BBC Kilroy 'regrets' anti-Arab comments

BBC ^ | 01/09/2004 | BBC

[BushisTheMan]

The Kilroy programme will be suspended from Monday Television presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk has apologised for a newspaper article in which he made anti-Arab comments.

He said he greatly regretted the offence caused by the Sunday Express article, which was written in April but "republished last weekend in error".

In it, he branded Arabs "suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors" and asked what they had given to the world other than oil.

Earlier, the BBC suspended the Kilroy show while it investigates the matter.

The corporation stressed the comments did not reflect its views as a broadcaster.

In a statement, Mr Kilroy-Silk said: "I greatly regret the offence which has been caused by the article published in last weekend's Sunday Express.

It has obviously caused great distress and offence and I can only reiterate that I very deeply regret that Robert Kilroy-Silk "The article contains a couple of obvious factual errors which I also regret."

Mr Kilroy-Silk said the article had not prompted such an outcry the first time it was published, adding it was "not what I would have said today".

"It was originally written as a response to the views of opponents to the war in Iraq that Arab States 'loathe' the West and my piece referred to 'Arab States' rather than 'Arabs'," he said.

"Out of that context, it has obviously caused great distress and offence and I can only reiterate that I very deeply regret that."

'Ignorance'

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) described the piece written by the discussion show host in last week's Sunday Express as a "gratuitous anti-Arab rant".

Mr Kilroy-Silk's article included comments saying the toppling of despotic regimes in the Middle East should be a war aim, and questioned the contribution of the Arab nations to world welfare and civilisation.

He said Arabs "murdered more than 3,000 civilians on 11 September" and then "danced in the streets" to celebrate.

I certainly think he's entitled to his opinions Perry de Havilland Libertarian Alliance

The MCB secretary general Iqbal Sacranie wrote in a letter to BBC One controller Lorraine Heggessey that Mr Kilroy-Silk had failed to distinguish between the terrorists behind the 11 September attacks and 200 million "ordinary Arab peoples".

Mr Sacranie condemned the "bigoted and ill-informed ideas" in the piece, which he said was "ignorant, extremely derogatory and indisputably racist".

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) reported the matter to the police.

CRE chairman Trevor Phillips commended the BBC for taking swift action on the matter.

He said: "It is unbelievable. It's not just what he says, but the way he says it, which is completely offensive, and the level of ignorance he shows."

TV host defended

But Perry de Havilland of the Libertarian Alliance defended the television host's right to free speech.

He told BBC News: "Blackening everyone in an entire civilisation is intemperate, to put it mildly.

"But I certainly think he's entitled to his opinions and I don't see why he's been whipped from pillar to post for it."

He said anti-American views expressed by newspaper columnists did not prompt as much uproar.

BBC Breakfast will continue for an extra half hour on BBC One, to 0930 GMT, while Kilroy is off air.

Mr Kilroy-Silk owns the company that makes the programme.

[12B]

Bush is an idiot to keep up the "it belongs to them" rubbish.

Uh, who else would it belong to?

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: ...he branded Arabs "suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors" and asked what they had given to the world other than oil.

Sounds like he knows the radical Arabs pretty well...

[Restorer]

You left out Poles, Letts, Lithuanians and Estonians. Respectively almost entirely Roman Catholic, mostly Catholic, mostly Lutheran and Catholic, and mostly Lutheran. Not to mention the occasional Czech, Croat and Slovene.

[Zeppo]

He said Arabs "murdered more than 3,000 civilians on 11 September" and then "danced in the streets" to celebrate.

The MCB secretary general Iqbal Sacranie wrote in a letter to BBC One controller Lorraine Heggessey that Mr Kilroy-Silk had failed to distinguish between the terrorists behind the 11 September attacks and 200 million "ordinary Arab peoples".

MCB secretary general Iqbal Sacranie needs to go back and re-read what Mr. Kilroy-Silk actually wrote. Especially the part about those who "danced in the streets". Clearly it wasn't the terrorists who were dancing in the streets, instead it was the "ordinary Arab peoples" who were doing the dancing.

[Jim Noble]

Uh, who else would it belong to?

It should belong to those heroes who discovered it, invented and developed the means to exploit it, invested the money to create infrastructure for #2, and created a technological civilization that can make use of it.

Under what theory of justice should it belong to ignorant savages who would, on their own, have no use for it whatever?

[chadwimc]

I say "We need another crusade..."

[12B]

Under what theory of justice should it belong to ignorant savages who would, on their own, have no use for it whatever?

The same theory of justice which says I can't bust in your house and screw your old lady just because you're a short-peckered dweeb who doesn't know what a hot piece he's got. The same theory that says I can't come and steal your hot-rod car just because you're an old geezer who drives 50 in the fast lane. The same theory that says I can't swipe your golf clubs just because you're a pathetic duffer. Etc, etc, and so on.

[tet68]

fine carpets...(ok one positive)

Yep, even if they cost 5 children under ten years of age their eyesight.

I'm still waiting for the Imams to "regret" THEIR comments.

[Restorer]

Uh, who else would it belong to?

If someone else finds a new and incredibly valuable use for a mineral that lies beneath where I live, do I have a moral right to all the wealth it generates? Or does the person who discovered both the use and its presence beneath where I was cluelessly dwelling have a better one?

I'm not talking the legalities of real estate, I'm asking who has more right from a purely moral standpoint.

It seems obvious to me that in this case I did absolutely nothing to generate the wealth. I have no moral right to it in the sense I would have if my hard work and ingenuity had created it.

In the same sense, someone who inherits wealth does not have the same moral right to it as the person who creates the wealth.

In each case somebody won the lottery.

[doug from upland]

I think they just changed his name for him -- to Salman Rushdie.

[scotsman1]

Dont be so ignorant.The Arab world has given us the telescope(Hasan),the first watch(Kubti)and they also invented photography as early as the 11th century and also the pendulum and the tangent in maths.Also spherical triganometry.Not to mention Omar Khayyam and the great civilisation of the Moors.......who brought ancient greek/roman literature and science back to Europe after almost a millenium.The extremists in any religion are a minority(its not muslims blowing up Oklahoma or abortion clinics/killing doctors).............

[dagnabbit]

Immigrating Islam is the West's way of committing suicide. Britain appears to be past the tipping point, with Muslims now calling the shots there.

In the USofA, we're currently importing about 100,000 adherents of the Religion of Peace legally annually. If, G-d forbid, Bush's open-border scheme gets off the ground - it's anyone's guess what the rate will be.

[Jim Noble]

You can't break into my house because it was created with the product of my labor, or with my labor.

You can't screw my old lady because she and I have an arrangement.

The Arabs association with petroleum is accidental, and the theory that it should belong to them-just because- is a destructive novelty.

In 1950, or 1850, or 1750, or 1650, it would have been incomprehensible.

Hopefully by 2050 it will be incomprehensible again.

[RussianConservative]

Omar Khayyam and the great civilisation of the Moors

Moorish civilization only short period of some 200 years till Christian population mostly kill off and most based upon existing Gallic knowledge inherent of Roman civilization.

Ok, so since let us say 10% of Islamic homocidal, now that only make 150 million peoples who want to exterminate you. If on average they kill onl 3 peoples each, that is 450 million dead infedil...don't worry, you might not be one...if you are not already Muslim.

Further, show me one holy book of any other faith that is pro rape of infedils, slavery of infedils, murder of infedils, keeping certain infedils (Christian/Jew) as second class citizen...Dimmi. One holy book that bosts of prophet who lie, steal, assassinate and extermiante. Who use slaves, is pedophile (last wife of Muhammed was 6 years old when he 56)....yes, lovely faith. But as Mohammed said to world: commets are shot from nostrils of Allah to chase demons, and since Mohammed is perfect in all ways and only prophet of Allah almighty, this must be truth.

[RussianConservative]

Who is ignorant now?:

Telescope: Here

In the literature of white magic, so popular in the sixteenth century, there are several tantalizing references to devices that would allow one to see one's enemies or count coins from a great distance. But these allusions were cast in obscure language and were accompanied by fantastic claims; the telescope, when it came, was a very humble and simple device. It is possible that in the 1570s Leonard and Thomas Digges in England actually made an instrument consisting of a convex lens and a mirror, but if this proves to be the case, it was an experimental setup that was never translated into a mass-produced device.[3]

The telescope was unveiled in the Netherlands. In October 1608, the States General (the national government) in The Hague discussed the patent applications first of Hans Lipperhey of Middelburg, and then of Jacob Metius of Alkmaar, on a device for "seeing faraway things as though nearby." It consisted of a convex and concave lens in a tube, and the combination magnified three or four times.[4] The gentlemen found the device too easy to copy to award the patent, but it voted a small award to Metius and employed Lipperhey to make several binocular versions, for which he was paid handsomely. It appears that another citizen of Middelburg, Sacharias Janssen had a telescope at about the same time but was at the Frankfurt Fair where he tried to sell it.

The earliest known illlustration of a telescope. Giovanpattista della Porta included this sketch in a letter written in August 1609 The news of this new invention spread rapidly through Europe, and the device itself quickly followed. By April 1609 three-powered spyglasses could be bought in spectacle-maker's shops on the Pont Neuf in Paris, and four months later there were several in Italy. (fig. 4) We know that Thomas Harriot observed the Moon with a six-powered instrument early in August 1609. But it was Galileo who made the instrument famous. He constructed his first three-powered spyglass in June or July 1609, presented an eight-powered instrument to the Venetian Senate in August, and turned a twenty-powered instrument to the heavens in October or November. With this instrument (fig. 5) he observed the Moon, discovered four satellites of Jupiter, and resolved nebular patches into stars. He published\Sidereus Nuncius in March 1610.

[RussianConservative]

Tell more lies: Watch and Pendulum Here

Modern Clock Trivia In 1577, Jost Burgi invented the minute hand. Burgi's invention was part of a clock made for Tycho Brahe, an astronomer who needed an accurate clock for his stargazing. In 1656, the pendulum was invented by Christian Huygens, making clocks more accurate. In 1504, the first portable (but not very accurate) timepiece was invented in Nuremberg, Germany by Peter Henlein. The first reported person to actually wear a watch on the wrist was the French mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). With a piece of string, he attached his pocket watch to his wrist. The word 'clock' comes from the French word "cloche" meaning bell. The Latin for bell is glocio, the Saxon is clugga and the German is glocke. Sir Sanford Fleming invented standard time in 1878.

[RussianConservative]

An early prototype of the alarm clock was invented by the Greeks around 250 BC. The Greeks built a water clock where the raising waters would both keep time and eventually hit a mechanical bird that triggered an alarming whistle. The first mechanical alarm clock was invented by Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, in 1787. However, the ringing bell alarm on his clock could ring only at 4 am. On October 24, 1876 a mechanical wind-up alarm clock that could be set for any time was patented (#183,725) by Seth E Thomas.

[RussianConservative]

Tangents:

Apollonius of Perga (ca 262 BC - 190 BC)

Apollonius was born in Perga in Pamphilia (now Turkey), but was possibly educated in Alexandria where he spent some time teaching. Very little is known of his life. He seems to have felt himself a rival of Archimedes. In any event he worked on similar problems. He was known as the ``great geometer" because of his work on conics. Apollonius wrote many books. All but one are lost. Among those we know he wrote are:

Quick Delivery Cutting-off of a Ratio Cutting-off of an Area On Determinate Section
Tangencies
Vergings (Inclinations)
Plane Loci
Apollonius was 25 years younger than Archimedes, and they together with Euclid stood well above all other mathematicians of the first century of this period. Because of them, this period is sometimes called the ``golden age" of Greek mathematics. In his book Quick Delivery (lost), he gives the approximation to as 3.1416. We do not know his method. His only known work is On Conics - 8 Books only 4 survive. Features: Using the double oblique cone he constructs the conics parabola, ellipse, hyperbola, whose names he fixed for all time. He made use of the idea of Symptoms which were similar to equations, there results an analytic-like geometry - but without coordinates! Proposition I-33. If AC is constructed, where |AE| = |ED|, then AC is tangent to the parabola

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646 - 1716)

The only papers of first-rate importance which he produced are those on the differential calculus. The earliest of these was one published in the Acta Eruditorum for October, 1684, in which he enunciated a general method for finding maxima and minima, and for drawing tangents to curves. One inverse problem, namely, to find the curve whose subtangent is constant, was also discussed. The notation is the same as that with which we are familiar, and the differential coefficients of and of products and quotients are determined. In 1686 he wrote a paper on the principles of the new calculus. In both of these papers the principle of continuity is explicitly assumed, while his treatment of the subject is based on the use of infinitesimals and not on that of the limiting value of ratios. In answer to some objections which were raised in 1694 by Bernard Nieuwentyt, who asserted that dy/dx stood for an unmeaning quantity like 0/0, Leibnitz explained, in the same way that Barrow had previously done, that the value of dy/dx in geometry could be expressed as the ratio of two finite quantities.

[RussianConservative]

Oh and most Islamic contribution to math not Arab but Persian...oops, slight distinction...but then there is little fact of this:

Who Destroyed Alexandria's Famous Library?

The Library of Alexandria was one of the best-known of the libraries of the ancient world. One of the interesting facts about the ancient world that seems to be missing from many history books is that there were many great collections of books and literature in ancient times and most were open to any scholar from anywhere in the world.

The library at Alexandria actually competed with that at Pergamum in amassing the most complete collection of books in the world. This went on in the 200's B. C., and it is interesting to note that there were already so many works in existence that obtaining a copy of each would have been an impossible undertaking even then. The destruction of this priceless treasure was a stroke of the most unimaginable bad luck. If Byzantine Egypt had been taken by one of the later Islamic conquerors, this irreplaceable collection would have been counted amongst the finest of the spoils of war to fall into a victor's hands.

Early in the year A. D. 642, Alexandria surrendered to Amrou, the Islamic general leading the armies of Omar, Caliph of Baghdad. Long one of the most important cities of the ancient world and capital of Byzantine Egypt, Alexandria surrendered only after a long siege and attempts to rescue the city by the Byzantines. On the orders of Omar, Caliph of Baghdad, the entire collection of books (except for the works of Aristotle) stored at the Library of Alexandria were removed and used as fuel to heat water for the city's public baths.

This is not the first time the library was damaged or destroyed. Originally built to house the massive collection of books accumulated by the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, the library had been devastated by fire several times. During Julius Caesar's Alexandrian campaign in 47 B. C., Caesar set fire to ships in the port. The fire spread to the library, which was called the Museum at that time.

In A. D. 391, riots instigated by fanatical Christians damaged the collection heavily. During the years between disastrous events, the library collection had been gradually restored. In 641, the Caliph of Baghdad exhibited the same spirit of religious fanaticism in ordering Amrou to burn the books stored there. The loss of the library at Alexandria was a particularly grievous blow because the works of so many Roman scholars. literary geniuses, and historians were destroyed.

- Source: San Jose State University

[scotsman1]

I never claimed that Islam ISNT a violent religion,but this idea that the Arab has conributed nothing to the civilisation of man is nonsense.To the arab,we owe the decimal zero(Iraq 500bc),modern trigonometry(al-tusi in the 13th century).In fact,much of the medieval mathematical work was done by Arabs(even 'chinese' trigonomatry has been traced to the Arabs via the silk road route).Al'Zarkali invented the astrolabe and the water clock.The Arab not the Chinese invented gunpowder and the first gun(the Chinese borrowed the idea from the 10th century onwards).The world's first bank was Arab,as was the first free hospital,and the pendulum WAS invented by Hasan in 1079 long before 1565.........he discovered the prototype magnifying lens centuries before the West(Brownoski:'the ascent of man' 1981).The watch I am wrong on but actually so were you.It almost certainly is a Greek or Macedonian invention,as Alexander the Great is supposed to have worn one,a rudimentary wrist-watch.As for tangents,the Arabs DID invent the co-tangent(al-battani in 900ad).The Arabs have influence EVERY field of human endeavour from language to science.And five of the greatest civilisations(Sumerian,Babylonians,Egypt,Phoenicians,Canaanites)are Arab.........