4BC Drive Host Finds Women Wearing Hijabs ‘Offensive’
Classy stuff!
A Brisbane radio station may have to explain why it should keep its licence after an announcer was accused of making anti-Islamic comments on air. Former Victorian police officer, now 4BC drive-time announcer, Michael Smith called for Muslim women who wear an Islamic hijab in public to be fined for offensive behaviour.
He made the remarks on-air and on the 4BC website, saying: “Any reasonable person would find this offensive.”
I like that after he said it on air, someone still thought the remark worthy of the station’s website. Is no one listening to the show and making judgement calls? Sheezus.
Under the Commercial Radio Code of Practice, a licensee must not broadcast a program likely to incite hatred against or vilify any person or group on the basis of age, ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual preference, religion, or disability.
Really? Really? My god. How has Alan Jones (and his similarly minded chums in the broadcasting world) managed to stay on the air for so long?
MORE: 4BC’s Michael Smith accused of anti-Islamic remarks over hijab
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Comments
i think it is offensive.
ED: DO YOU NOW, CHRIS? I hope you get equally riled up by people wearing crucifixes.
Wearing a crucifixes doesnot hide your identity does it?
While I feel everyone should be allowed practice religion as they want, this is a matter of sercurity and saftey not religion. I also wonder how they’re driving ability may be impaired…
I also find it offensive. It is not the same as wearing a crucifix. It symbolizes the opression that Muslim men are subject ‘their women’ to.
ED: I think that’s a pretty big call to make, especially if you’re basing your assessment of an entire religion on the most fundamental wing of it. If you did the same with Christianity, you may find a crucifix offensive too. I say that as someone who was raised in a Muslim country for many years.
What scares me most is that he used to be a police officer.
I actually did my high school work experience at 4BC oh so many suns and moons ago. It’s pretty much the station of choice for old people in Brisbane. I vividly remember hanging out with the sports reporter and watching an episode of Jerry Springer themed ‘Honey, I’m Really A Man’. On my last day I came into the news room to find the journos giddy with schadenfreude about the previous night’s gaffe by Channel 10 news reader Marie Louise Thiele: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFPMbUGCPis. (It’s a pretty amazing blooper; just look at the ungodly FEAR in her eyes after she realises she’s been busted.)
Anyhow, the journos listened to it on loop in fits of laughter, stopping only to make highly defamatory comments about poor Marie’s recreational interests. And that was my week at 4BC.
No, wearing something like a nun’s habit isn’t offensive. An arrogant loudmouth demanding that married Muslim women should expose their faces to him is offensive. It is probably as bad as someone demanding that other Australian women take off their clothes in public, just because this arrogant bloke says so. Smith has no idea of the humuliation he has caused Muslim women by his ignorant proposal, or to their husbands and a lot of others too.
The reason women wear Hijabs is because the men demand it of them, not because any god or gods demand it. If it showed ones devotion to a god then why do men not wear them?
They wear it because Islam teaches that female sexuality is evil.
It also implies that men cannot control their own sexual urges and that the logical response of a man to any sight of female sexuality would be sex, consensual or not.
Dress to Express
I too find the wearing of hijabs utterly offensive.
What you are advocating, is that muslim women be allowed to express their ‘beliefs’ knowing full well that they will offend people. So why are you ‘offended’ by someone else expressing their beliefs? If a person is offended by something, then they are offended – full stop.
Good on you Mike Smith, also Allan Jones for having the Balls to speak up. Kevin M
i find the people wearing a crucifix quite offensive too. i seriously question why they feel the need to display to all and sundry their personal belief.i don’t want it pushed in my face and i don’t wear a symbol of what i believe,forcing that on others either.