killroy

well they'll need to get a grip of jeremy clarkston along with a number of other bbc guys doing columns in papers.

i'm Scottish what do i owe the English?

should i admire them because they oppressed my country for centuries?
that they pretty much killed off the clan system?
that they got rid of gaelic except in the highlands?
That they stole the stone of destiny so scotland couldn't crown a King?

does that mean i owe the english nothing? of course not.they've done good stuff, they've done bad stuff and everything in they lines is true but i doubt any english guys going to be on here crying about being offended.

go Kilroy go Kilroy!

The difference might be that your example is about blaming England and englishmen for what England and englishmen did to Scotland, when he blames all arabs for what islamic integrists have done or do.
It's not just a generalisation, it's an amalgam.
And even a double one since all arabs are not muslims, and not all muslims are not islamic integrists.

i.e. There are some catholic arabs in Algeria, jew arabs in Marocco, atheist arabs in France and I'm sure in the UK too, a large majority of muslims are moderated and peaceful (even if it does look like it's the religion with the biggest ratio of integrists today), I could easily understand that they'd be offended by that man's statements.

Ponrauil

it's one and the same ponaural im generalising and so is he to take it as me sayign all englishmen are murderers or whatever is stupid just as taking some quotes out of context and twisting them to look like he said all arabs were suicide bombers is stupid.

end of the day some people think its racist, some people dont and some people don't care but what happened to the idea of free speech?

He is talking about the current world, not the past. He has generalised an entire race of ppl into comparing them with he extremeists. I'm not sure how u consider that responsible journalism JBJ.

I am going for the Dixie Chicks counter. He is free to say what he wants, but the BBC are free to suspend him for what they feel is a misrepresentation of their views.

& Clarkson is hardly what you'd call freelance journalism. He has his own tiny column in which the whole point is that he is stereotyping. He is not writing serious articles.

clarkston and kilroy get a page each. k clarkstons stuff is firmly placed in his cheek but alot of what he comes away with could offend or be twisted to do so too.

Clarkson gets half a page & today he was ranting about black Amex cards, calling the Americans Infidel dogs at one point. But there is a clear distinction between the serious article written by Kilroy that was intended to get a point across.

he gets a page in the sun so he must do several articles for different papers but u can't go k he's serious hes serious stopt hem hes havign a bit of a joke he's ok.

it's got to be all or nothing and even though clarkstons columns r alot less serious than killroy's, all killroy was doing was stating HIS opinion. people don't have to like it or agree (as u can see)

Isn't Killroy Jewish or something? might explain some of his Anti Arab comments. And I think he was slating Arab governments, not arab people. I think its all just a storm in a tea cup.

But its quite clear that Kilroy's article was written in a serious fashion. & obviously Clarkson hasn't written anything as blatantly irresponsible. I am mistified as how u can defend generalising all Arabs & putting them into the same pot as the extremeists.