Source/Credit: ViewPoint | Online
By Dil Nawaz | September 23, 2011
The sensational rise of televangelist channels in the UK, broadcasting to European, Asian and West African populations has surprised many media pundits.
Usually the term Televangelist refers to American Evangelical splinter churches propagating to solicit donations from wealthy western ‘sinners’ for converting poor Africans to a particular form of Pentecostalism, which in African context means a cocktail of fundamentalist American theology tailored to the animist beliefs in West Africa. The concoction of ideologies is not only being consumed in Europe but also beamed back to Africa and Asia through satellite.
Had these satellite channels been the exclusive domain of ‘delusional’ preachers catering to their own cult followers, they would hardly have raised any eye brows among socio-political analysts but the Islamic oriented channels occupy the Electronic Programmes Guide (EPG) among the mainstream (secular, multicultural and entertainment) - free to air South Asian- satellite channels wielding a huge influence in the Muslim Diaspora across Europe.
The South Asian Diaspora in the UK and Europe is estimated to be 12 million while the Muslims (including Arabs, Turks and Africans in France, Germany, Greece and Spain) are estimated to be another 10 million. The Lingua-franca of South Asian community (Indian, Pakistani, Tamil, Bengali or Afghan) is Urdu or Hindi.
The United Kingdom, where nearly 7% of the total population is of Pakistani and Indian origin, has seen a mushrooming of South -Asian channels catering to different niche segments of the Diaspora, made possible by Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB satellite platform which provides digital slots for multiple television, radio and information channels cheaply. These channels bind the Asian-European viewers to the audiences in the United Kingdom.
The mainstream entertainment, news and Bollywood film channels are multi-religious, cross-cultural and try to cater to all Asians, regardless of their religious backgrounds or nationality. These channels and their quality programming are available to those willing to pay a monthly subscription which ranges from £5 to £10 per channel. Risk a broad generalisation, the middle class Gujarati Hindus and Sikh are viewers of subscription channels (ZEE, STAR, ARY & GEO),while most of the working class Muslim mosques and their followers think that these channels are un-Islamic (due to their song, dance and romantic soap operas).
The second tier of this free media and television revolution is the mushrooming free-to air satellite channel industry. One significant difference between Pakistan and the UK is the absence of any regulatory or governmental censorship in the UK.
This free-to-air spectrum can be showcased by two examples, the first is now defunct Fast TV and its bearded chairman Mr. Aslam Tawakli (a semi-literate Pakistani Sufi follower and a property millionaire from Birmingham) with customary ‘Jinnah Cap’ gained notoriety for being a ‘loose cannon’, telling anecdotal stories to unsuspecting callers who were being charged premium rate charges for their naive phone conversations. There were no visible financial backers or advertising revenues to justify the expensive ‘hobby’ of these poorly presented TV channels (famous for on-air abusing and anger attacks against friends or foes).
The second is IQRA TV, a bilingual Bengali and Urdu religious TV, owned by ‘Sheikh’ Imam Qasim. Based in the UK, Imam Qasim is a native Urdu speaker and English is a distant foreign language for him. The IQRA TV recently tried to organise religious debate between mainstream Pakistani Sunni and Ahmadiyya sects, with the aim of proving Ahmadiyya as ‘liar’ apostates. Fortunately the gullible debaters retracted their participation after a couple of shows.
Imam Qasim uses every conceivable opportunity to run Islamic charity telethon on every Muslim holy day to collect funds for his own registered charity Al-Khair Foundation, which supposedly runs Islamic school and Qurbani projects in countries like Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Imam Qasim mostly invites preachers and speakers from UK Islamic Mission (a front for Pakistan’s Jamaat Islami) and other Arab Salafi groups. Unfortunately like almost all Islamist channels; IQRA doesn’t provide any financial information or administrative hierarchy on its websites. The lack of financial and organisational transparency is bound to concern the OFCOM (TV regulator in the UK) and UK’s Charity Commission, sooner or later.
A quick glossary of these channels demonstrates that the problem is much bigger. The wider British society will have to face this issue sooner or later, in form of segregation, secretive cults and brain washed religious fanatics. It is obvious that the British security analysts cannot fully decipher the true messages coming out of these TV channels due to the language and cultural barriers.
In British context, televangelists include different shades of Islamist, Shia and Sunni groups. In 1994 the Ahmadiyya community (declared apostate by the Government of Pakistan in 1974) started their Muslim TV Ahmadiyya from London to counter the persecution and propaganda against their sect. This model was quickly adopted by the mainstream Islamists for their TV channels.
In 2004 Muslim Association of Britain (a front for Arab Muslim Brotherhood) backed Europe wide ‘The Islam Channel’; the channel frequently shares its airtime with the Regents Park Mosque (funded by Saudi Arabia for religious guidance of Europeans) London. One of the most watched shows on Islam channel is the ‘Muslim Dilemma’(read pious sisters show), hosted by a Mrs. Shabana Pandor who describes herself as a ‘post-natal mental health advisor’ for Muslim clients of National Health Service. Wearing a full Jilbab (full body covering Burka without the face covering), Mrs Pandor is a proud ‘grandmother’ at the ‘tender’ age of approx 32 (needless to say, she must be an expert on teenage pregnancy and child brides). Its American affiliate Islamic ‘Bridges TV’ was, until recently, run by a misogynist who is currently behind bars for ‘honour killing” his wife.
Pakistani Christian channel Glory TV is apparently supported by America Evangelical churches. Noor (light) TV is owned by Sufi Muslim ‘Saint’ Pir Alauddin Sidiqui who divides his time between Pakistani Kashmir and Birmingham England. Dawat-e-Islami, (a Barelvi answer to Deobandist Tableeghi Jamaat) has recently renamed Punjabi TV (previously owned by Indian Sikhs) as Madani. The UK Sunni Jamaat which used to buy airtime on previously secular channel DM Manchester in order to compete with Indian Salafi preacher Zakir Naik’s Peace TV, has launched its own Takbeer TV. The Hidayat (guidance to true path) TV belongs to Pakistani Shia clerics, who faithfully toe the instructions coming out of Qom, Iran.
The Peace TV (English) is owned by Indian Salafi hardliner Dr. Zakir Naik. He is a doctor by profession and a disciple of Ahmed Deedat. He was inspired by Deedat’s debates with South African pastors. Naik started with a media venture called Salafi Research Foundation (SRF), renamed it Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) that metamorphosed into the Peace TV. A South African zealot, the late Ahmed Deedat, used to challenge Protestant evangelists for TV debates in order to convert them to Islam. Now ex-evangelical Americans like Yusuf Estes and British Abdul Rehman Green (both converted to Salafi-Wahabiism) present programmes with titles like ‘The Peace Missile’, ‘Weapons of Mass Conversions’ and ‘Crossfire’.
Pakistani Islamist ideologue, dissident of Muduadi’s Jamaat Islami and one-time mentor of the British Islamist Caliphate youth group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Dr. Israr Ahmed started Peace TV’s Urdu service from his new base in Pakistan, sadly he did not live long enough to see its fruition into a mainstream mouthpiece for Saudi Arabia’s Salafi ideology in South Asia.
Peace TV is apparently funded by Saudi Arabian covert NGOs. The ‘documentaries’ of Harun Yahya (pseudo-‘scientist’, preacher and media man) called the ‘Great Author’ and ‘Allah’s Artistry’ and his delusional conspiracy theories on 9/11 are ubiquitous on almost every Islamist channel. One wonders how does Harun Yahya fund these mega projects and universal air-time. According to scientist Richard Dawkins, allegedly billions were provided to Harun Yahya (real name Adnan Oktar) by Saudi Arabian treasury for brainwashing schools (in Asia, Africa and Europe) into preaching Islamist brand of Creationism through ‘Atlas of Life’ audio-visual libraries.
Hindu Gujarati and Indian yoga ‘gurus’ and preachers have also started looking for donations and devotees on two competing TV channels. Punjabi Sikhs have at least three channels in Europe (proudly displaying the names of their members who have donated for ‘holy cause’). A few years ago mosques in certain inner cities of Northern England, used to publically name and honour (or shame) local families’ donation to the Friday Prayer’s Imam and this great idea of advertising one’s religiosity was hijacked by the high caste priests of The Sikh Channel.
Tariq Mehmood, a Manchester-based novelist and former host on now defunct community-based channel Kashmir Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), thinks that the variety of the channels reflects the religious diversity of a multicultural Britain. While a veteran Asian broadcaster who recently retired from BBC World Service, on the condition of anonymity, referred to the channels belonging to a particular sect of Islam as ‘the dens of robbers’.
According to Shams Rehman, formerly a broadcaster with Paharri-language community channel Apna TV in Bradford, the mushroom growth of religious channels will be checked in due course by the dynamics of supply and demand and the economic recession will play a role in downsizing their cultural and social hold on British Muslims.
A recent European survey found out that top 10% of Muslim in Europe belong to an “ultra-liberal” elite, while the bottom 10% (that is good 2 million potential hardliners) think Europe is the ‘House of War’ and hate everything un-Islamic. The remaining 80% are the middle ground of Muslim society, confused and living in isolated ‘ghettos’ within the native European communities. This isolation results in the lack of mutually shared linguistic and cultural space. Recently Quilliam Foundation (a liberal Muslim think-tank) published a report which shows that majority of Muslim teenagers in Europe think that harmless activities like playing chess and reading Harry Potter are actually ‘Haram’ (forbidden) in Islam.
Meantime, the Kashmir Broadcasting Corporation, claiming to be a secular and multicultural representative of Kashmir, has been forced to sell its operations (owing to lack of financial support and advertising) to a group of Shia clerics, already running Ahlebait TV.
Dil Nawaz blog at Bradistan Calling, a Viewpoint contributor from ‘Bradistan’( Little Pakistan in film 'East is East') Bradford UK.
Read original post here: Europe’s Islamist televangelists
If you have any misconceptions, uncertainties,questions or dilemmas on the religous channels, I suggest you contact Mr. Zakir Naik who is renowed for his doctrine in the high level academic knowledge of all the major religions in the world. He runs PEACETV in Mumbai and communicates mainly in English so there should be no confusion in understanding.He is an amazing, humble, peaceful and pious person who is well respected in all communities. PEACETV includes lectures from islamic professors around the world, white, black, chinese, - American, South African, Arab, Indian, and English who demonstrate the TRUE essence and beauty of ISLAM.
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