10/08/2017 Newsnight

Questions on culture, religion and sex.

It doesn't come more awkward than that, but in the wake

of several street grooming crimes involving Muslims, questions

They are not Asian, but are they Japanese,

No, they are Muslim of Pakistani extraction,

Bangladeshi descent, Turkish connections, whatever.

Why we afraid to say they are Muslim?

Tonight, with a panel of four young Muslims, we hear the debate

within their community, on what the problem is,

Also tonight, the paradox of the national flag carrier.

British Airways' profit is flying high.

But the brand seems to be having an ever bumpier ride.

You know that feeling when a guy you like sends you a text at two

clock on a Tuesday night asking if he can come and find you?

And too much too food, as Facebook launches its version of TV, we

wonder whether the industry can keep up the pace on the production of

blockbuster shows. After Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford,

Derby and quite a few other cases, and now Newcastle, the pattern

of street grooming of young girls by gangs of mainly Pakistani

or other Asian Muslim Today, Ken Macdonald, a former

Director of Public Prosecutions, said it is "a disease of racism

and sexism that will not abate Labour MP Sarah Champion said that

"people are more afraid to be called a racist than they are afraid to be

wrong about calling out child abuse", which has inhibited

exposure of wrong-doing. She asked, "Why are we not

commissioning research to see what is going on and how we need

to change what is going on, It's a good question,

so we are going to ask it for the first part

of the programme this evening. First, Rabiya Limbada

reports from Oxford. Nens, some of the 18 and one woman

convicted of abusing girls in Newcastle tsm men convicted were

mainly British-born, and came from Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian,

Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish communities.

A report in 2011 by the child exploitation and online protection

centre identified over 2000 potential localised grooming

offenders, ethnicity data was only available for one third. Of these,

49% were white, and 46% Asian. These figures include both group and

individual cases of grooming. But, they are stark when you

consider the UK Asian population is round 7%. I can hear a woman getting

slapped about. A police call made by a guest who was is concerned about

what he could hear in the room next door to him in Exford. In 2013 seven

men were jailed for abusing six girls in Oxford over an eight year

period. In that case, known as operation bullfinch two of men were

of east African origin and five Pakistani, a Serious Case Review in

2015 called for research into why a significant proportion of people

convicted in these kinds of cases are of Pakistani and or Muslim

heritage. So far, that research has a been forthcoming.

The Muslim community in Oxford are still trying to answer those

question, themselves. I think quite often their fathers are disconnected

from what it is is like to grow up in England. They have come from back

home, and so these boys are trying to navigate themselves through an

awful lot of emotions and challenges, and their fathers can't

give them the right guidance or the right advice. So they find it

elsewhere, and often that leads to bad company. Hear many of the

victims of the grooming gang were picked up girls as young adds 11

plied with alcohol and drugs and subjected to the most appalling

sexual abuse, there have been efforts by community groups and

religious leaders to get people to talk openly about what happened.

Many say not enough has been done. We should stop pussyfooting about

and says these are Asian men, they Japanese, Korean, Malaysian? They

are Muslim of Pakistani extraction, Bangladeshi descent, Turkish

connections whatever, why are we after Fred to say they are Muslim

Who why are we being politically correct? Unless we really tackle

this head on, we are not going to solve this. OK but whose

responsibility is this is this We the Muslim community have a great

responsibility to condemn this in publish there are 2 thousand mosques

in this country. How many do you think tomorrow will be nameling and

shaming all of those 17, 18 people. The biggest challenge now facing the

authorities investigating these cases, is how to get Muslim

communities to trust them enough, to tell them what is happening in their

tell them what is happening in their midst.

As you heard, the statistics say that Asians are about 50% more

likely to be convicted of a sexual offence than the rest

For street grooming offences more specifically,

But before we move on, a quick statistical point.

It's dodgy to make ethnic or religious generalisations

comparing Muslims and non-Muslims, on the basis of a tiny

Even if a Muslim man was ten times more likely to be

convicted of a sexual offence than a non-Muslim - which he's not -

You are literally talking about comparing a population

a population that is 99.96% non-offending.

group, and it makes little difference to the group overall.

So you have to be careful about sweeping judgments

on the differences between these groups.

However, that being said, a lot of people think

that the numbers understate important cultural characteristics

of different religions and that the Muslim community more

So with me now is a panel, exclusively Muslim,

The journalist Anira Khokhar, the founder of British Muslim

Youth Muhbeen Hussain, the film-maker and journalist

Mobeen Azhar and Saba Zaman, a journalist based in Bristol.

Ing and shaming all of those 17, 18 people.

The biggest challenge now facing the authorities investigating these

cases, is how to get Muslim communities to trust them enough, to

tell them what is happening in their midst. Good evening. I want to

started whether we are framing this OK by saying we have a Muslim panel

discuss bhag is a Muslim problem. Muhbeen. Is that, do you reck nigh

that as a problem. No we are framing it incorrectly. We have had a guy

come on in the earlier piece saying it is not Japanese or these

different culture, Islam is a religion of all cultures, the

largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, to say this is a

Muslim problem. These grooming gangs were individuals that were using

alcohol, drugs and having sessions exploiting these young girl, I don't

know what is Islamic about drinking alcohol and exploiting young girls.

You want to separate it from the religion? Do the rest of you feel

that? He has a fair point. There are cultural parallels that are being

made, and religious parallels across the media, generally, there are no

religious parallel has been made so in your intro it is interesting.

What I do find interesting is we have a Muslim panel here, but this

situation is not just exclusively Muslim community, it is across all,

but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen and it needs to be addressed.

What do you feel There is a thing here, there is a pattern, that

reoccurring whenever this happen, I am sure you can relate to this. When

you hear these stories breaking, you wince when you hear Muslim names,

and as a community, we are really uncomfortable and really used to

reacting. We are used to reacting and saying this is nothing do with

us our or community. I don't think anyone in their right mind would say

this is a theological issue, they are doing this because they are good

Muslim, known would say that, having said that, we have to acknowledge

that sex and sexuality and gender and respect for the opposite gender,

are issues within certain parts of the south Asian community, the Arab

community and large sections of the Muslim community. These are things

that we have to discuss, in our communities and we have seen this

pattern, in Newcastle and Rotherham and we can't shy away from these

issues. I go back to you on that, do you agree with that? It is a

different way of framing it, but do you buy what is being said?

Partially we have to look at this, but recognise we are dealing with

it. Let me give you a clear image of what had in Rotherham, when the

Rotherham grooming scandal came about the British Muslim youth

organised the first demonstration against these criminals that were

claiming to be from our communitiches we demonstrated. You

will never see the far right come out against Jimmy Savile. I have not

see the EDL outside the BBC studios. We have people coming out. In fact

it was a Pakistani man who recognised these people and it came

out. Help us out. It is between these different interpretations of

how we frame the problem are are you? The labelling is incorrect. I

don't think it is a Muslim problem, as the rest of the panel have

suggested and we happen to be Muslims, which it would have been

nice to have other religions because it is not just the Muslim community

who have the issue, we have seen many cases where there has been

white groups, that have been grooming and there has been young

children being raped but we don't label them as white Christian

grooming gang, we label them by name or we label them as just a group,

and I think it is unfair that that is not the same, these are criminals

at the end of the day. They should be treated like that. Even if they

weren't, as I have seen across the board, the media hasn't called it

out adds a Muslim specific case in this particular case today. I

mentioned it earlier I think when even if it is not due the names and

the cultural associations there are cultural assumptions that are made

when there are people from certain communities with certain names

backgrounds, this is from the south Asian diaspora. It is hard to

separate that. It does exist. Can I ask you, start us off on this, about

the cultural issues attitudes to sex, you kind of raised this, you

clearly think there is a bit of an issue. Of course there is. It made a

programme a few I think about a year ago called The Muslim Sex Doctor I

spent time shadowing an imam working in this field, and he was very open,

he would tell me within, and I know this, you guys must know this from

within the Pakistani community there are issues in terms of the narrow

definition of the kind of women who deserve respect, this is a cultural

thing, it is not a religious thing but we, we will use this word that

means honour and we will see a woman who is wearing the hijab, who cooks

and clean, who is the Queen of the home, she deserves respect. Now what

happens then, when you have people who are raised in those

environments, and they get jobs as taxi drivers and working in

takeaways and they join the night-time economy. That is an

ongoing theme in all these case, you have these men who have grown up in

this climate, who all of a sudden are face to face with women who

don't fit that model. So women who might like a drink or women who wear

short skirts, or who are quite loud. And that doesn't fit with their

definition of a person, that deserves respect. That is a problem.

You have to address that. And following on from that. I think

there is an issue within not just the Pakistani but the south Asian

community in terms of women having that level of respectment so for

example, you know, in a family, let us say there is a son and daughter,

the son will allowed to go outside, stay out to about 10.00, possibly

have a girlfriend, whereas the girls have to stay at home. If you are

bringing children up in that mind set, they only know they have to

respect that individual in the house, mother, daughter. That could

be a sweeping generalisation as well. I do think, I do think that

this is something that the Pakistani community, the south Asian community

need to look into. As you said the word honour is a burden on girls

mainly. And so they have to live with that, anything they do is

reflective on the whole family and the community. I don't think it is

fair. There is an issue. But let us not conflate one issue with another.

There are these men and we are talking about a criminal mind-set of

individuals, who like people like Jimmy Savile live two lifestyle,

they live a public lifestyle where they want to show themselves as good

community member, the same time when people say they only see certain

women as fair game, let us be honest, if you look at the report,

there were findings on the Jay report, they found 150 young girls

out of the 1400 were Pakistani girls,ment the problem is these

people aren't differentiating because they are sick men, but

Pakistani girls, are finding it very difficult to speak out, these are

very sick men. Difficult to speak out. I am glad you raised that, is

there an issue round the ability to converse, or to come forward and say

I have been attacked or abused, or I have been raped within the Muslim

commune tyre, forget the white girl issue. Can talk about the south

Asian community diaspora. I am also from a community. From the first

generational perspective it has been something we don't necessarily talk

about because there is the concept of honour, but it is changing and

this group... Is it? There are people, there are practitioners on

ground who are actually working with women, and I can say it is not an

exclusive Muslim issue, but there is sometimes generally from the first

generation that it was slightly difficult. There is a sense of

keeping the honour of the community or protecting women, not because we

are protecting the men, but sometimes that is how it folds out.

Covering up crime or burying crime. In the Rotherham case we know the

community did go forward and speak to police.

The police did not speak to the victims either but I agree the

police need help from the community and we need to be active and address

these issues ourselves. Completely and I think it is changing but it is

achingly slow. What I mean by that, and again, I'm sure you guys can

relate, growing up, I grew up in Huddersfield in Yorkshire, I went to

the mosque regularly, I know that my experiences did not match up with

the conversations at the mosque. If you are a young man and you want to

talk about contraception or you want to talk about certain feelings, or

you just want to talk about sex, you're not going to get that

guidance from the mosque. That is the last place. Because it is a

religious place. Not just in terms of it being a religious place but in

terms of, look at the state of our mosques, the majority of them still

today are run by Immonens who don't even speak the local language. Rabin

but they also don't go out and groom young girls? But what I'm saying and

this is really important, if you were raised in an environment where

you can't talk about things like sex, that is going to lead to

problems. Isn't that a cultural dichotomy? It's going back to the

point it is not Islamic. You've all agreed that if there's a problem,

it's cultural but the question is, let's pin down what the cultural

problem is. What I mean is I'm trying... We have ruled out religion

at least, for at least some of the arguments. From my own experiences,

one issue that I personally have not only come across on a personal level

but also have seen as I've been working nationally is the fact that

sometimes the police worries about community tensions and so, they are

not willing to always go in and talk to the community and talk to the

community leaders who I call self appointed because most of them are

self appointed leaders, and actually discuss things that are happening.

That is the argument effectively that political correctness gets in

the way of policing or enforcing or sorting out some of the problems.

I'm going to have to come in here, I think that is the biggest lie that

is ever told, the biggest excuse, you ask any Pakistani mail going

into an airport whether they don't stop and search them because of

racism. You are more likely to be and that is preconditioned thinking

that this individual may be a criminal. So there's no racism in

that Pakistani drug dealers. Why is there racism in this? I tell you

why, we have been fighting this case for three years with South Yorkshire

Police and only now have they admitted there was no political

correctness in the Rotherham issue and it was their own internal

failings because what happened is these offices did not believe the

young girls because they were from working-class backgrounds. That

problem is widely recognised. But it's racism, why are you stopping

and searching Pakistani males like never before in airports? You are

not racist then. Can I ask whether because a lot of people think part

of the solution to all of this will be for a much more open

conversation, more brutally honest, more openness within the community

and between communities but that is going to mean sometimes things like

this. We are going to gather Muslims around and ask if there is a Muslim

issue. I think that is very facile to say that. Does that ever scare

you? I think the idea of gathering Muslims around, you know, I think we

are starting to see for example this demand that I shadowed, he was

organising conferences to talk about sex which is Brett Kearney heard of

in the Muslim community and I think that's a great thing to do. But the

Muslim community has to lead on that and it has only just started to

happen. I think it is important but where we have various voices from

various communities but we are not all representatives. No one is. We

are a huge Dyas brand communities and we can only speak of

individuals. -- a huge diaspora and communities. I would also like to

make a parallel... Very briefly. I know we ruled out faith earlier and

we talk about the Islamic context and is lamb as a sense of justice.

This isn't even about an Islamic context, it is about young girls

getting justice for a crime committed against them, just as if

the church when it comes to bishops and grooming young boys, I mean,

that is not necessarily... That is the same paradigms and the same

sense... We need to leave it there. We started the conversation and I

really appreciate you all coming in and having it. Thank you for joining

us. There has been quite

a lot of complaining Not perhaps as much

as United Airlines, obviously, but with IT problems and a lack

of free short-haul sandwiches, many say the once great flag carrier

has gone off the rails, Sometimes when consumers grumble,

it's a sign of a useless company. Sometimes though, it's a sign

of a company that is determined not to lose money by giving away things

that consumers don't Our business editor, Helen Thomas,

has been looking at which it is, on the case of the airline formerly

known as the world's favourite. MUSIC: "Flower Duet

(Lakme)" - Delibes. Worst ever business

class experience. I honestly didn't think this

actually happened, especially Everyone's a critic nowadays

and that's a problem if you were British Airways has been

having a turbulent time. It started last year

with sandwich-gate, the decision to drop free food and drink

on short flights. Then came May's massive IT

failure and with it, the accusation that snacks

and beverages weren't the only place Now, cabin crew

strikes over low pay. My concern is they are cruising

towards a crisis right now by ignoring the customer

and going too far By focusing solely on cost and not

on the benefits of investment in product and reliability

and labour relations provide, BA risks alienating its passengers,

including, especially, the higher value customers who fly

for business and pay higher fares. BA has lost altitude

in the airline rankings. This year's top ten

is dominated by Asian It's not exactly news that air

travel's changed since the days when British Airways and British

engineering stood for Still, there's a sense

that the overall BA experience has fallen some way since it sold

itself on a distinctly BA's management have charted

a particular course for the airline. It faces fierce competition from

the likes of Ryanair and easyJet. The boss, Alex Cruise,

has talked about economy travel as a commodity product,

or one where price is really And actually, it is a strategy that

has served the business Airlines are a notoriously tough

place to make money. But British Airways' profits have

soared to record levels. They jumped again in

the first half of this year. And that has helped its owner,

International Consolidated Over the last five years,

a focus on the bottom line means it has soared above European rivals

Lufthansa and Air France-KLM. This analyst thinks the bosses at BA

and parent IAG are getting Investors as a whole,

I think they see a management team that is seeking to break out

of the airline industry's historic To deliver better returns over

the long term and that ultimately benefits all stakeholders,

staff and customers alike. For those bristling at paying

for their sandwich, BA will be squeezing more seats

into its economy cabin. It wants to charge for more extras

like checked bags or Wi-Fi. And there's changes coming

at the front of the plane, too. BA's business class is pretty tired

compared to competitors', It is all part of a strategy,

trying to offer top-notch luxury at the front of the plane

and a cut-price, no-frills Today's hypercompetitive travel

market means tough choices. Still, some think BA is headed in

the wrong direction. BA right now presents

its customers with a very schizophrenic,

disjointed experience. In the US, L'Oreal cosmetics has

advertised for years, BA needs to take pride in the fact

it is a premium brand. It is OK for BA to charge a bit

more, provided that the value BA told Newsnight that being more

efficient enables the company to offer more low fares

and to invest in new aircraft, better facilities

and new technology. The question is whether PR troubles

at some point start to drag All businesses have to balance

keeping their customers happy with making enough

profit to survive. I think with British Airways,

there's a problem that expectations are anchored

in history and are not necessarily consistent with either a service

level that can be delivered profitably in this day and age,

or which even actually I think sometimes, people remember

things as being better That is one thing the airline

is unlikely to find itself short on. Donald Trump made more comments

on North Korea this evening - interesting ones, because he gave

the impression that he was reiterating his "fire and fury"

comments of the other day, but actually he could be thought

of as toning it down significantly. I'm joined by the BBC's Washington

correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan. First, I think we have a clip of

Donald Trump. It's about time that somebody stuck

up for the people of this country and for the people

of other countries. So if anything, maybe that statement

wasn't tough enough, and we're backed by 100%

by our military, we're OK, let's talk to reduce body in a

them. He said quite a lot in answers to questions there. Do you feel he

was wrapping it up or toning it down? I think it was a bit of both.

This is quite similar to the pattern we have seen before in many ways

with President Trump. He makes a perhaps off-the-cuff remark and then

his aides Ray lit back and then he comes back guns blazing, reaffirming

it even more strongly. In that rhetoric, President Trump said he

wished he had gone tougher and been stronger than saying he was going to

unleash fire and fury but when you peel the rhetoric away and look at

exactly what it means, some journalists ask what is tougher than

fire and theory? He said, we'll see. President Trump said he was open to

negotiations but then said negotiations never work and have not

the decades when it comes to North Korea. He also refused to be drawn

on whether or not he is planning a pre-emptive strike but crucially, he

also called on China to do more. I was going to say because in some

ways, interpreting what you think all of this could be the Chinese

ears and you have to think about what he is saying in relation to the

Chinese. Absolutely right, in many ways, this was as much a message to

Beijing as it was to Pyongyang. In many ways, they are the power

brokers in all of this. In terms of reaching a diplomatic solution to

this ongoing crisis. That is also because Beijing is a key trading

partner with North Korea selling many ways, in terms of putting

economic pressure on Pyongyang, it is really down to China. Crucially

of course, those United Nations sanctions we saw last week being

voted in signed up by China and by Russia. That is a key thing, there.

What this shows overall is that despite the rhetoric we are hearing

from President Trump, his promise of fire and fury, he knows that right

now, he can't deliver that fire and fury in a vacuum. He still needs

cooperation and it is worth pointing out of course that President Trump

has a bit of a love hate relationship with China. We have

seen him play golf with President Xi Jinping in Florida and showered him

with praise and then months later, send tweets that he is simply not

doing enough. It is clearly that the relationship with trying -- with

China is a tricky one for President Trump to manage but clearly crucial.

Thank you for joining us. Time for Viewsnight now -

our opinion strand. And tonight Jason Hickel,

an anthropologist from the London School of Economics,

the writer of a book called The Divide, and who thinks we should

stop obsessing with economic Our addictions to economic

growth is killing us. Right now, the entire global system

is captive to a single idea. Politicians rise and

fall on their ability They promise that growth

will make our lives better. We can't have infinite

growth on a finite planet. We're already shooting our planet's

biocapacity by nearly 60%. Climate change, deforestation

and rapid rates of extinction. This crisis is due almost

entirely to overconsumption If you didn't think there was enough

TV out there already, you'll have a little

more choice soon. service today - at least for some

consumers in the US. It's videos, and they're

specially made for Facebook. It's one step on from Facebook's

goal to eat the whole internet, as one tech writer put it,

because this takes on TV. The videos won't be quite the same,

but it is competition for traditional TV, and the Amazon,

Netflix and YouTube platforms too. But here's a question -

are we being deluged with Let's it face it, we are not

short of great material. What's at stake here is that there

are lots of competing platforms, and they each want to entice us

with great content - What do you think of the Facebook

offer? Well, Mark Zuckerberg said 2017 would be the year of video and

there is a lot of competition in this space. But I think it is

important to recognise that what Facebook is offering is really

competition with YouTube an not with the likes of iPlayer and Netflix.

The content they are offering is largely short form, it is

interactive, it is live sport, it is factual, it is content we are

supposed to engage and interact round. It is different from the

content you see Netflix moving into, high end, global appeal, drama and

documentary. Documentary.? Couldn't Facebook put that other stuff on as

well? Maybe buying stuff from the BBC and putting that on the site and

making themselves the place you go to for all sorts of television? They

would need to want to invest a lot of money in doing that, and the

question is whether they want do that. There is no indication from

Facebook they really want to put that amount of money into either

licencing or creating content. OK. Lyndsey, there is a lot of TV round

and a lot of it comes from this competition between platforms. They

are trying to become the place to go. Is it sustainable. There has

never been a better time to be a viewer. There is fantastic choice

round at the moment, so I think, and generally competition is good. The

viewer is the person that benefits from that. It keeps, you know, the

competition keeps... Are they making money Lyndsey? Because, there are a

lot of platforms an I wonder whether they are all making money or hoping

they are going to be the one that is standing at the end of the battle

between them? It's a good point. There is less pressure on them to

make money because they have so much finance from the city etc, but yes

they are making money and there are different ways you do make money

from TV. Some of it is ad funding, sop of it subscription and some

comes from the BBC license. Facebook is ad funded so this seems like it a

clear commercial play, Mark Zuckerberg made it clear he sees the

future to be about video but if you put it in context, if you look at

how much video, how much time people are spending watching video, on

Facebook, we spend about four-and-a-half hours a day, on

average, watching video, three-and-a-half hours is TV. On

traditional TV. It is about three-quarter, 2% is Facebook.

That is interesting. I thought it was higher than that. It is not

higher. And already there is a lot of video on the Facebook platform,

because we are scrolling down through our news feed. I doesn't

account for a lot of time. Do you think Catherine, people have called

it a golden age of television and there are lots, more shows than you

have time to watch, do you think it is sustainable? I think that we all

like watching video and there is definitely a market for different

kinds of video, I think the key thing is we have different

platforms, serving different needs, so what Facebook is doing is

providing content we want to share, that we want to interact round,

community building content. It is different. At the moment and from

their offer round Watch, it is a different service, to something like

BBC iPlayer and they are attracting, at the moment different ad revenue.

If you are a big brand, most of the big brands are advertise, most of

the advertising on Facebook is from small companies and from local

companies so there is a different advertising offer as well. Are there

too many platforms? Do consumer, will they have to choose between

Amazon or Netflix or do they get both. Or will it end up all the

programmes are on all the platforms and it doesn't matter. There is a

move for exclusivity. They are looking to buy content, in

perpetuity, for long time, ten years and lock it down to encourage people

to subscribe. There are a small number that will subscribe to

Netflix and Amazon and Now. Really people are going to choose. You

haven't got time to watch the stuff? How much money have we got to spend

on different subscription services. ? What tends to happen is the

biggest subscribers are existing subscribers to pay TV. What happens

if you love TV you really love it and you simply can't get enough of

it so o your point about is it sustainable? It is. We spend

three-and-a-half hours in the UK, in the US it is under four hour, in

Brazil is it nearly six hours you might argue we have head room for

growth on TV watching. I think that is probably good news for the likes

of us who work in it. Thank you both very much.

That's just about it for tonight, but we can't leave

without a word or two about Wales and the Welsh language.

If you saw last night's programme, we had a discussion on policies

to promote Welsh language, with a defender of government

efforts to get it more widely spoken, and someone who thought

Now our defender of Welsh did a perfectly good job,

but was someone who did not actually speak more than a bit

That is representative of a very prevalent group in Wales.

Most people don't speak it, and polls suggest most people

do support government efforts to promote it.

But understandably, we had more than few comments suggesting

that we had not done justice to the language, by discussing it

I'm not going to pretend that we disagree.

We think it would have been better to have a Welsh speaker too.

By luck, the National Eisteddfod is taking place this week so we can

play out with a highlight, the band Yr Eira - translated

All change into Friday. We get off to floors you start. Shallow fog but

already for Northern Ireland and Scotland, we have got the wind

strengthening, and the rain starting to move in. Will it ease eastwards

through the day, so that means that for most of the day, it will be

cloudier and windier, for Scotland with rain on and off, we may not see

that much rain, east of the Grampians, we might squeeze 22