Increasingly, the BBC World Service provides less provincial and more interesting news than the BBC UK newsroom and their analysis is more intelligent. One such item caught my ear this morning.
Cargill have fired about 150 Muslim workers (Somalis, I think) who had jobs in their meat packing plant in Colorado. To put this in context, the factory has 2,000 employees and processes 4,500 carcasses every day. Another 400 Muslims work there and are not involved in this dispute.The trouble arose when eleven Muslims were refused a ten minute break for prayer. They insisted and were sent home. Another 139 or so took their part and, when none of them reported for work the following day, they were all dismissed.
Seemed a bit harsh to me, especially after the BBC interviewed Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has interceded on behalf of the workers. He stated that Muslim workers had been taking a prayer break at this factory for many years and that it was agreed that, so production wouldn’t be disrupted, they went to pray one at a time. How reasonable, just like a break for the lav or a fag.
Then the BBC interviewed a spokesman from Cargill. He said that the company has no problem with employees praying one or two at a time but more than that was disruptive. The dispute arose when eleven wanted to leave to pray at the same time and permission was refused.
Is there more to this dispute than either side have let on? I expect so but so far the BBC seem to have got to the nub of it. One side or the other, appropriately for a meat factory, is telling porkies. I am only surprised that the workers haven’t invoked the right to Freedom of Association enshrined in the United States Bill of Rights.
Then there’s the story about a remote Nature Reserve in Oregon that has been taken over by armed cowboys claiming that the land belongs to them; only they may be from Dakota and may have no claim at all. Another story that the World Service covered impartially in a fog of claim and counter-claim. It is all much more edifying than the shouty political interviews on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
It’s only when I’m abroad that I fully appreciate the pre-eminence of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the service that it provides at home and abroad.
I have to say, however, that I still miss the stirring signature tune they used to play ( was it called Lillibulero?).
For many of us, the BBC is an integral part of our national genes, in a sense, love them or loath them.
I think you might enjoy this clip.
http://youtu.be/B4BZrSj2VU4
You are correct about the name of the tune. It is somewhat controversial in Ireland as one version of the lyrics satirises Catholic Jacobites opposing King William.
Your story reminds me of a business trip to The Philippines and visiting the Head Office of a Filipino bank. When I arrived in the reception area, there was a mass going on – I think it might have been a Catholic holy day such as The Ascension. My meeting with a senior executive was delayed because he was attending mass.
I guess it reminds us that we need to be mindful of societal, cultural and religious norms. On our increasingly multi-cultural world, it’s a difficult one for corporates such as Cargill.
You are, of course, totally correct about the merits of the BBC World Service in comparison with Radio 4 etc. It has far better coverage of world events and is – or, at least, used to be – respected in places where objective news coverage is hard to find. When I was first in Nigeria there was an attempted military coup. It was unsuccessful from the point of view of the conspirators but they succeeded in murdering the Head of State – a mile or two from where I lived. No-one I spoke to knew what had happened and what was going on. But I heard on the World Service that the HoS had been assassinated and told my neighbours and staff what I had heard. Their response was that it must be true if the BBC said it. referring back to your soft power piece, the World Service has been a real instrument of soft power. It remains to be seen if the World Service and its reputation will survive Osborne’s device of transferring the funding for the FCO to the BBC itself.