Certainly, some Muslims seem to think so.
As far as I'm aware, there have been at least two complaints to the Press Council and Ombudsman from Irish based Muslims about articles that appeared in the Irish Independent.
One was a somewhat inflammatory piece by commentator Kevin Myers, whose flights of fancy I've previously examined here.
The other complaint apparently relates to Ian O'Doherty (airbrushed above), whose otherwise interesting and light-hearted column I-Spy is regularly marred by his blinkered defence of all things Neo-Con or Israeli, and his blanket demonising of Islam.
After yet another crack about Shariah law in Ireland from Ian, a large number of Irish Muslims finally had enough and collectively wrote a letter to the editor, which was published in today's edition.
What I found intriguing, though, is that the grammar of the letter was sporadically abysmal. Not consistently so, just sporadically so, almost as if errors had been deliberately inserted to make the writers look stupid.
What errors JC, I hear you ask with my now well-known superpower of being able to hear your thoughts over the interweb?
Errors like: "Let us start with Saudi Arabia as an example quote by himcountry in the world named after a family..."
Or "We would also like to point out to yourMuslims were unmatched in the advances in the fields of mathematics..."
Or "It is similar to what the British didthe IRA was bombing Britain."
Now, some of the signatories included at least two consultant surgeons, not to mention other doctors, as well as 'students, shopkeepers and housewives.'
Either we are to believe that they took it in turns writing a line each, which might explain why a letter that is otherwise coherent and eloquent could include a series of incomprehensible grammar clangers.
Or we could assume that the Indo butchered the letter for their own impenetrable reasons.
I wonder which it is? Could the Indo be so systematically anti-Muslim as to deliberately make a community of Muslims out to be illiterate?
4 comments:
I wonder which it is? Could the Indo be so systematically anti-Muslim as to deliberately make a community of Muslims out to be illiterate?
Would not surprise me in the least.
If the letter was sent hard copy wouldn't they then have to transcribe it? Perhaps there's the possibility of shoddy sub-editing work ... doubt it though.
I know how shoddy the Indo's subbing is. Especially since they've outsourced it to Armagh. But we're talking about English speakers, native English speakers, typing up a letter for publication.
How come Kevin Myers' column, or O'Doherty's for that matter, do not get mangled in similar fashion?
Just backs up your suspicion then, doesn't it?
No doubt it was, ahem, "edited for space reasons", and because of the Indo's desire to get it into print ASAP the sub editors didn't get a second pass at it. Or feeble excuses to that effect...
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