Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:36 pm Post subject: Vanishing England?
Following is an opinion piece based on factual data by a well-respected, conservative American syndicated columnist:
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Vanishing England By Cal Thomas
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
"There'll Always Be an England" - popular World War II song
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - Perhaps there will not always be an England. An exodus unprecedented in modern times, coupled with a record influx of foreigners, is threatening to erode the character of the land of William Shakespeare and overpowering monarchs, a land that served as the cradle for much of American thought, law and culture.
The figures, making headlines in London newspapers, tell only part of the story. Between June 2005 and June 2006 nearly 200,000 British citizens chose to leave the country for a new life elsewhere. During the same period, at least 574,000 immigrants came to Britain. This number does not include the people who broke the law to get there, or the thousands unknown to the government. Britain's Office of National Statistics reports that middle-class Britons are beginning to move out of towns in southern England that have become home to large numbers of immigrants, thereby altering the character of neighborhoods that have remained unchanged for generations.
Britons give many reasons for leaving, but their stories share one commonality: life in Britain has become unbearable for them. They fear lawlessness and the threat of more terrorism from a growing Muslim population and the loss of a sense of Britishness, exacerbated by the growing refusal of public schools to teach the history and culture of the nation to the next generation. What it means to be British has been watered down in a plague of political correctness that has swept the country faster than hoof-and-mouth disease. Officials say they do not wish to "offend" others.
Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers are about to be granted "amnesty" to stay in Britain. The government's approach is similar to that pursued by President Bush, who failed to win congressional approval for his amnesty plan. In Britain it appears likely to succeed. Migrants will be granted immediate access to many benefits, including top priority for council housing. Taxpayers will foot the bill.
The Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, called the policy a "stealth amnesty." Again, in a comment reminiscent of the debate in America, Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: "This is yet another example of the Alice in Wonderland world of human rights. If you break British law for long enough, you acquire rights not penalties."
British media have carried stories about an Italian immigrant who murdered a schoolteacher and was sentenced to life in prison. He is about to be released after serving just 12 years. The government wants to deport him to Italy, but a combination of British human rights legislation and European Union law are making it impossible to do so. This does not bode well for deporting Islamic terrorists who call for the overthrow of the government and incite young people to acts of violence.
Abraham Lincoln said no nation can exist half slave and half free. Neither can a nation be sustained if it allows conditions that result in mass emigration, while importing huge numbers of foreigners who come from backgrounds that do not practice assimilation or tolerance of other beliefs. When one factors in the high number of abortions (one in five pregnancies are aborted in England and Wales), the high birth rates of immigrants (15 times those of white Britons), it doesn't take a population expert to predict that the days of the England we have known may be numbered. The problem for Britain and the United States isn't just the change in demographics. It is the reluctance of both countries to inculcate the beliefs, history and, yes, religious ideals, which made our nations so successful that others wanted to come and be a part of them. The difference between many of the current immigrants and those of the past is that the previous ones wanted to become fully American or fully British. The current ones, in too many cases, would destroy what makes our countries unique. And the "leaders" of Britain and America refuse to stop it.
The greater tragedy is that the people of Britain have little say in any of this, so they are taking the road of last resort. They are leaving.
Cal Thomas is co-author (with Bob Beckel) of the forthcoming book, "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America"
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:03 pm Post subject: Re: Vanishing England?
My AMERICAN two cents....
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Vanishing England By Cal Thomas
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
"There'll Always Be an England" - popular World War II song
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - Perhaps there will not always be an England. An exodus unprecedented in modern times, coupled with a record influx of foreigners, is threatening to erode the character of the land of William Shakespeare and overpowering monarchs, a land that served as the cradle for much of American thought, law and culture.
The figures, making headlines in London newspapers, tell only part of the story. Between June 2005 and June 2006 nearly 200,000 British citizens chose to leave the country for a new life elsewhere. During the same period, at least 574,000 immigrants came to Britain. This number does not include the people who broke the law to get there, or the thousands unknown to the government. Britain's Office of National Statistics reports that middle-class Britons are beginning to move out of towns in southern England that have become home to large numbers of immigrants, thereby altering the character of neighborhoods that have remained unchanged for generations.
Britons give many reasons for leaving, but their stories share one commonality: life in Britain has become unbearable for them. They fear lawlessness and the threat of more terrorism from a growing Muslim population and the loss of a sense of Britishness, exacerbated by the growing refusal of public schools to teach the history and culture of the nation to the next generation. What it means to be British has been watered down in a plague of political correctness that has swept the country faster than hoof-and-mouth disease. Officials say they do not wish to "offend" others. Liberals cannot judge.
Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers are about to be granted "amnesty" to stay in Britain. The government's approach is similar to that pursued by President Bush, who failed to win congressional approval for his amnesty plan. In Britain it appears likely to succeed. Migrants will be granted immediate access to many benefits, including top priority for council housing. Taxpayers will foot the bill.
The Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, called the policy a "stealth amnesty." Again, in a comment reminiscent of the debate in America, Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: "This is yet another example of the Alice in Wonderland world of human rights. If you break British law for long enough, you acquire rights not penalties."
British media have carried stories about an Italian immigrant who murdered a schoolteacher and was sentenced to life in prison. He is about to be released after serving just 12 years. The government wants to deport him to Italy, but a combination of British human rights legislation and European Union law are making it impossible to do so. This does not bode well for deporting Islamic terrorists who call for the overthrow of the government and incite young people to acts of violence.
Abraham Lincoln said no nation can exist half slave and half free. Neither can a nation be sustained if it allows conditions that result in mass emigration, while importing huge numbers of foreigners who come from backgrounds that do not practice assimilation or tolerance of other beliefs. When one factors in the high number of abortions (one in five pregnancies are aborted in England and Wales),
Liberals care not for life.
the high birth rates of immigrants (15 times those of white Britons),
Religious immigrants value life because of strong morals
it doesn't take a population expert to predict that the days of the England we have known may be numbered. The problem for Britain and the United States isn't just the change in demographics. It is the reluctance of both countries to inculcate the beliefs, history and, yes, religious ideals,
That's what happens when secular liberals run the country.
which made our nations so successful that others wanted to come and be a part of them. The difference between many of the current immigrants and those of the past is that the previous ones wanted to become fully American or fully British. The current ones, in too many cases, would destroy what makes our countries unique. And the "leaders" of Britain and America refuse to stop it.
The greater tragedy is that the people of Britain have little say in any of this, so they are taking the road of last resort. They are leaving.
Cal Thomas is co-author (with Bob Beckel) of the forthcoming book, "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America"
Alright Myron I will give you some of my views - based not so much on fact or fiction but the way I see it!
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BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND
Well ok for starters that is an unfortunate place to talk of ENGLAND vanishing - as much as half the people there would love it to vanish or be (Well) in England.
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An exodus unprecedented in modern times
It would be perhaps easy to forget that Britain had the biggest . the world has ever seen! (Note Myron Seen). Depending where the line is put to qualify 'Modern times' - I think it would be fair to say that the figures for Anglo Saxons leaving these shores would be chicken feed when compared to 'earlier times' (Those not in the 'Modern era' whenever that started).
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The figures, making headlines in London newspapers, tell only part of the story.
Story - Now there is an interesting choice of word to use. I wonder how many young children would have been told that it was just a story when they had read something or had seen a film. Now isn't it funny that the moral here is to believe anything the Media spoonfeed (Or inject) you with?
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Britons give many reasons for leaving, but their stories share one commonality: life in Britain has become unbearable for them.
Perhaps those Daily Mail and Express readers lack the moral courage and the backbone which they would say Made Britain great!
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They fear lawlessness and the threat of more terrorism from a growing Muslim population and the loss of a sense of Britishness, exacerbated by the growing refusal of public schools to teach the history and culture of the nation to the next generation.
F****** Surbanites I bet! Again the key word in that passage is fear - Is fear an emotion or a fact?
Threat v Promise?
Loss of Britishness - this coming from people who take the chicken run!
Teaching History - because that is going to make a difference! Henry V111 was apparently a fat b***** so imagine what that may do to the health of the nation?
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Liberals cannot judge
Can anyone?
Know this wasn't you Myron!
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It is the reluctance of both countries to inculcate the beliefs, history and, yes, religious ideals, which made our nations so successful that others wanted to come and be a part of them.
Oh really is it now - churches need roofs and the Tithe collection just isn't as effective these days. Forgive the sarcasm because obviously this is proven by those who could write or afford an education! Unless that is there is a scientist who has discovered this!
Perhaps the history I was taught at school was wrong - but I was told that in the early part of the last century the main motivation was economic and /or survival!
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The greater tragedy is that the people of Britain have little say in any of this, so they are taking the road of last resort. They are leaving.
Perhaps the even greater tragedy is that elites tend to want to stay just that and fear the mob (They cannot control and direct)!
America's problem is not the same as England's, but it is an existential problem nonetheless.
The most significant difference is that America does not have a true ethnicity, whereas the English ethnicity is distinct and goes back centuries. Shortly after America was founded, immigrants arrived from all over the world. Unlike England, America did not have a social stratification sufficiently rigid to create a barrier to intermarriage. People married outside their ethnic group. As a result, there is no such thing as an "American" ethnicity.
But there is a distinct American ethos, an "American way of life." The foundation consisted of the English language, English common law, Christianity and the mores and values the original settlers brought from England. This is what Cal Thomas is referring to when he calls England "a land that served as the cradle for much of American thought, law and culture." The American "way of life" that evolved from the English foundation has the following characteristics: English language and common law; pluralism; meritocracy; social and economic mobility; self-reliance; individualism; hard work; and, yes, piety. America's rapid ascendancy is owing to the "American way of life."
Until the last decade or so, the goal of immigrants was to assimilate to the American way of life. The most important step was learning English (meaning American English). Immigrants were not expected to abandon the language and traditions of their country of origin, but when interacting at school or at work, they were expected to speak English and to conduct themselves in accordance with the American ethos. Assimilation to a common language and set of values was the glue that held together disparate people and forged the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.
This is no longer the case with many new immigrants to America. Rather than assimilating, they demand that America cater to their language and traditions in public life. And the politicians oblige in the name of "tolerance." Public (government-owned) schools have "bilingual" programs that teach immigrants primarily in the language of their country of origin. Many public signs and legal documents are in English and Spanish and Chinese. As a result, children of immigrants born in the United States never become fluent in English and never assimilate.
I believe the American situation is also different to the British situation in the following respects: 1) America does not face an inevitable Muslim majority intent on using the democratic process to impose Islamic law; 2) America does not face a substantial outflow of American citizens; 3) America does not provide non-citizens with all the social benefits available to American citizens; and, 4) the birth rate of American citizens is much higher than the birth rate of the English.
Although America’s problem is different from England's both in kind and in degree, it remains an existential problem. If new immigrants to America refuse to assimilate and are not required to do so, America will eventually lose its distinct ethos. The result will be regression to a Third World society resembling the countries the new immigrants were so eager to escape.
America's problem is not the same as England's, but it is an existential problem nonetheless.
The most significant difference is that America does not have a true ethnicity, whereas the English ethnicity is distinct and goes back centuries. Shortly after America was founded, immigrants arrived from all over the world. Unlike England, America did not have a social stratification sufficiently rigid to create a barrier to intermarriage. People married outside their ethnic group. As a result, there is no such thing as an "American" ethnicity.
Distinct English ethnicity?
Britain has ALWAYS had immigration. This goes back thousands and thousands of years before it even became an island.
And since Britain became an island it's seen a constant stream of immigration the most notable being the Vikings, the Romans and the French (1066 and all that).
I mean most English people wouldn't even know that it was a black African general from the Roman e m p i r e - which spanned Europe and a large part of North Africa - that rebuilt Hadrian's Wall to keep out the Scottish and so keep England safe? His name was Septimius Severus and that happened way back in the 3rd century A.D.!
Also, the influx of immigrants at British ports and coastal towns through foreign trade over the last two millennia - not even counting those from the slave trade - makes the term 'English ethnicity' a misnomer at best.
People often forget that when Britain had its e m p i r e, which encompassed most of the globe, it had a law that ANY subject of the British e m p i r e had a right and an open invitation to come and live in Britain i.e. the Motherland. Of course, trying to travel to the British Isles say one or two hundred years ago was nigh on impossible for the average British subject if you lived in the Indian subcontinent, or Hong Kong, or Africa or the West Indies.
It wasn't until travel got cheaper and quicker in the 20th century that many subjects of the British commonwealth started to take up Britain's lovely open invitation offer and come to Britain to live. Of course once the government started to see the ethnic makeup of the then Britain changing drastically they then hastily repealed that open invitation and constructed immigration laws around the early 1950s.
Myron Myron, exactly the same things were said when my parents were invited to work in England by British industry, and came over from the West Indies...
"England will never be the same. The English way of life will change forever."
Of course it will change. Immigration of any sort changes a nation. Do you think when then Romans invaded England, the then indigenous English were saying...
"Wooohooo! Thank the lord you sailed over to straighten up the place. I tell ya it was going to the dogs before you came over"?
No, they fought just as they did when the Vikings and Normans invaded as nobody likes change. But funnily we now look back with fondness about what the Romans, Vikings and French did for Britain.
And that's the crux of the matter. People are scared of change and what they don't know. You can dress these issues up in economics and political theory but what it really boils down to is good old fashioned fear of the unknown. The only way to counter that is to 'get to know'. Muslims amazingly, are people just like you and me! They don't all have homogeneous views and thoughts, like 'The Borg'! It's like saying all Christians think exactly the same and believe in exactly the same thing. We all know that ain't the truth.
England and Britain has a very long history just like the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. People come, people go. People travel because of trade. People migrate to find a better life. Countries invade other countries thus changing the ethnic, cultural and religious makeup of a land e.g. the conquistadors bringing Christianity and Catholicism to South America. This process has been going on since humans found out they could walk and then later on that they could make boats and vehicles to travel in.
Muslim immigration is no different in this respect. And the fact that many people are leaving the UK, probably has more to do with the British weather. Funny how most emigrants choose a nice hot climate to go to.
I assume the weather being cited as the main reason for emigration from the UK was tongue in cheek. The whole landsacpe of the UK is being transformed socially and physically by the huge influx of immigrants to the country and, unfortunately, the majority of the emigrees are wealth creators. Britain has indeed always provided a refuge for the stateless although we did try to eradicate the jewish population some centuries ago.
By and large immigrants to the Uk have integrated whilst maintaining their own cultural identity. It is only in the last 35 years that whole areas have been sidelined as "X types" only and "y types only" forming ghettos. As the divide widens it is inevitable that confict will escalate and having three liberal parties with virtually no difference in policy between them makes the future an uncertain place.
I assume the weather being cited as the main reason for emigration from the UK was tongue in cheek. The whole landsacpe of the UK is being transformed socially and physically by the huge influx of immigrants to the country and, unfortunately, the majority of the emigrees are wealth creators. Britain has indeed always provided a refuge for the stateless although we did try to eradicate the jewish population some centuries ago.
By and large immigrants to the Uk have integrated whilst maintaining their own cultural identity. It is only in the last 35 years that whole areas have been sidelined as "X types" only and "y types only" forming ghettos. As the divide widens it is inevitable that confict will escalate and having three liberal parties with virtually no difference in policy between them makes the future an uncertain place.
The weather was indeed tongue-in-cheek!
The thing is these arguments about immigration and the 'end of life as we know it' get pedaled out every generation and every time there's a new wave of settlers. When my dad came over here from Jamaica in 1957 to work on the railways to help rebuild the British economy after the devastation of the war, exactly the same arguments were given.
"All these 'darkies' over here they're not British are they. They're changing our way of life."
The ironic thing is he was probably more British than the Brits having lived in a British colony.
When immigration from the Indian subcontinent came in the late '40s and mid 60s, the outcry from the UK populous was even worse as these 'foreigners' from the British commonwealth wore strange clothing, spoke a foreign language, ate funny smelling food, and even practiced a different religion, shock horror! Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims... what would Britain become???? Not to mention the immigration from Hong Kong and South Africa when the governments changed in those countries.
Well half a century later Britain is still a wealthy and prosperous nation. It's relatively trouble free compared to many nations and a reason why many people want to come to the UK in the first place.
Yes, we've had our troubles and riots even i.e. Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth etc. but not quite the 'rivers of blood' that was predicted. That accolade goes to the troubles in Northern Ireland.
Also you mentioned the last 35 years regarding immigration. Well remember Labour has only been in power for 10 years. A lot of the troubles, riots, ghettos and further immigration took place under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives, probably the most right-wing hardline government we've had in decades. So... so much for the liberal policies causing all the problems.
As ever with these things in another 50 years people will still be saying 'Britain will never be the same again' when another wave of immigration comes in to help our aged population. Of course the people who will be complaining will most likely be the Eastern European immigrants that are now currently setting up home in the UK in 2007. Such is the cycle of life.
Change is inevitable. You can either whinge and moan about it and reminisce about the status quo, or you can do something constructive about it and help the change along so it benefits yourself and that of your new fellow countrymen, women and children.
I agree that change is inevitable but controlled migration and immigration is sensible so that the fabric exists to absorb whatever race or creed involved.
Keep pouring water into a bath and it will eventually overflow and spoil the rest of the house.
Joined: 21 Oct 2005 Posts: 5766 Location: In UR base snifin all UR pantys
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 9:42 pm Post subject:
I think it's an interesting story from a number of standpoints.
First off in articles like this always a few false assumptions...
* Our way of life has not improved.
* The past was better than now.
* Some kind of Halcyon era existed previously.
Sure we can always make improvements, but once you get rid of those you get down to the usual hyperbole over immigration. The same things were said about major migrations during the 60's / 70's of West Indians, Indians & Pakistanis etc. as someone has pointed out better than I could have.
My 2p - The home of one of the most popular "indian" food chicken tikka-massala? Northern England.
Right now we in England are at a point where the government and businesses are trying to homogenise us. This is what is causing people in power who are not affected by whatever-ism displaying an overly strong "PC" reaction - thats where silly things happen like when people who work for a council / company being banned from saying "merry christmas", they rarely come from genuine complaints from a community.
It does mean that the council won't pay out for decorations for a religious festival (say xmas), but if the people who live in an area want the town decorated then there should be nothing at all stopping them from doing that within reason.
Interestingly, I used to live in a part of London, where (I'm assuming they still do this) the traders in "the village" club together with some of the residents and put up xmas lights and run them over the xmas period and take them down again afterwards. Before you ask, yes, I enjoyed them and yes, I did join in with my neighbours and friends in putting the lights up and getting them down again.
I make no bones about this - I strongly believe that religion is evil (all religion without exception) but that doesn't mean that if someone wishes me a merry xmas, that it's an affront, it means they chose to wish me well using references from their cultural identity which may or not be the same as mine.
I do not know enough about life in Britain today to comment intelligently on the following essay, but if the author's factual sources are correct, it would appear that the present situation is materially distinguishable from past immigration:
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September 11, 2007, 7:15 a.m.
Denial, England
Have we learned nothing?
By Melanie Phillips
When I published my book Londonistan last year, I believed Britain was deeply in denial over the threat of radical Islamism. Today — six years after 9/11; two years after the 7/7 London suicide bombings; one year after the discovery of the al Qaeda transatlantic-airline plot; two months after the car-bomb attacks on a London nightclub and Glasgow airport — even with an apparently neverending procession of trials of British Islamist terrorists and with MI5 stating that it is monitoring no fewer than 200 U.K. Islamist terror groupings, 2,000 individual terrorists, and 30 known active major terrorist plots, Britain is still failing to acknowledge the true nature and scale of what it is facing and what needs to be done to counter it.
“Londonistan” was a term of abuse coined by the French for a Britain that had allowed itself, during the 1990s, to become the European hub of al Qaeda. To me, however, it’s also a state of mind — one in which people not only seek to appease but come to internalize some of the mindset of the enemy that intends to destroy them.
Despite a hardening of the public mood against Islamism, the British establishment is still sleepwalking toward cultural surrender. The essence of the problem is that although it understands it is fighting an unprecedented terrorist threat, it still does not understand the religious ideology driving the threat. It still believes, instead, the Islamist propaganda line that the root causes of jihadi terror are poverty, discrimination, or foreign policy — in other words, that terrorism against the West is the West’s own fault.
The good news is that the mood is beginning to change among British Muslims. Debate has been electrified by the decision of a few young Muslims to renounce Islamist radicalism. Accounts such as Ed Husain’s book The Islamist have blown apart all the usual excuses for Islamist terror. Husain said the cause was nothing other than religious fanaticism; and he called for Hizb ut-Tahrir — the jihadi organization to which he had belonged — to be banned.
Where these pioneers have led, others are now beginning to follow. Last week, Maajid Nawaz — a senior British member of Hizb ut-Tahrir who was jailed in Egypt for four years after being accused of reviving HuT there and plotting to overthrow the government — renounced that organization, having apparently concluded in prison that Islam had been hijacked by a political ideology.
Such developments are significant. Suddenly, British Muslims are beginning to realize that Islamism poses a dire threat not just to non-Muslims but to themselves. While many still remain far from moderate in many respects — and there are those in the West who blindly maintain that “moderate Muslim” is an oxymoron — such a movement toward the rejection of politicized Islam offers a ray of hope.
It would be the height of irresponsibility to ignore these steps by British Muslims down the difficult and perilous road they are gingerly exploring toward a possible accommodation between Islam and modernity. Every help should surely be given them in their quest to effect a Muslim reformation, however remote this possibility may currently seem.
So much for the good news.
The bad news is, in brief, that the British government is choosing to look the other way. It should be making it crystal clear that there is no place for Islamist extremism in Britain. Not only is it refusing to do so, however, but its response to Islamism remains one of appeasement. Although much about the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, remains studiedly ambiguous, the dynamic of British politics — with its visceral hostility toward Israel and America, and with Muslim voters steadily increasing their political influence — means he may yet put Britain and the West at even further risk.
Indeed, there are worrying signs that Brown will actually go further than the government has already gone in appeasing the Muslim lobby. He is refusing to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir — which is radicalizing countless young British Muslims, particularly on campus. He is refusing to ban the building of what is intended to be the largest mosque in Europe on the site of the 2012 Olympic village in east London — a mosque funded by the Tablighi Jamaat, said by the FBI and French intelligence to be the “antechamber to al-Qaeda” in Europe. And after the attacks on Glasgow airport and the London nightclub in the very week he took office last June, his government went out of its way not to refer to Muslims or Islamic terror but talked instead of “crime” by “communities.”
Whereas the Blair government finally started to treat the (supposedly representative) Muslim Council of Britain as the Islamist extremists that they are, Brown has brought them back in from the cold. Continuing to give such Islamists legitimacy builds them up and knocks the ground out from under those British Muslims trying to fight them. This has led to a ludicrous situation in which the government is being advised on how to counter Islamist extremism by people who are themselves part of the extremist networks. The government thinks that by tip-toeing around Islamist sensibilities it will encourage ordinary Muslims to cooperate with it; in fact, it is merely undermining the very people it should be supporting — those Muslims who are genuinely appalled by Islamism. Thousands of Muslims, for example, who live near the proposed Olympic mosque signed a petition against it on the grounds that it would radicalize their children. So far, they have simply been ignored.
Reformist-minded British Muslims point out that, although there are Islamic authorities that specifically allow Muslims in Britain to adopt mainstream British practices — such as eating non-halal meat, for example, or using ordinary mortgages — the British government has chosen to assume that the divisive strictures of Islamism brook no argument. It has thus chosen to accommodate an agenda that explicitly sets out to replace Western law and values with Islamic ones.
Accordingly, far from resisting the encroachment of Islamic sharia law, Britain is allowing the development of an Islamic state within a state. It now has “sharia-compliant” mortgages, with a policy to make London the center of global Islamic banking — even though such banking is controlled by Saudi Wahhabis, who will use the money to further radicalize British Muslims and Islamize Britain. Some local education authorities are serving halal meat to all pupils. A blind eye is turned to polygamy, cousin-marriage, and the forced marriage of young teenage girls.
Moreover, Britain is still doing next to nothing to stop the propagandizing for holy war. A recent report by the Centre for Social Cohesion — a London think tank — revealed that public libraries are stocking hundreds of Islamic books glorifying acts of terrorism against followers of other religions, inciting violence against anyone who rejects jihadist ideologies, and endorsing violence and discrimination against women.
And last week, the London Times reported that almost half of Britain’s 1,350 mosques are under the control of the hard-line Deobandi sect whose leading preacher, Riyadh ul Haq, loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah. He heaps scorn on any Muslims who say they are “proud to be British” and argues that friendship with a Jew or a Christian makes “a mockery of Allah’s religion.”
Worse yet, Britain remains a major center for Hamas incitement and funding. And now there’s also enormous pressure for Britain and Europe to “engage” with Hamas. Although Brown is said to be against this as long as Hamas wants to destroy Israel, a powerful lobby for it is gaining ground, led by former intelligence officers and other establishment types who are marching to the Islamists’ tune.
The British thinking — under the delusion that there are parallels with Northern Ireland — is that one set of Islamists can be played off against another, and that Hamas and the Brotherhood can be used against al-Qaeda. But the result is likely to be instead the strengthening of Islamists and the weakening of truly moderate Arabs and Muslims everywhere, and a steady increase in Muslim radicalization in Britain and throughout the world. Failing to acknowledge that it is dealing with religious fanaticism, the government is making the terrible mistake of thinking that it is dealing with people who are governed ultimately by recognizable self-interest. So it thinks it can tame them through the flattery of drawing them into the counsels of government.
Certainly, there are moderate Muslims, and we should encourage them. But we must not understate the problem. There is an alarming number of Muslims in Britain who — while they may abhor violence — have views that are not moderate by any reasonable definition. Opinion polls suggest that between 40 and 60 percent of British Muslims would like to live under sharia law in Britain; almost a quarter say the 7/7 bombings can be justified because of the War on Terror; nearly half think 9/11 was a conspiracy between the U.S. and Israel; 46 percent think the Jewish community is “in league with the Freemasons to control the media and police”; and 37 percent think the Jewish community in Britain is a legitimate target “as part of the ongoing struggle for justice in the Middle East.”
In further surveys, 7 percent of Muslims — which works out to 112,000 British Muslims — thought suicide bombing in the U.K. was justified in some circumstances, rising to 16 percent — or 256,000 — if a military target was involved. These are horrifying statistics, and they show how deep the British crisis really is.
This is why the head of the Muslim Council of Britain has said his aim is to encourage Britain to adopt sharia law and more Islamic ways. This is why, after the transatlantic-airline plot was uncovered, 38 British Muslim organizations, along with various Muslim MPs and members of the House of Lords, threatened that unless Britain changed its foreign policy, it would have more terror attacks. This is why other so-called moderate Muslim representatives demanded of the government that sharia law on marriage be adopted into English law and that assorted Muslim holidays should become British national holidays. This is why the Muslim Council of Britain called for all schools to ban “un-Islamic activities” like dance classes and to limit certain school activities during Ramadan (including science lessons dealing with sex, parents’ evenings, exams, and immunization programs).
I see this as a continuum of extremism that acts as a conveyor belt to terror. Even those who don’t support violence may endorse the kind of ideas — the belief that the West is a conspiracy to destroy Islam, that the Jews are the puppet-masters of the West, that Britain should be governed by sharia law, or other views hostile to British and Western society — that are the drivers of terror.
Britain still doesn’t get this at all. Instead, the British government strategy to combat Muslim extremism is based on the discredited “root causes” theory I mentioned earlier. Its post-colonial mindset leads it to believe that all terrorism must be caused by discrete geopolitical grievances — Iraq, Israel/Palestine. The way to end Islamist terror, it thinks, is to end these disputes. But this is precisely the wrong way round. The way to end these disputes is first to end Islamist terror.
Last year, the al Qaeda terrorist Dhiren Barot was jailed in Britain for plotting synchronized atrocities including the use of poison and radioactive bombs. Dhiren Barot was not brought up in poverty, or as a segregated Muslim. He was a middle-class Hindu convert to Islam. He started plotting his atrocities before 9/11, let alone Iraq. And he said something very significant. He said the reason terrorism was — in his view — an Islamic religious duty was that “terror works.” That’s because Britain, Europe, Israel, and, until 9/11, America, have all responded to unending Arab and Muslim terror by seeking to understand, accommodate, or appease the demands behind it. The greater the terror, the greater the self-flagellation of its victims.
The liberal West, which worships at the shrine of reason, does not understand that ideas can kill. As a result Britain, Europe, America, and Israel have all left the battleground of ideas undefended, allowing the advance of falsehood and hatred. Worse still, our intelligentsia and media often act as an Islamists’ fifth column.
The biggest danger to the West is this climate of defeatism, appeasement, and cultural collapse now on display for the Islamists to see. This is the single biggest impetus to Islamist terrorism. We all have to grasp that terrorism is not the biggest threat we face. The biggest threat is the ideology that drives it. It’s not enough to fight terror, vital though that is. The principal battleground is the world of ideas, the battle for hearts and minds. The Islamists see this very clearly. They understand that psychological warfare — the fomenting of paranoia, resentment, hysteria, and demoralization — is their most effective weapon. If they can hijack the human mind to the cause of hatred and lies, they have an army; and if they can bamboozle and demoralize their victims, they will win.
— Melanie Phillips is author of Londonistan, published by Encounter Books.
I would be interested in any and all reasoned comments from my British friends.
Joined: 21 Oct 2005 Posts: 5766 Location: In UR base snifin all UR pantys
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 7:56 am Post subject:
myron myron wrote:
I do not know enough about life in Britain today to comment intelligently on the following essay, but if the author's factual sources are correct, it would appear that the present situation is materially distinguishable from past immigration:
Quote:
September 11, 2007, 7:15 a.m.
...
— Melanie Phillips is author of Londonistan, published by Encounter Books.
I would be interested in any and all reasoned comments from my British friends.
It looks too much like someone's trying to sell a book to me.
I do not know enough about life in Britain today to comment intelligently on the following essay, but if the author's factual sources are correct, it would appear that the present situation is materially distinguishable from past immigration:
Quote:
September 11, 2007, 7:15 a.m.
...
— Melanie Phillips is author of Londonistan, published by Encounter Books.
I would be interested in any and all reasoned comments from my British friends.
It looks too much like someone's trying to sell a book to me.
Her book was apparently published last year, but even if you are correct that she is "trying to sell a book," does that automatically discredit the substance of her essay or the facts on which she relies?
Joined: 21 Oct 2005 Posts: 5766 Location: In UR base snifin all UR pantys
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:10 am Post subject:
myron myron wrote:
monosodium wrote:
It looks too much like someone's trying to sell a book to me.
Her book was apparently published last year, but even if you are correct that she is "trying to sell a book," does that automatically discredit the substance of her essay or the facts on which she relies?
In this instance, I think it does because those facts are being taken wildly out of context in order to justify a false premise.
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They don't all have homogeneous views and thoughts, like 'The Borg'! It's like saying all Christians think exactly the same and believe in exactly the same thing. We all know that ain't the truth.
