others achieve respectable scores as well. China: 22%. Urban Indonesia: 26.2%. Sri Lanka: 14.5%. Rural Bangladesh: 14%.

Without having ready data at one’s disposal, one could still venture a guess that no country that used to be Christian (none still is) would boast such numbers. For instance, I can’t think offhand of any rapist among my friends in half a dozen Western countries.

But that’s clearly an irrelevant observation. According to the BBC, neither religion nor culture has anything to do with it.

 

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