Ibrahim Khan takes a satirical look at the day in the life of an ordinary Muslim-hating British tabloid journalist.
8AM: Find a message from management asking for today’s anti-Muslim news story. Standard. Also, they’re unimpressed by my contributions to the showbiz section. A colleague sympathises and advises me to be as pornographic as possible in my next contribution.
9AM: I’m a bit short of ideas on the whole anti-Muslim story so I get the other standard stories out as quickly as possible. Today’s Diana story revolves around Diana’s old jewellery being melted down and sold to a gypsy. Apparently the gypsy is also a sex pest.
11AM: I return to the anti-Muslim story and ring up my old pals at Quilliam for some help. These guys are great – they say a hell of a lot of stuff against Islam and Muslims. I suppose they must really hate themselves and cry themselves to sleep each night nursing a Jack Daniels, but I don’t care. If I work in a quote from them and represent them as “moderates”, that gives me full license to then lay into anything Islamic as long as I label whatever I ridicule as “extremist”.
So I don’t like the fact Muslim women cover up and I want everyone to go around ripping hijabs off womens’ heads – or failing that, at least giving them a dirty look. But it might be a bit racist and discriminatory to come out and just say that. So instead I find some Muslim who says women don’t need to wear the hijab, I quote them and then spend the rest of the article ripping into “extremists” who believe in such tosh.
1PM: Some uppity Muslim woman emails to complain about the objectification of women going on down the sidebar on our website. I consider giving her a reasoned reply regarding our stance, but then remember that what makes our paper sell is our complete lack of reasoning and our haranguing of beleaguered minorities.
So I tell her she is far more oppressed than the half-naked women on our website and that she can f**k off back to Afghanistan and stop claiming benefits paid for by the loyal white, male, middle-class British taxpayer. She doesn’t take no for an answer and says she is coming in to see me.
Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest news and updates from around the Muslim world!
2PM: I phone security and alert the guards downstairs to expect an imminent terrorist attack on the building by a jihadist burka-clad, oppressed, genitally-mutilated Muslim woman. I like this description so much that I decide that this will form the backbone of today’s Muslim story. I throw in the word “Nazi” and “Shariah law” for good measure and decide on the headline: “Nazi jihadist, genitally-mutilated burka-ninja denies oppression after Shariah bomb on London”.
3PM: The Muslim woman who emailed me in the morning about our sexism somehow gets past the guards. She comes in and gives me a carefully-evidenced feminist critique of my newspaper. I disagree violently with her but I am stunned and can’t say anything. I can’t get over the fact that the woman is white, speaks fluent English, and doesn’t seem that oppressed. I am very confused – like I am about my sexuality.
5PM: I continue to repress my feelings for other men and channel my frustration into another article littered with the words “gay”, “dyke”, “poof”, “homophobia”, and “batty boy”. I read through some drafts from my colleagues and their articles too are littered with the words like “gay”, “dyke”, “poof”, and “homophobia”. I wonder if they too have feelings like mine?
