“Since 9/11, and particularly 7/7, the BNP has gone all out to tap a rich vein of anti-Muslim sentiment. The party’s leader, Nick Griffin, has described Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith” and has tried to distance himself and the party from its anti-Semitic past. Party members are now rebuked for discussing the Holocaust and told to focus on terrorism, the evils of Islam, and scare stories of Britain becoming an Islamic state.
“Griffin’s strategy has been inspired by the press. He said: “We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it’s the thing they can understand. It’s the thing the newspaper editors sell newspapers with.”
The above is from Peter Oborne’s excellent article on the mainstreaming of Islamophobia in Friday’s Independent. Well worth a read.
Also ... There are plenty of addenda to this piece worth pointing out - Oborne’s Dispatches programme on Islamophobia is available online (part one is here). There’s a good review, along with some further commentary by David Wearing here. The study of the British media’s coverage of Islam commissioned for the programme - some of whose conclusions are truly shocking, if all too familiar by now - is also available here; and there’s a pamphlet that accompanies the documentary available here.
