July 22, 2005

Sassy is as Sassy Does

The Guardian has dismissed Dilpazier Aslam, the "trainee journalist" and member of the Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir whose recent column on "sassy" suicide bombers was spotlighted and ridiculed by Scott Burgess amongst others.

I imagine some folks are going to have a lot of fun with this quote:

Aslam was advised that the Guardian considered that Hizb ut-Tahrir had promoted violence and anti-semitic material on its website and that membership of the organisation was not compatible with being a Guardian trainee.

To which Aslam replied, "what are you, high?" Just kidding, folks. In fact, Aslam was a diversity hire who turned out to be a little more "diverse" than the Guardian was looking for. They gave him a choice, us or them, and he chose them. One goal of the diversity program is to "challenge stereotypes." Oops!

On the other hand, covering all the bases, MediaGuardian (via an anonymous "staff reporter") attacks Burgess and the anti-Hizb ut-Tahrir campaign and appears to disagree with its own decision.

UPDATE: Burgess returns, with a comprehensive post mortem on the l'affaire Aslam and a fisking of the anonymous MediaGuardian piece.

Posted by Dr. Frank at July 22, 2005 09:33 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Looks like the London cops might need some diversity training.

Posted by: Drydock at July 24, 2005 03:02 AM

I don't know if you've seen this or not Frank, but the Sun newspaper in London is pushing for deportation of Islam residents in the UK. I'm for this as well. You see, it's not just us stupid midwestern Americans who have ideas like that. Also, did you see the CNN/Gallop poll that showed the overwhelming majority of Americans thought there is going to be a WWIII and sooner rather than later.

Posted by: Zaphod at July 25, 2005 04:00 PM