This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/14/news-from-fox-and-no-go-zone-brain
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| News from Fox, and the no-go zone of the brain | News from Fox, and the no-go zone of the brain |
| (less than a minute earlier) | |
| Steven Emerson, a man whose job title of terrorism expert will henceforth always attract quotation marks, provoked a lot of mirth with his claim, made during a Fox News interview, that Birmingham was a Muslim-only city where “non-Muslims simply just don’t go in”. He was forced to apologise, and the prime minister called him an idiot, all within the space of 24 hours. | Steven Emerson, a man whose job title of terrorism expert will henceforth always attract quotation marks, provoked a lot of mirth with his claim, made during a Fox News interview, that Birmingham was a Muslim-only city where “non-Muslims simply just don’t go in”. He was forced to apologise, and the prime minister called him an idiot, all within the space of 24 hours. |
| This was just one of the many deeply odd things Emerson said in the course of the interview, although it was perhaps the most instantly refutable: Birmingham census figures are easy to come by. His claim that London was full of “actual religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to religious Muslim attire” is harder to disprove; just because I live in London and I’ve never seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. But they’re not exactly thick on the ground. I blame the cuts. | This was just one of the many deeply odd things Emerson said in the course of the interview, although it was perhaps the most instantly refutable: Birmingham census figures are easy to come by. His claim that London was full of “actual religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to religious Muslim attire” is harder to disprove; just because I live in London and I’ve never seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. But they’re not exactly thick on the ground. I blame the cuts. |
| Emerson also made reference to the “no-go zones” of France, where the government doesn’t “exercise any sovereignty”. “On the French official website it says there are,” he said. “It actually has a map of them.” | Emerson also made reference to the “no-go zones” of France, where the government doesn’t “exercise any sovereignty”. “On the French official website it says there are,” he said. “It actually has a map of them.” |
| How could the French government make the basic blunder of publicising its inability to exercise sovereignty, and on the “French official website” of all places? | How could the French government make the basic blunder of publicising its inability to exercise sovereignty, and on the “French official website” of all places? |
| After a bit of Googling – which appears to be how Emerson gets his information – I think I know what he’s on about. He appears to be referring to The 751 No-Go Zones of France, the title of a widely disseminated, nine-year-old blogpost originating on the website of Daniel Pipes, another terrorism expert, or “anti-Arab propagandist”. | After a bit of Googling – which appears to be how Emerson gets his information – I think I know what he’s on about. He appears to be referring to The 751 No-Go Zones of France, the title of a widely disseminated, nine-year-old blogpost originating on the website of Daniel Pipes, another terrorism expert, or “anti-Arab propagandist”. |
| “They go by the euphemistic term Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or sensitive urban zones,” wrote Pipes, referring to them as “places in France that the French state does not fully control”. And it’s true: you can find them all listed on the French government’s website. Never mind that they were introduced in 1996, or that the ZUS distinction actually denotes an impoverished area targeted for economic and social intervention, not abandonment of sovereignty. For people like Emerson they are officially sanctioned caliphates, where cops and non-Muslims dare not tread. | “They go by the euphemistic term Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or sensitive urban zones,” wrote Pipes, referring to them as “places in France that the French state does not fully control”. And it’s true: you can find them all listed on the French government’s website. Never mind that they were introduced in 1996, or that the ZUS distinction actually denotes an impoverished area targeted for economic and social intervention, not abandonment of sovereignty. For people like Emerson they are officially sanctioned caliphates, where cops and non-Muslims dare not tread. |
| Yet seven years after he first exposed the No-Go Zones of France, Pipes actually managed to visit several banlieues around Paris. In an update posted in 2013, his disappointment was palpable. | Yet seven years after he first exposed the No-Go Zones of France, Pipes actually managed to visit several banlieues around Paris. In an update posted in 2013, his disappointment was palpable. |
| “For a visiting American, these areas are very mild, even dull,” he wrote. “We who know the Bronx and Detroit expect urban hell in Europe too, but there things look fine. | “For a visiting American, these areas are very mild, even dull,” he wrote. “We who know the Bronx and Detroit expect urban hell in Europe too, but there things look fine. |
| “I regret having called these areas no-go zones.” | “I regret having called these areas no-go zones.” |
| Anchor away | Anchor away |
| Fox News can’t lay claim to everything stupid on TV, despite a big head start. In November the US financial channel CNBC played host to the head of Ireland’s Industrial Development Agency, Martin Shanahan, on its regular programme Squawkbox. Anchor Joe Kernan wasn’t embarrassed to ask basic questions in the service of clarity. “You have euros in Ireland?” he shouted at one point, incredulous. “Why do you have euros in Ireland?” | Fox News can’t lay claim to everything stupid on TV, despite a big head start. In November the US financial channel CNBC played host to the head of Ireland’s Industrial Development Agency, Martin Shanahan, on its regular programme Squawkbox. Anchor Joe Kernan wasn’t embarrassed to ask basic questions in the service of clarity. “You have euros in Ireland?” he shouted at one point, incredulous. “Why do you have euros in Ireland?” |
| Shanahan admitted that Ireland had indeed been using the euro for some time. | Shanahan admitted that Ireland had indeed been using the euro for some time. |
| Kernan seemed equally astonished to hear that Ireland wasn’t part of the UK (“sort of the same island, isn’t it?”), and that Scotland used sterling, and that so did Northern Ireland (“They Do?”). Fortunately he remained professional enough not to let his surprise dull his economic analysis. “Oh my God,” he said. “You guys have to get it together over there.” | Kernan seemed equally astonished to hear that Ireland wasn’t part of the UK (“sort of the same island, isn’t it?”), and that Scotland used sterling, and that so did Northern Ireland (“They Do?”). Fortunately he remained professional enough not to let his surprise dull his economic analysis. “Oh my God,” he said. “You guys have to get it together over there.” |