Manufacturing Islamophobia

Today’s example is from the Netherlands:

THE HAGUE, 07/03/08 – Public broadcaster BNN deliberately misled viewers in a film clip about a woman in a burqa, the all-covering Muslim garment.

In a mini-film on 101tv, BNN’s digital youth channel, a woman is seen who is helped immediately when she drops her bag of oranges. The same woman in a burqa however gets no help when the same thing happens to her. The journalist said she felt discriminated against when wearing the burqa.

But Amsterdam broadcaster AT5 discovered deception. AT5 cameras that recorded the BNN filming show that many passers-by wanted to help the woman in the burqa. When they did so, the makers called out to them to walk on.

Now – why would the producers call out to people to not help the woman in the burqa?  Perhaps we can suggest a few things:

1.  They started out with an agenda to prove.  People hate Muslims.  A woman dressed differently will be a pariah.  The uninformed and unwashed peasants of our country are so stupid that they will just ignore someone who needs help who is obviously Muslim.

2.  In setting up this experiment, do you think the conditions were equal?  Nice looking normal blond-haired Dutch woman and head to toe burkha covered Muslim woman.  Yeah – that seems like standard conditions.

3.  And even with all that people still wanted to help out.  They had to verbally insist that people keep moving along in order to make sure the results they wanted were filmed.