Pearsall's Books

I'd missed this before, but Laban Tall points to this report by Roger Hardy, the BBC's Islamic Affairs analyst, that was posted last Thursday afternoon, hours after the London bombings.

As Laban notes, there is one particularly flabber-gasting line:

Muslims have lived in Britain for centuries, but only relatively recently have they become the focus of controversy.

Where the hell does stuff like this come from? Islam in Britain is almost entirely a post-WWII phenomenon. Before that, you had a few students from British colonies, some diplomats from places like the Ottoman Empire, maybe a few merchants and sailors, the odd eccentric toff who chose to convert, and that was about it. In strictly literal terms, I guess, it is true that Muslims have lived in Britain for centuries, but in the context of the piece it is put across to make the point that Britain's Muslim presence is not something new, which is, well, absolute horseshit.

Man, I hate bad historical revisionism.