Well, seems like Colin Davies is not the only English Basque-phobe living in Spain, now he has a conational by the name of Peter Harvey who uses the moniker Lavengro to publish his blog.
Lavengro decided to label all the Basques as terrorists in his recent post called "BBC and Terrorism". This is how he does it.
He starts by claiming that the BBC is too lenient when it calls ETA members "militants" or "separatists" instead of "terrorists":
Then, he then goes into a rant that only he can understand, you be the judge of it:
So, here you have the article by the BBC (he does not link to it, not much of a pro blogger):
This is why Mr. Harvey earns his designation as Basque-phobe of the week, the BBC article never once refers to ETA, at least not on the paragraphs he reproduced.
The article refers to Basques in general and to the members of Batasuna, a political party accused of being ETA's political wing. So lets take it step by step.
In a democratic state someone accused of something is innocent until proven guilty. Spain accused Batasuna of being ETA's political wing but since that did not stick Aznar and his Partido Popular created a law that was a throwback to the Franco regime, the Law of Political Parties was the tool that Madrid used against Batasuna claiming that its leadership had never condemned ETA's violence. This has to be the first time in recorded history in which someone is accused of apology of terrorism not for what he or she said, but for what he or she did not say.
But the problem does not stop there, the problem with Madrid's move was that on the day a political party was banned for the first time since Franco the Spanish police raided the headquarters of Batasuna and many other of the party's district offices, seizing computers and files. That was in 2003, this is 2007 and the case has not been given a court date, so much for that other tenet of democracy known as "timely trial".
This is why the BBC does not fail when it calls the members of Batasuna by militants or separatists (separatist is wrong also but that would be subject of a complete new post), innocent until proven guilty.
Funny thing is that Peter refers to a previous link in his quest against the BBC, this one called "ETA and the BBC, Again". In it, to make his point he quotes no one else than... Winston Churchill!
Here it is:
Yes indeed, the Hitler minded Englishman who instigated war crimes when he ordered the airborne bombing of unarmed civilians back in the 1920's in what is today known as Iraq. Yes indeed, it was not Hitler and his Luftwaffe in Durango and Gernika, it was Churchill and his Royal Air Force the first ones to use biological weapons against the Kurdish refugee camps. Churchill then went on to commit more war crimes during the many colonialist punitive actions carried out by England, but somehow the West has managed to clean up his image to make a hero out of this clown.
Then there is the penchant by English bloggers like Colin Davies and Peter Harvey to label anyone that moves a terrorist. That coming from a country that bestowed its best honors on pirates, a country that carried out ethnic cleansing operations in America, Africa, Oceania and Europe, a colonialist power than tried to wipe away the entire population of Ireland by creating a famine. If you are going to call someone a terrorist that would be London's governments for the last 500 years.
But why do these conservative Englishmen hate the Basques so much?
Simple, the Basque quest for self-determination has inspired many others to fight for their own political rights, so now England sees how Scotland and Wales are freeing themselves from its tight colonialist-era grip.
Lavengro decided to label all the Basques as terrorists in his recent post called "BBC and Terrorism". This is how he does it.
He starts by claiming that the BBC is too lenient when it calls ETA members "militants" or "separatists" instead of "terrorists":
We see that infatuation again here. People who kill and maim in support of political beliefs are, for the BBC, not terrorists but separatists or militants.
Then, he then goes into a rant that only he can understand, you be the judge of it:
Does the BBC tell the world that a bunch of people who, it is widely suspected, know rather more than any civilised person ought to know about a terrorist organisation that has killed getting on for a thousand people have been arrested so that the judicial authorities of a democratic country can sort things out? Err no.
So, here you have the article by the BBC (he does not link to it, not much of a pro blogger):
Basque protest urged over arrests
Batasuna spokesman Joseba Permach was among those held
Basque separatists have called for street protests over the arrest of more than 20 top members of the banned political party, Batasuna.
Spain's Attorney General, Candido Conde Pumpido, welcomed the latest arrests, saying some of those held were accused of co-operating with an armed group.
"These activities cannot be tolerated, so if the police find out about them, as they did in this case in Segura, it seems prudent that they be ordered to intervene," he told Spanish public radio RNE.
However, Basques have been urged to protest against the arrests.
This is why Mr. Harvey earns his designation as Basque-phobe of the week, the BBC article never once refers to ETA, at least not on the paragraphs he reproduced.
The article refers to Basques in general and to the members of Batasuna, a political party accused of being ETA's political wing. So lets take it step by step.
In a democratic state someone accused of something is innocent until proven guilty. Spain accused Batasuna of being ETA's political wing but since that did not stick Aznar and his Partido Popular created a law that was a throwback to the Franco regime, the Law of Political Parties was the tool that Madrid used against Batasuna claiming that its leadership had never condemned ETA's violence. This has to be the first time in recorded history in which someone is accused of apology of terrorism not for what he or she said, but for what he or she did not say.
But the problem does not stop there, the problem with Madrid's move was that on the day a political party was banned for the first time since Franco the Spanish police raided the headquarters of Batasuna and many other of the party's district offices, seizing computers and files. That was in 2003, this is 2007 and the case has not been given a court date, so much for that other tenet of democracy known as "timely trial".
This is why the BBC does not fail when it calls the members of Batasuna by militants or separatists (separatist is wrong also but that would be subject of a complete new post), innocent until proven guilty.
Funny thing is that Peter refers to a previous link in his quest against the BBC, this one called "ETA and the BBC, Again". In it, to make his point he quotes no one else than... Winston Churchill!
Here it is:
Winston Churchill once said that he refused to be neutral between the fire brigade and the fire.
Yes indeed, the Hitler minded Englishman who instigated war crimes when he ordered the airborne bombing of unarmed civilians back in the 1920's in what is today known as Iraq. Yes indeed, it was not Hitler and his Luftwaffe in Durango and Gernika, it was Churchill and his Royal Air Force the first ones to use biological weapons against the Kurdish refugee camps. Churchill then went on to commit more war crimes during the many colonialist punitive actions carried out by England, but somehow the West has managed to clean up his image to make a hero out of this clown.
Then there is the penchant by English bloggers like Colin Davies and Peter Harvey to label anyone that moves a terrorist. That coming from a country that bestowed its best honors on pirates, a country that carried out ethnic cleansing operations in America, Africa, Oceania and Europe, a colonialist power than tried to wipe away the entire population of Ireland by creating a famine. If you are going to call someone a terrorist that would be London's governments for the last 500 years.
But why do these conservative Englishmen hate the Basques so much?
Simple, the Basque quest for self-determination has inspired many others to fight for their own political rights, so now England sees how Scotland and Wales are freeing themselves from its tight colonialist-era grip.
~ ~ ~
No comments:
Post a Comment