Robin Cook, the former Cabinet Minister, who resigned with aplomb on the eve of the Iraqi War, has proved a popular alternative for the anti-war brigade on the backbenches of the House of Commons. His speeches have provided illuminating insights into the mindset of those who view anti-terrorist actions as propaganda to expand the power of the United States. The debate on combating terrorism is structured as a conflict between freedom and security, balancing civil liberties against the need to pre-empt atrocities on innocent civilians. There is a case for arguing that the erosion of civil liberties in Britain has been accelerated by Blunkett the authoritarian using the ‘war on terror’ as a convenient excuse.
Robin Cook, in a speech at the Edinburgh Book Festival, personified the anti-war Left, and argued that the anti-terrorist activities of the British government was a conflict between multiculturalism and security. The necessity of combating Al-Qa’eda operatives was secondary to the importance of reinforcing and extending a multicultural society. Cook evinced some surprise at this recent development:
He said: “I’m deeply troubled by the increase in raids under the Anti-Terrorism Act which are now running, staggeringly, at 10 times the level of three years ago.
“There were 30,000 raids under the Prevention of Terrorism Act last year from which less than 100 individuals were charged with offences relating to terrorism.”
What was three years ago? In contrast to this omission, Cook made a veiled reference to the Muslim vote, now so important in certain constituencies. This has followed his recent courting of Muslim leaders, supping at the same stagnant reservoir of support that has attracted other midges, such as Respect and the Liberal Democrats:
Mr Cook, who quit the Cabinet over the Iraq war, went on: “There’s a real risk that if we continue with that we will end up alienating the very people we need for a successful multi-cultural society and a successful appeal to people around the world of a different culture.”
Although the speech was crafted for short-term political gain, Cook provides evidence that a proportion of those who demonstrated against the war, will continue to oppose measures that can be utilised to investigate and break up terrorist cells and sympathisers in the United Kingdom.
Call me a wooly old liberal, but 30,000 raids producing 100 charges seems excessive.
A charge rate of 0.33% seems underwhelming, no doubt that rate will be reduced dramatically when it comes to convictions. That means every day in Britain almost 100 raids occur – that is scary. Just because most raids might be happening in Muslim Bradford does not make me any happier. Seventy or so years ago the Gestapo probably concentrated their efforts in the Jewish ghettoes.
I’m not opposed to measures against terrorists, but when 99.67% of the raids lead nowhere, what the hell is going on?
“There’s a real risk that if we continue with that we will end up alienating the very people we need for a successful multi-cultural society and a successful appeal to people around the world of a different culture.”
The man is clearly insane.
Who voted for a multicultural society? Who got the opportunity to vote?
Only the flotsam – non-citizens – who voted with their feet to get into Britain and were unaccountably accorded entry. The people with the legitimate votes, the electorate, were, criminally, never consulted. They were disenfranchised and the uninvited aliens empowered over the legitimate owners of the country.
Now Robin Cook, a shining example of his ilk and too dim to hide his light under a bushel, makes it even clearer. We are now dependent on Muslim immigrants to make our society – a success by any measure for around, oh, a thousand and more years – a “successful” multiculti mess? A great Gramscian stroke.
Robin Cook is a tiny, ugly traitor. Who can forget him deserting his official tour of India representing HM Government, therefore the British people, so he could fly home and fuck a pissed off Gwyneth, or whatever her name is, who didn’t get to be included on the trip and was madder ‘n hell, on the pretext of an urgent request to open a Scottish biscuit factory. Hmmm. Hard call. Continent of one billion people and I’m Her Majesty’s representive. Scottish biscuit factory. Continent of l bn people to whom I must pay the respects of the former colonial rulers, the British people, Scottish biscuit factory. Even Homer Simpson could have got that one right.
Flights home to the biscuit factory and Gweneth or whatever her name is and the flight back to graciously return to representing HM Government picked up by the taxpayer.
Proving (as if proof were needed) just how right was Lenin when he referred to “useful idiots”.
The insufferably bumptious garden gnome, Robin Cook won my poll for the ‘New Labour Arse Among Arses’ a couple of years ago, following a spectacularly conceited performance on BBC TV’s Question Time.
When the time comes for traitors’ heads to be stuck on pikestaffs, I claim the right to hoist his gargoyle-featured bonce above London Bridge, where it belongs.
Though, I suppose, it would be closer to natural justice if one of his beloved Moslem terrorists polished him off first.
I can’t stand Robin Cook – apart from anything else he looks like a giant deformed squirrell. But without the charisma. (Ain’t I a grown up?!)
Is it not the core of this ‘debate’ (multiculturalism vs security) that we are seeing a clash between liberalism and pluralism? Cook and the left want to protect the diversity of cultural groups in the UK. Private attitudes of acceptance/openess/tolerance etc etc toward other cultural groups is fine – so long as they are private and do not involve the state. Imagine if the law were to be geared toward cultural groups rather than individuals?!
For a start that could be in serious conflict with human rights which are essentially individual. But also individual rights generally (e.g. property) could come into conflict with the necessary recognition of ‘cultural practices’.
I could mention the voodoo weirdos cutting children in half for some fucked-up dark ages ceremony – and no charges could be brought against them – but that would obviously be blatant scaremongering. Yet the threat to the individual from the group would be real.
Liberalism and its off-shoots (libertarianism etc) demands that the law is applied at the level of individuals (and their associates) – not broadly defined groups, and it just so happens that there are good reasons to suspect *some* people who just so happen to be muslim of terrorism related activities. There may also be reasons to suspect non-muslim individuals of terrorism also, but the balance is pretty skewed. Tough. The point is, Cook’s ‘concerns’ about alienating groups are irrelevant because at the end of the day, the law is being (and should be) applied to individuals and not groups.
Verity,
Cook is a Scot,it is time the English sorted out the West Lothian problem.The Labour Party is dependent on scottish MPs to keep a grip on power and enable them to destroy England.
BTW how many Midddle Eastern countries respect multiculturalism?
G Cooper, you’ll have to duke it out with me for the privilege of hoisting Robin on the petit gibbet.
But we mustn’t be driven off the point – Cooke’s treachery – by references to his physical shortcomings. Yes, his appearance is revolting – but a traitor doesn’t get excused for ugliness.
Cooke wants to disarm Britain in the face of the Islamofascists he worked so hard to get into our country. And his passivity in the face of their developing terrorist cells deserves a wee mention, does it nae?
Peter – it absolutely matters not how many Muslim countries respect multiculturalism. This is not the point. The point is Britain and the West.
An established, extremely successful society had primitives injected into it for the political purpose of weakening that society. Why?
Indigenes fighting back for their culture were silenced in the name of ‘racism’ crimes. Thought crimes. Hate crimes. “Crimes” that do not exist in our constitution. The leftie movement was by then so huge that there was no hope of people trying to halt their government, because the government was in control of their new hate crimes, and race crimes and thought crimes.
And lo, a man named Trevor Phillips, whose mother and father had travelled across the seas to this country in the hope of finding jobs and a better life, deemed a man named Kilroy Silk, a British man who spoke of abnormal misdeeds in Muslim countries, unworthy of having a TV show on the BBC and lo did he seek to destroy him.
And Kilroy Silk did see this offence and put it away from him by standing for UKIP. And lo Trevor Phillips did wonder what to do next, yet the power was not in his hands and lo, the people did not give him the power to prosecute Kilroy Silk.
And lo, Trevor Phillips is one physically unattractive bastard on a level with Robin Cook, who is way below the Plimsoll Line.
What Paul Staines said and
That’s just raids. What about searches and arrests of people in the street, like the architectural designer who was held for several hours for making sketches on the South Bank for a new system of signage?
How many of those charges were for the highly dangerous (to the citizen) catch-all offence of possessing material likely to be of use to a terrorist?
Verity:
“the uninvited aliens empowered over the legitimate owners of the country.”
I know it’s just a comment on a blog posting, but don’t you think you are exagerating just a bit?
Julius – No. Being lofty and smug will not solve the problem of Islamofascist terrorism and the subversion of Western cultures. Already, Muslim immigrants are accorded more rights and protections than the indigenes whose intelligence, foresight and bravery built the democracies of the West, including Britain (and France, and Holland and Norway, et al, every one of them experiencing similar subversions of their civil societies).
No, Julius. I am not exaggerating.
” the indigenes whose intelligence, foresight and bravery built the democracies of the West, including Britain”
Err… I didn’t have much of a hand in building democracy Britain. Nor did anyone I know. Are you alluding to some kind of ‘racial achievement’ here? Some kind of collectivist ability to do something based on ancestry? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?
& Julius, yes; bang on the money.
Verity:
“Muslim immigrants are accorded more rights and protections than the indigenes whose intelligence, foresight and bravery built the democracies of the West, including Britain (and France, and Holland and Norway, et al, every one of them experiencing similar subversions of their civil societies).”
I honestly and truly have no idea what you are talking about. There is nothing wrong with a good rant, but please rant clearly.
A_t – Well, for once, you are right. My sentence didn’t make sense because I neglected to say our ancestors or forebears created, for the most part, the country we live in now.
“Racial achievement”? No. The triumph of the creation of a [fairly] just and enlightened civilisation with rights and opportunities for all, and the creation of civil structures to underpin those rights.
We now have an authoritarian element intent on imposing their primitive morality and customs on the host societies. This includes genital mutilation of little girls, “honour killings”, promising little girls as “brides” to foreigners when they’re as young as six, veiled women and other forms of abuse.
The fight of the West against militant Islamofascism is the defining issue of our times, in the view of me and George Bush. (And Mark Steyn, just in case you don’t take George Bush and me seriously enough.)
Julius – what a good little dhimmi you are!
Verity, you’re correct that there is a small “authoritarian element” within various immigrant communities which would love to impose some stupidass customs they brought with them upon all of us, whether they be Jamaican/Nigerian homophobes or Muslim veil-fans, but neither particularly ranks as a threat to the current british way of life. Plus, many of their kids won’t give a damn about trying to impose any of that stupidity, & their parents will die bitter at the way the West has ‘corrupted’ their young ones. Good.
(I should add, there’s an authoritarian element within the ‘indigenous’ population too, which would love to impose various dodgy things upon the rest of us. Sometimes they succeed, but I don’t hear you condemning the entire indigenous population as a result.)
You’ve so far completely failed to explain how ‘indegenes’ are disadvantaged versus immigrants, or how Herr Blair & his cohorts are helping this.
BTW, one of the strange things I find about your ‘argh! conspiracy to undermine Britain” rants is that you’ll go on (often quite correctly) about how the government couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, and then believe them capable of highly successful and sophisticated social manipulations on a grand scale. I can’t square the two in my head at all. Surely people who can’t even run a damn health service will have a hard time manipulating 55 million people, no?
& What’s with attacking Julius? Is he Bin Laden’s bitch if he doesn’t agree with your unsupported anti-muslim/immigrant rants now? All he did was ask for examples. He doesn’t know you as far as I know, so he’ll require slightly more than your word to believe what you’re saying. You’ve so far not provided any supporting evidence, so his confusion is understandable, & doesn’t represent any kind of support for any putative muslim “invasion” of britain.
Verity:
Ok so a few unemployed mosque-goers in Bradford dream of imposing authoritarian Islam on the U.K. by force. But why should we take them any more seriously than Animal Rights nutters and other sundry loons? A minor irritant? Yes. “The defining issue of our times”. Come off it.
Supporting evidence:
First, I suggest that anyone not wanting to keep their heads in the sand about the reality of the Islamification of Europe and its dangers should reald read both ‘The Rage and the Pride’ and ‘The Force of Reason’ by Oriana Fallaci.
Evidence:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5239
More:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5238
More:
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/sterlingtimes/vpost?id=2800
More:
Something Rotten in Denmark?
by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard
New York Post
August 27, 2002
A Muslim group in Denmark announced a few days ago that a $30,000 bounty would be paid for the murder of several prominent Danish Jews, a threat that garnered wide international notice. Less well known is that this is just one problem associated with Denmark’s approximately 200,000 Muslim immigrants. The key issue is that many of them show little desire to fit into their adopted country.
For years, Danes lauded multiculturalism and insisted they had no problem with the Muslim customs – until one day they found that they did. Some major issues:
* Living on the dole: Third-world immigrants – most of them Muslims from countries such as Turkey, Somalia, Pakistan, Lebanon and Iraq – constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending.
* Engaging in crime: Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark’s 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country’s convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes.
* Self-imposed isolation: Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane.
* Importing unacceptable customs: Forced marriages – promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death – are one problem.
Another is threats to kill Muslims who convert out of Islam. One Kurdish convert to Christianity, who went public to explain why she had changed religion, felt the need to hide her face and conceal her identity, fearing for her life.
* Fomenting anti-Semitism: Muslim violence threatens Denmark’s approximately 6,000 Jews, who increasingly depend on police protection. Jewish parents were told by one school principal that she could not guarantee their children’s safety and were advised to attend another institution. Anti-Israel marches have turned into anti-Jewish riots. One organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, openly calls on Muslims to “kill all Jews . . . wherever you find them.”
* Seeking Islamic law: Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark’s Muslim population grows large enough – a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim.
Other Europeans (such as the late Pim Fortuyn in Holland) have also grown alarmed about these issues, but Danes were the first to make them the basis for a change in government.
In a momentous election last November, a center-right coalition came to power that – for the first time since 1929 – excluded the socialists. The right broke its 72-year losing streak and won a solid parliamentary majority by promising to handle immigration issues, the electorate’s first concern, differently from the socialists.
The next nine months did witness some fine-tuning of procedures: Immigrants now must live seven years in Denmark (rather than three) to become permanent residents. Most non-refugees no longer can collect welfare checks immediately on entering the country. No one can bring into the country an intended spouse under the age of 24. And the state prosecutor is considering a ban on Hizb-ut-Tahrir for its death threats against Jews.
These minor adjustments prompted howls internationally – with European and U.N. reports condemning Denmark for racism and “Islamophobia,” the Washington Post reporting that Muslim immigrants “face habitual discrimination,” and a London Guardian headline announcing that “Copenhagen Flirts with Fascism.”
In reality, however, the new government barely addressed the existing problems. Nor did it prevent new ones, such as the death threats against Jews or a recent Islamic edict calling on Muslims to drive Danes out of the Norrebro quarter of Copenhagen.
The authorities remain indulgent. The military mulls permitting Muslim soldiers in Denmark’s volunteer International Brigade to opt out of actions they don’t agree with – a privilege granted to members of no other faith. Mohammed Omar Bakri, the self-proclaimed London-based “eyes, ears and mouth” of Osama bin Laden, won permission to set up a branch of his organization, Al-Muhajiroun.
Contrary to media reports, the real news from Denmark is not flirting with fascism but getting mired in inertia. A government elected specifically to deal with a set of problems has made minimal headway. Its reluctance has potentially profound implications for the West as a whole.”
Fantasy:
“Ok so a few unemployed mosque-goers in Bradford dream of imposing authoritarian Islam on the U.K. by force”
Reality:
“Fallaci has her own interpretation of the massive Islamic immigration that is rapidly changing the face of European cities. She sees it as part of the expansionism that has characterized Islam since its birth. After reminding the reader how Islamic armies have aimed for centuries at the heart of Europe (a part of history that is not taught anymore in Europe, since it would offend the sensitivity of Muslim pupils), reaching France, Poland, and Vienna, she lays out her case, claiming that the current flood of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa is part of a carefully planned strategy. Fallaci uses the words of Muslim leaders to support this thesis.
In 1974, former Algerian President Houari Boumedienne said in a speech at the U.N.: “One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere to go to the northern hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.” In other words, says Fallaci, what Islamic armies have not been able to do with force in more than 1,000 years can be achieved in less than a century through high birth rates. She cites as evidence a 1975 meeting of Islamic countries in Lahore, in which they announced their project to transform the flow of Muslim immigrants in Europe in “demographic preponderance.”
The “sons of Allah,” as Fallaci calls them, do not make a secret of their plans. A Catholic bishop recounted that, during an interfaith meeting in Turkey, a respected Muslim cleric told the crowd: “Thanks to your democratic laws we will invade you. Thanks to our Islamic laws we will conquer you.” But what really makes Fallaci’s blood boil is the West’s inability to even acknowledge this aggression. A large part of her book is dedicated to analyzing how the main European countries pander to the arrogant demands of radical Muslim organizations, how they are unable to defend their Jewish citizens from acts of Islamic militant violence (often blamed on neo-Nazis and almost never on the Muslim perpetrators, even when the evidence clearly proves otherwise), and said countries’ unwillingness to be proud of their cultures and identities.”
All right A_t, you bring up some fair questions. Jamaican and Nigerian homophobes, while unquestionably unpleasant, are not that numerous and do not drive lorries packed with explosives through the plate glass of Heathrow and blow up the terminals. British-born Islamofascists have been arrested by the police for plotting this course of action. They had detailed maps of the roads leading up to Heathrow, along with the duration of all the red stop lights.
Again, there were recently arrests of 12 British born Muslims with detailed plans of the NYSE, Citigroup and the IMF. These were judged by the police to be detailed enough to be used for terrorist outrages. The British are bafflingly blind to the potential mayhem in their midst. They seem to will themselves to pretend that the expansionism that drives Islam is just a figment of other people’s imaginations. Even when one terrorist outrage after the other is perpetrated, they don’t seem to be able to connect the dot.
The native British, Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, etc are at a disadvantage because they simply fail to credit the threat they are facing in their own countries.
My “rants” are not rants, but fairly well reasoned arguments. It’s a very leftwing tactic to apply the word “rant” to an argument the listener doesn’t like, and this tactic has lost credibility.
“… about how the government couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, and then believe them capable of highly successful and sophisticated social manipulations on a grand scale. I can’t square the two in my head at all. Surely people who can’t even run a damn health service will have a hard time manipulating 55 million people, no?”
Err, no. Certainly this government is incompetent when it comes to running the country democratically. But running a health service has nothing to do with inventing laws – we already have perfectly sound laws against incitement to violence, and so on – specifically against race crimes, hate crimes, thought crimes. By the accretion of publicity, these have become wedged in the minds of the electorate, and cause them to fear stating an honest opinion in public. So little by little, the British are being cowed into not saying anything controversial. Kilroy-Silk wrote an article in which he stated the truth: Some (not all, as he was careful to say) Muslim governments are complicit in wife abuse, stoning of adulterers and homosexuals and amputating limbs of thieves. For this, head of the Race SS Trevor Phillips called the Metropolitan Police. Mr Kilroy-Silk, no matter your opinion of his tan, had said nothing exceptional and nothing that is denied by the governments in question. It was sheer bullying by the government.
In addition, incompetent as it is at governance, this government has a vast army of allied leftists willing to help force its agenda through. The universities, the vast teachers’ union, a large number of young students, all the lefties in local government, the lefties at the head of the police service, the lefties at the head of the prisons service, and not least the BBC and all the socialist journalists – numbering, my guess, well over a million soldiers active in the cause of forcing multiculti claptrap on people who never had a chance to vote for it.
Julius – read a far cleverer and more articulate woman than I am. Bat Ye’or. She is a brilliant Jewish writer and she has written on the Dhimmitude.
A_t (of course) writes:
“Verity, you’re correct that there is a small “authoritarian element” within various immigrant communities which would love to impose some stupidass customs they brought with them upon all of us, whether they be Jamaican/Nigerian homophobes or Muslim veil-fans, but neither particularly ranks as a threat to the current british way of life.”
Really? My perception is that the “british way of life” (I hate to be corny, but was the lack of a capital “B” Freudian?) has been very clearly both compromised and subverted by the waves of immigration, the results of which you seem to roll around in with such enjoyment.
By all means go on pretending that the growing presence of profoundly misogynistic and fundamentalist theocratic cultures from Africa and the Middle-East are no threat to British society.
Just don’t expect anyone with an ounce of objectivity to believe you.
Julius writes:
“Ok so a few unemployed mosque-goers in Bradford dream of imposing authoritarian Islam on the U.K. by force. But why should we take them any more seriously than Animal Rights nutters and other sundry loons? A minor irritant? Yes. “The defining issue of our times”. Come off it.”
Oh, I dunno. Not that many PETA supporters are willing to drive aeroplanes into skyscrapers full of hundreds of innocent human beings, just for the Allah-satisfying kick of watching them jump from 20 stories. Or plot to detonate nuclear or biological weapons in Picadilly Circus.
Carefully conducted surveys appear to show that bin Laden has considerable support among Moslems in the UK.
What political belief do you hold that is furthered by denying this?
G Cooper, you demanded an answer to the pertinent question: what political beliefs do Julian and his confreres have that motivates them to piss away two thousand years of history in the British Isles in favour of people who arrive holding their chadors together in their one remaining upper and lower tooth, and the men fiddling in their pajamas on seeing normal women walking around Heathrow?
What is so attractive to Julian about this? Many lefties cleave to immigrants from less developed cultures because they are able to position themselves as broad-minded saviours. I don’t want to accuse Julian because I don’t know him, but he certainly fits the pattern.
A_t., “stupid ass customs”? Like slicing off clitera – which is so screamingly painful that little girls have to be held down by several coo-ing adult females? Like grating little girls’ labia until they bleed so they can be grafted together (‘leaving a small hole for urination and menstruation’). This is what is referred to, wrongly – to make it more palatable, so to speak – as “female circumcision”. No. Forget the Muslim propaganda. It is actually the removal of the entire female sexual organ.
This is “stupid ass”? Like dropping a baseball or cricket catch? Like tripping up on a slam dunk? Like screwing up on your driver’s test? This is all a woman’s sexuality means to you? It doesn’t come back. Once this helpless little girl’s organ is gone, it is gone, and she gets to become a victim until the end of her days. Definitely non-demanding of the Muslim male. What’s to demand?
As they say, denial is not a river in Egypt.
Verity:
“we already have perfectly sound laws against incitement to violence, and so on – specifically against race crimes, hate crimes, thought crimes”
Do you really think such laws are sound ?
G Cooper:
“What political belief do you hold that is furthered by denying this?”
The belief that conjuring up fear of demons leads to a yet further expansion of State power and consequent further loss of liberty.
Verity:
“G Cooper, you demanded an answer to the pertinent question: what political beliefs do Julian and his confreres have that motivates them to piss away two thousand years of history in the British Isles in favour of people who arrive holding their chadors together in their one remaining upper and lower tooth, and the men fiddling in their pajamas on seeing normal women walking around Heathrow?
What is so attractive to Julian about this?”
This is just silly ranting (as I said before, I have nothing against good ranting a la Paul Coulam). My point is simply that the threat to Western Civilisation you allege is posed by some nutters in Bradford, is vastly overblown. My politics are of course libertarian.
Julius
Shawn:
The evidence to which you point, certainly demonstrates that there are Moslems who desire to spread/impose Islam globally. But extremism is nothing new. The question which you fail to address is why such ideas need to be combated by military adventurism abroad, a vast domestic security apparatus at home and all the other features of a semi-police State.
Julius
Julius writes:
“The belief that conjuring up fear of demons leads to a yet further expansion of State power and consequent further loss of liberty. ”
That is such a pathetic response that it counts as no response at all.
I’ll try again. Studies (let alone empirical evidence) show that, far from being confined to the small numbers you claim, support for islamic extremism in this country is considerable and that it is a very real threat.
What is your motive for denying this?
On the “some of them are willing to blow us up, therefore they may be able to take over our country” front, there’s a big, big difference between being able to kill a bunch of people & being able to impose your political will upon the population of a country. The first is (relatively) easy to do, which is why they do it, rather than choosing any other form of ‘combat’. The second is bloody hard, particularly when the population in question have no interest in religion in general, let alone the fundamentalist branch of the one you’re wishing to impose.
Just look at Iraq… we’ve got far more bombs & able-bodied soldiers than the jihadis are able to muster, yet it’s bloody hard to even give the population of a small country a bit of democracy, which many of them actually want. Considering there are probably about 7 indigenous Brits who want sharia, I can understand very well how Islamic terrorists might make us very angry or scared, but do not understand how they might go about imposing the way of life they’d like to see. The “muslim population explosion” model which you lot love so much is based largely on the assumption that all ‘muslim’ kids will also want sharia law, something which is not reflected in the reality I see around me; as I’ve said before, many of them are too busy lusting after souped-up Subaru Imprezas & checking the latest bikini babes in FHM.
If you said “Extremist Muslim terrorists pose a real threat to the UK”, I’d have no argument with you; I’m certain there are many who would like to kill large numbers of British people, & I pray they will not succeed.
If you said “female circumcision is evil, & anyone who practices it should be put in jail for a long, long time”, I’d be 100% onside. How would I be otherwise? It’s a cut & dried case of being on the wrong side of right & wrong.
If you said “we shouldn’t lose our history & culture”, i’d also be right alongside you, though I’d wonder how exactly we were losing it (seems ok to me; changing a bit, doubtless, but that’s the way of the world; we’re going through an era of rapid change, & plenty of people still very aware of our heritage, and are passing that knowledge on).
& Verity, calling your posts a ‘rants’ isn’t me using ‘Leftist’ sneak tactics; it’s the truth. Sometimes they’re amusing rants, sometimes i agree with them… but they’re usually rants.
We’re losing it by virtue of the fact that the preservation of immigrant culture is regarded as essential to a multi-ethnic society while celebration of our own is somehow ‘offensive’.
Julius is such a classic and eager dhimmi that he will undoubtedly be in the group that is allowed to wear shoes. This is a great privilege for dhimmis, Julius, so guard it with pride.
A_t – So we’re supposed to be impressed that teenage boys are interested in cars. Well, there’s a novelty! What next? The other major interest of teenage boys is eyeing babes in bikinis? Go on! BTW, Muslim men have always regarded Western women as sluts and fair game. That does not mean that they are allowed to marry them, presuming they could find one who was willing.
You write: ‘On the “some of them are willing to blow us up, therefore they may be able to take over our country” front, there’s a big, big difference between being able to kill a bunch of people & being able to impose your political will upon the population of a country.’
Indeed. You are correct. Muslim powers of suasion seem to be limited to slicing ‘n’ dicing little girls, flying planes into buildings, bombing nightclubs, bombing banks, bombing embassies, etc, burying adulterers and homosexuals in sand up to their necks and encouraging passersby to have a go with a rock, and amputation of limbs. Pitt the Younger, they are not.
However, as I said before, there is a vast army of Gramscians more than willing to do their work for them, forcing the British to accept a primitive culture which is anathema in the enlightened west. There are librarians removing books from the shelves that mention pigs; there are teachers training children to respect Eidl Fitri or whatever it’s called because ‘the Muslim culture has so much to teach us’, intense coverage on the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation any time a self-appointed Muslim spokesman for a self-styled ‘Muslim Council of Whatever’ has something he wants to get off his chest.
Britain has an authoritarian prime minister who is utterly unguided by moral considerations who wishes to exercise iron control and one way to do that is to destroy people’s faith in themselves and have them turn to him for answers. The home secretary is also a natural authoritarian with inclinations that are antithetical to democracy. Jack Straw is an abject dhimmi.
So, A_t, no, the Muslims cannot, on their own talent, force Islam on anyone. But they have at least a million helpers in the public sector intent on doing it for them.
Verity:
“the Muslims cannot, on their own talent, force Islam on anyone. But they have at least a million helpers in the public sector intent on doing it for them.”
Whoaa. Do you really think there is some sort of vast conspiracy amongst outreach “workers” and local authority housing “officers” to visit an Islamic Republic upon the UK? Who is in charge? Do tell …
GCooper:
In 2001 there were about 1.7 million muslims in the U.K., representing about 2.7% of the population. What proportion of them do you say are actively working to bring about an Islamic Republic in the U.K. by force? How many of them do you think would even want an Islamic Republic in the U.K.? If I were taking a guess, I would say maybe a few hundred to a few thousand at most.
As I say, irrelevant extremist nutters. Not worth losing any sleep about; let alone our liberties.
Julius, “Whoaa. Do you really think there is some sort of vast conspiracy amongst outreach “workers” and local authority housing “officers” to visit an Islamic Republic upon the UK? Who is in charge? Do tell …”
😀 i can answer that one, having been here before.. yes she does! As I pointed out above, you’d think given the general incompetence of government, they would have a hard time doing so, but not in the mind of Verity. Hey! maybe the real reason they can’t organise the NHS is ‘cos they’re devoting all their energies to the secret Muslim takeover of Britain.
What I’ve never understood about this particular paranoid theory is, what’s Blair’s motivation? Is he a closet Jihadi? Will he end up as the grand mufti of Englandistan? Doubtless they’ve “thought” this one through too though.
Verity, even if your paranoid fantasies were true & public sector employees were all in on this “let’s make britain muslim! wahay!” project, I still don’t see how you think it would work. Brits are for the most part suspicious of organised religion, & have showed no appetite for the type of moral restrictions which sharia law imposes (quite the opposite, for the most part). How do you believe the wiley social workers would change this situation?
When did you last live in the UK? I dunno.. maybe it’s changed since you were last here. I thought we generally had a tradition of taking everything with a pinch of salt & being suspicious of authorities, particularly social workers, but maybe people were more trusting/sheeplike when you were last here. That’s about the only way I can find to explain your panic.
Julius writes:
“If I were taking a guess, I would say maybe a few hundred to a few thousand at most. ”
Then at least you are writing out of ignorance, as opposed to wilful stupidity, which is something.
Allow me to shatter your illusions.
In an article from The New York Times, quoted by The Institute For Strategic Studies (hardly the Monday Club at prayer) you will find an informed estimate that: “…up to 3,000 British Muslims have undergone military training at terrorist camps in Afghanistan since 1996.”
These, let me remind you, are only the ones we know about.
So that is 3,000 that have left the country to undergo training. How many do you think they left behind who would like to rise-up and fight?
The Home Office (not exactly a fountain of “Isalamophobia”) has one answer for you, which was quoted in the following excerpt from the Sunday Times:
“…there may be between 10,000 and 15,000 British Muslims who “actively support” Al-Qaeda or related terrorist groups. These numbers appear to draw on intelligence, opinion polls and a report that 10,000 Muslims attended a conference held by Hizb ut-Tahir, described by the Home Office as a “structured extremist organisation”, last year. Although less than 1% of the Muslim population, the sheer size of the actual “pool” of potential Al-Qaeda recruits — those who go to meetings to express their support — represents a stark warning about the extent of the threat.’
So, now you have some actual figures to cast against your fairytale “maybe a few hundred to a few thousand at most.”
Time to wake up to what is actually happening in this country, wouldn’t you say?
Verity:
What A_T said
GCooper:
“there may be between 10,000 and 15,000 British Muslims who “actively support” Al-Qaeda or related terrorist groups.”
Like I said; a few thousand at most. The rest are accountants, shopkeepers, lawyers, businessmen, drug addicts, postmen, computer nerds, housewives ….. just like the rest of us.
Julius, that sort of complacency would be astonishing were it not so typical of the Left- liberal mindset.
Given a pool of 10-15,000 activists (undoubtedly a conservative estimate given the source and far removed from your hopelessly inaccurate guesstimate) you can double or treble that by considering those who would give assistance, if not take up arms.
Compare it with the size of the active component of the IRA and the havoc it was able wreak, using purely conventional armaments. And the IRA were pussycats compared with Al-Qaeda
You were alive at the time of the IRA bombing campaign, weren’t you?
Dear old A_t, No, the public sector isn’t sitting around thinking up ways to advance the notion of jihad in Britain. It is their woolly left mindset that is the Trojan horse. ‘Look how tolerant I am, how appreciative of multiculti, how unthreatened I am by ‘foreignness’, what a mahatama I am!”
This is fine. Some people have a need to feel they are superior souls and who cares? But their basking in bright sun of their own ‘tolerance’ blinds them to the agenda being forwarded by Islam. They have constantly said they will conquer Europe, and this time, as they know they can’t do it by the sword, they’ll do it through births. Most Muslims in Britain did not come to Britain to find a new, more enlightened life. They came to continue their old, bigotted life, but with more comforts.
Islam is toweringly offended that the powerful people of the West do not embrace Islam, and they’re going to try to force them to convert. They made a good start in Spain, where they blew up around 100 people and swung the election. The fact that we exist as free, independent spirits and don’t acknowledge their Allah, is offensive to Islam.
Believe me, they are not seeking multiculti — they are working towards uniculti – their culti. And every day, some public service worker – I include BBC employees and denizens as public sector workers – hands them one more tiny victory.
Where is Susan? She presents more coherent arguments than I have managed here, and she speaks from much deeper knowledge.
Verity writes:
“And every day, some public service worker – I include BBC employees and denizens as public sector workers – hands them one more tiny victory.”
Hear hear! As I said in my first comment on this thread – they are the eptiome of Lenin’s “useful idiots”.
GCooper:
Your efforts are misguided and misdirected.
The danger we face in the UK from extremist moslems does not stem from some madcap plan to impose sharia on the UK by force (although observing some of the lowlifes that inhabit the streets, I sometimes wonder if that would be altogether such a bad thing). The danger we face is from extremist moslems who object to our involvement in their grubby Middle Eastern turf wars. I have little doubt that we will experience a nasty terrorist incident in the UK in the not too distant future, but it will have absolutely nothing to do with bringing Islam to England; and everything to do with our blundering interference in other people’s affairs. If you are really concerned to avoid being blown to bits by mad Moslems, your efforts would be better directed at those who have led us into the swamps of the Middle East and have no idea how to get us out.
Verity, the problem with what you say is, if you substituted “a minority of muslims” for “muslims”, it would all be true. As your words stand though, most of them are a false picture of the situation.
“Most Muslims in Britain did not come to Britain to find a new, more enlightened life.”
The majority of immigrants throughout history have been motivated by desire for a better material life; freedom from persecution or better economic circumstances, rather than any great love for their new host culture (it should be noted though, that both these benefits are more readily available in freer countries, & this fact will not be lost on people). This motivation has not prevented most immigrants from finding comfortable cultural acommodations in ther new homes.
The presence of a significant & worldwide strain of fanaticism is no reason to believe that the majority of muslims have not or will not integrate well into British society. Your contention appears to be that the majority of Muslims are potentially violent fanatics; an opinion which is just plain wrong.
Verity, I think the motivation for such denials is the fear of the ideologue of admitting that one belief he holds – in a basically free society – is jeopardised by another – in open borders and uncontrolled immigration.
Julius:
“The question which you fail to address is why such ideas need to be combated by military adventurism abroad, a vast domestic security apparatus at home and all the other features of a semi-police State.”
The issue which you fail to address is the fact that millions, not a few thousand, of Muslims support the idea of the Islamification of the West and are prepared to use any means necessary to achieve that goal.
As to your question, I do not consider the US military response to 911 “adventurism” and your use of that term speaks volumes. My countries response was a necessary tactic to defeat an enemy sworn to our destruction.
The issue of the police state is simple. We would not need one had mass immigration not been imposed upon the West in the first place. I’m opposed to the growth of the police/surveillance state. But the fact remains that it is the inevatable result of mass immigration, especially and primarily of Muslims.
I no longer consider myself a libertarian, and my views on the proper role for government are not in line with strict libertarianism. But as I have said here several times, mass immigration is an inherently statist project. It is ludicrous for libertarians to advocate open boarders, and the complain about the rise of the police state.
Thankfully, some libertarians get this:
http://www.ilanamercer.com/Braindrain.htm
Julius writes:
“The danger we face is from extremist moslems who object to our involvement in their grubby Middle Eastern turf wars.”
But you have just been telling us that we face no danger.
Which is the truth – are we at risk, or are we not?
Consider that a rhetorical question as, clearly, you are uncertain. This afternoon you were telling us that any threats were so much paranoid nonsense. What changed?
The rest of your argument is the usual ‘Stop The War Coalition’ mood music, based on romantic ‘multicultural’ theory and a complete lack of understanding about what has been happening to significant sectors of British society for the past thirty years.
Militant Islam was a factor in this country long before the liberation of Iraq, long before 9/11 and long before the first Gulf war. It is a mediaeval, patriarchal authoritarian system of belief entirely at odds with all those liberal values you, no doubt, hold dear.
Iraq (like the conflict in Israel) is simply a convenient peg on which to hang the seething resentment and discontent which can be felt like a physical force in many of our formerly industrial towns and cities. And that has little to do with anything other than the clash between a mediaeval, patriarchal, monotheistic cult which worships death (as we are so often reminded) and a post-Christian, secular, hedonistic society.
Clearly, you misunderstand (no doubt with the usual liberal “best intentions”) the openly stated nature of what militant Islam is and what it demands of its followers,
Heaven help the people of this country if such a wild miscalculation (unprecendented since the appeasers of the 1930s) ever becomes translated into government policy.
Peter Cuthbertson – Thank you.
Julius – You think the urge to colonise the West with their daft religion was provoked by the war in Iraq? It’s somewhat more longstanding than that. You do realise that as human progress goes, they’re still in around year 900 and are still fighting those battles? They are still in a snit that they lost Spain. And that we have all the best tunes. And natural blondes. These people are wallowing in a major, centuries old GRUDGE.
9/11 wasn’t perpetrated on the West (we were all Americans that day) because of any military adventure in the ME. It was perpetrated in fury at the success of the great Satan, when by rights, given everything we do wrong according their holy laws, we should be eating camel shit.
They’re livid that we invent everything (including jet planes, jet fuel, navigational instruments and skyscrapers) and that we’re so successful and have such a good time, despite our profound lack of interest in their Allah, infuriates them. As Allah seems to be giving us a long rope, they have decided that he actually wants them to be the instruments of our destruction – not just the express elevator to Allah and a slug of that mint tea! – but 72 retread virgins!! (They get made into virgins all over again after the eager lad has had his way with them. Has any society in the history of mankind been so obsessed with fear of women?)
And so many of our most inventive and brilliant people in the West in the fields of science and technology are …. aaaaargghhhh! Jewish!
A_t – “if you substituted “a minority of muslims” for “muslims”, – well, there we disagree. I have never implied that most Muslim immigrants to the West are active haters of everything we stand for. They enjoy a lot of it while disapproving of it, which gives them a kind of edgy split personality. But consult a poll after a big Muslim murdering event, and you will read that most Muslims polled will have “some sympathy” with the perpetrators. As in the two British-born Muslims who crossed Allanby bridge into Israel 18 months or so ago and attempted to blow themselves up in a crowd. Young Muslim men polled in Britain allowed that they could “understand” their motives.
A_t (I’ve jettisoned Julius as being a dedicated useful idiot, smug and not open to facts), why is it that no Muslim ‘leader’ in Britain has found the bottle to unequivocally condemn any Muslim terrorist outrage anywhere in the world? All their ‘condemnations’ are tempered with manipulative language intended to deceive. Not one of them in Britain or America has ever said, “This was evil.” Because they don’t believe it was. The perpetrators were doing the will of Allah. How could that be wrong?
A_t writes:
“Your contention appears to be that the majority of Muslims are potentially violent fanatics; an opinion which is just plain wrong.”
Really? How do you know?
They certainly seem to be in most of the Middle East, Indonesia, large parts of Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and just about every other area they have converted by force.
You’re really secure in this breezy opinion, are you?
Because the facts suggest otherwise.
Well said, G Cooper! And, just guessing, little Julius has never been in a Muslim country in his life. Oh, maybe on a Red Sea resort in Jordan – max. Definitely has never experienced the thrill of Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population (300m), especially Jakarta. Especially living there, where they turn the speakers of the mosque at any Westerner who lives in the vicinity, then come round and suggest that if they find it irritating, maybe the word of god could be re-directed, for a small fee.
Mind you, I’ve never been to Saudi Arabia.
A “moderate” Muslim says Europe not quite ready for stoning of woemn yet, and bravely calls for a temporary moratorium.
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=4700038
The US takes a stand on the issue:
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=5168956
“in 1974, former Algerian President Houari Boumedienne said in a speech at the U.N.: “One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere to go to the northern hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”
Mysteriously, this quote has never been reported in the news (no hits on Factiva or Lexis-Nexis, whether in English or in French), it appears on the Internet only sourced to Ms Fallaci on weblogs, and it is not in the UN’s archive. I guess this *could* mean that the liberal dhimmi conspiracy has surpressed coverage of the Muslims’ true plans… however, Occam’s razor would have another explanation, based on Ms Fallaci making stuff up.
Cuthbertson wrote:
Here is another rather better explanation: the state is the source of the problem, not the solution to it. By offering both redistributive entitlements and preventing normal social pressures to function via broad anti-discrimination laws that prevent disassociation, the state both subsidises the ‘wrong’ sort of immigration whilst at the same time removing the social and economic pressures to integrate.
Cuthbertson really needs to break his addiction to force backed statist ‘solutions’ to things when there are perfectly good social alternatives. I have always found it hilarious that so-called conservatives have so little faith in the civil society they claim to want to protect against the left… when push comes to shove; the conservatives are just as wedded to forcing fixed outcomes as the socialists
GCooper:
“But you have just been telling us that we face no danger. Which is the truth – are we at risk, or are we not? Consider that a rhetorical question as, clearly, you are uncertain. This afternoon you were telling us that any threats were so much paranoid nonsense. What changed?”
Nothing. There is no sensible threat from Moslems planning to take over the U.K. by force. There is a genuine danger from Moslems (British or not) who object to UK involvement in the Middle East and elsewhere. I would go further. I fear that some sort of terrorist outrage from that direction is virtually inevitable. However, the solution does not lie in demonising Moslems, ramping up domestic security and backing Statist endeavours such as the so-called war on terrorism. It lies in getting out of the Middle East where we are neither wanted nor have any business to be.
The recent terrorist bombing of two Russian airliners is on point. The Moslem group who have claimed responsibility have not said “This is part of our campaign to bring Islam to Russia”. They have said “Get out of Chechnya”. So far as I am aware, there has not ben a single instance of a Moslem terrorist group claiming that a bombing against a Western target is part of a campaign of Islamic global domination. In every case, the expressed motive has been directed at the involvement of Western governments/armed forces in the Middle East or similar places. Why should we disbelieve what they say?
Julius writes:
“There is no sensible threat from Moslems planning to take over the U.K. by force. ”
How nice to see the old straw man being given an airing.
I have never suggested that is the nature of the threat – it is something you have invented to draw attention away from your original claim that there is no threat at all. A claim which you are now trying to wriggle out of.
I’m glad you now accept that there is a clear danger to the security of this country from militant Islam. All that remains is to establish its cause.
Even if you discount the evidence of the past thirty years in this country, events around the world clearly demonstrate that militant Islam presents a danger to societies of all kinds.
Presumably you read newspapers and are aware of what is happening to black non-Moslems in the Sudan? Equally presumably, you are aware of the ever-present violence between Moslems and Hindus in India? The murderous attacks on Christians in Nigeria?
None of these has anything whatsoever to do with the miserable excuses regularly trotted-out by Moslems and their apologists on the liberal Left. They have nothing to do with Iraq or Israel. They exist simply because militant Islam will not abide peaceably with other ways of living.
Any nation that does not understand this challenge to its security will eventually pay the price. And no amount of liberal hand-wringing or post-imperial guilt will make that price any less painful.
Presumably you read newspapers and are aware of what is happening to black non-Moslems in the Sudan
Very little, since the North/South ceasefire some years ago. Everyone involved in Darfur, meanwhile, is Muslim.
Equally presumably, you are aware of the ever-present violence between Moslems and Hindus in India?
In India outside Kashmir, Muslim/Hindu violence is very rare, tends to be started and/or inflamed by disgusting BJP demagogues at least as much as by Muslim leaders, and the Muslim death toll when the riots are over and the bodies are counted is invariably higher than the Hindu death toll.
You may have a point on Nigeria; I know little about that country’s political environment. Although based on the reliability of your ‘facts’ so far, I’m somewhat sceptical.
GCooper:
Read the thread again. I was responding to a comment by Verity about the alleged threat posed by Islamists and their supposed allies bent on taking over the UK.
I never denied that the UK is an obvious target for Middle-East related Islamic terrorism; which is an entirely matter.
As for Sudan, India, Nigeria; what is your point? Moslems are not the only ones involved in sectarian violence. Rwanda? And in any case, what does any of that have to do with the UK (or the US for that matter)? There is little or nothing we either can or should do about it. Are you suggesting we should intervene in Sudan, Kashmir and Nigeria. I can’t wait. If not, what are you suggesting?
GCooper, ” Equally presumably, you are aware of the ever-present violence between Moslems and Hindus in India?”
Presumably you’re aware that both sides in that conflict perpetuate disgusting violence in the name of their religion?
Can I hear you condemning Hinduism any time soon? Hindus have played a strong part in the violence, & if you want to get onto social mores, many Hindus indulge in disgusting practices vis-a-vis women etc. As for the caste system with it’s “don’t try to improve your lot; that’s against the will of the almighty” message, it’s just plain evil to my eyes.
Many religions go through phases of having violent factions. That doesn’t mean there’s anything irreconcilably violent about the religion itself. I think the main problem for us vis-a-vis extremist Islam at the moment is that it’s managed to become a focal point for much anti-western resentment. Religious extremists of any sort are potentially dangerous, due to the absolutist nature of their beliefs, be they Christians murdering abortionists, Jews murdering ‘traitors’ who are trying to make peace with their neighbours, Hindus burning muslims alive, or muslims murdering innocents through terrorist actions. We’re fortunate in the West only to be attracting the attention of one group of fanatics, but unfortunate that this group are willing to use extreme violence to further their cause.
I would add to G Cooper’s comments, the violence in the Philippines initiated by Muslims. Oh yes, and the bombings and civil unrest in southern Thailand perpetrated by Muslims. Neither country, to the best of my knowledge, has had any involvement in fighting in the Middle East and neither has ever ventured an official opinion about Israel.
Likewise Kashmir, in northern India (which the BBC helpfully prefixes with “the disputed state of” when it is no such thing. It is a perfectly legal part of India. It’s only disputed by our old friends the “Muslim separatists”). I doubt that many Kashmiris could find Israel on the map or would have the faintest interest in doing so. Julius’s sad little denials are drenched in ignorance.
G Cooper says militant Islam will not abide peaceably with other ways of living. I would go further: They cannot, they must not tolerate non-belief in allah. These people believe it is the destiny of the world to submit to Islam. Only after this happens will be world be dar-es-salaam – everyone living under allah’s laws. Islam means submission. They believe that everyone is born Muslim and it is our destiny to return. Helped along with a few nudges by the militants. Every day that passes with the world bowling merrily along with its melange of religions, customs and laws is an affront to allah. It’s their job to do something about it.
We in the West must rid ourselves of the notion that only the militants are gung-ho converters by force. Universal submission is at the core of their belief. You will not – and indeed we do not – find any quote by any Muslim saying this not really a good idea. This is why they twist themselves into knots when asked to comment about the latest murders. They simply cannot bring themselves to condemn the holy fight to convert the world. Although many of them living in the West are too sophisticated to say so, their belief that anyone who commits an outrage in the name of allah is a martyr is as fiercely held as the faith of a Sumatran squatting by a wood fire in Indonesia.
If only we’d just see the light and submit, they wouldn’t have to go around committing mass murder.
The war against the militant faction is the defining issue of our times.
The points about Hindu/Islamic violence in India (save Kashmir where it is 100% Muslim perpetrated) are fair enough. The BJP are a bunch of hotheads.
A_t – yes, humankind is very quarrelsome and at any one time there may be as many as 500 people, in toto, hurling rocks and Coke cans and daubing slogans on walls at an abortion clinic. Thirty or forty Israelis throwing stones and shouting insults at “traitors to Israel”, a couple of hundred animal rights activists at a meeting somewhere or other, half a dozen people plotting some rural violence to further their Right to Roam agenda, two Indian mothers-in-law pouring kerosene over a bride and setting a match to it for her dowry.
None of this is universal. It’s not connected. It’s not part of a plan. Yet right now, as we tap away on our keyboards, there are, going by the evidence, around 50,000 people directly engaged in planning the destruction of the West, and an informal army of tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of young men eager to execute the plans.
Can you spot the difference?
Verity, yes I can spot the difference, but none of the above, including the organised campaign against the west, are grounds for condemning the religions in question or the majority of their adherents.
You ask for muslims to condemn the actions of a few extremists, but why should they? Did we in the UK ask catholics the world over to condemn the IRA when they were at their most active? Brand them as potential terrrorists if they wouldn’t? I wouldn’t expect a normal catholic person to feel any responsability for the IRA’s attacks, or ask them to apologise for them, or require them to make it clear that they condemned the atrocities. The very act of asking would be saying “well, I think you’re a terrorist unless you tell me otherwise”, & they’d be rightfully pissed off.
Also in reference to Hindus, I was not talking about bride-burning, but burning muslims alive in their homes; something which regrettably has happened in recent years.
Verity:
“Julius’s sad little denials are drenched in ignorance”
I am confused. What do you mean? Which denials? Please specify.
“It lies in getting out of the Middle East where we are neither wanted nor have any business to be. ”
Sept.11 gives us every right to be there.
Your essential argument, like that of the left, is that if we leave Muslims alone they will leave us alone. This argument requires a total denial of history, both the history of West/Muslim relations, and the history of Islam.
Fact: Islam is a religion founded upon the idea of conversion through military conquest. This makes Islam unique in the world. While other cultures/religions have at times combined the two, they are not inherent in the actual religion itself, but a distortion of the religions original ethos. Muhammed on the other hand was a religious founder and a military commander. Ignoring this fact is just one of the mistakes both you and A_t make.
Fact: Islam has never taken on board the idea of the seperation of Mosque and state. It is a fundamentally alien idea to Islam. The only places in the ME where any seperation exists at all it is because the military enforces it, as in Turkey.
Fact: The number of those Muslims who support terrorism is easily in the millions. A_t’s attempt to make a comparison between fringe Christian anti-abortion terrorists and Islam is laughable crap. The number of Christians or Jews who support terrorism would number less than fifty thousand. I have been a conservative Christian for more than fifteen years, as both an evangelical and a traditionalist, and I know my own community. In that entire time I have never known a Christian who supported the use of violence against non-Christians or abortionists. Yes there are a few that do, but they are so tiny a number and so fringe as to be irellevant to this issue. On the other hand, polls have repeatedly shown that tens of millions of Muslims support bin Laden and/or other terror groups like Hizbollah and HAMAS. For A_t to ignore this factual difference is intellectually dishonest. It suggests that he has either switched his brain off to avoid any reality that does not fit his self-imposed ideology, or he is lying.
Fact: Islam has an unbroken record of violence against the non-Islamic world. From its founding in the 7th century until today, Islam has always been at war.
Fact: A very large number, not simply a few extremists, of Islamic leaders have called for some form of Jihad against the West and the non-Islamic world, either through infiltration and Islamification from within, or through violence. Anyone who bothers to do a bit of research on the net and the local library will see this.
Fact: Osama bin Laden and other Islamic terrorist leaders have made it clear repeatedly in speeches and interviews that their goal is NOT to be left alone, but to spread Islam throughout the world.
All of these facts can be supported with evidence. All of them can be discovered by bothering to do a little research.
Like liberals and leftists, both you and A_t are putting fact free political correctness ahead of reality, solely because that reality is uncomfortable and challenges your ideology.
Shawn:
And what do you propose be done to prevent the Moslem hordes taking over the West by force?
The fruits of Islamic immigration:
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/CFIA/CFIAReport112801.htm
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/July2004/0704Carosa.html
Islamic Council of Britain slams Muslim moderates as “apostates”:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/002775.php
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
“And what do you propose be done to prevent the Moslem hordes taking over the West by force?”
I notice that when you are confronted with any information that contradicts your position that you try to change the focus of the debate. Now your trying to change the debate from the actual issue at hand to picking apart my own views on what should be done.
Muslims are not going to take over the West by force as you say and I never said they were, though putting words in your opponents mouth, like ignoring uncomfortable facts, are both hallmarks of liberal debating tactics. Yes I know your a “libertarian”, but I have long since learnt that the term is meaningless. When it comes to certain issues, mass immigration being one of them, people are either patriotic conservatives or tranzi-liberals.
Much like the boiling frog analogy, what we are seeing is a long process of targeted terrorism, and Islamification from within. By using the political correctness of the liberal-left, playing the “human rights” card, arguing that Muslim immigrants have the right to live their religion in full, and slowly building up the Islamic population, Islam intends to achieve its goal of taking over the West. Whether or not this is achievable is not the point. They intend to try. This is not to say that all Muslim immigrants actually have this in mind. But the Islamic elites and religious leaders certainly do.
Witness the fact that the Canadian government is going to allow Islamic courts and Sharia law to be used alongside Canadian law. Just what exactly is your response to this?
My reaction to the canadian govt’s move is “what a bunch of idiots”. What are they thinking? Seriously, if you have a law of the land, it’s the law of the land. End of story. I think they’re being a bunch of idiots, & it speaks volumes about the stupidity of some on the left at the moment. Having said that, it doesn’t indicate any risk that Canada as a whole will come under Sharia law any time soon or anything to that effect, & in the swings & roundabouts of democratic politics, it’ll probably be ditched at some opint in the future, & looked back on as a seriously dumb bit of thinking.
& yeah, so some Islamists intend to try taking over our countries. You & I both know they’re doomed to failure, so let’s work against any of them who plan or execute violent action they might take to further that cause (hunt them down & kill/imprison them), & let’s laugh at the rest as their kids become westernized & lose any inclination towards jihad.
So why the big panic? Your boiling frog analogy holds no water; we’ve agreed that the ‘stealth takeover’ isn’t really going to happen outside their fevered fantasies, & events like 9/11 or the train bombs in Spain are hardly a subtle increase in the temperature which no-one notices; more like waving a flame at the frog than subtly boiling it. Near-everyone in the West is aware of the danger posed by Islamic terrorism; the frog is aware of what’s going on.
Btw, i was not changing the topic of the debate; I was responding to the idea, always simmering below the surface round here, that there’s some serious threat of Europe becoming islamicised at some point in the near future. That would be the only reason for taking the ‘cultural subversion’ or higher birthrate seriously, which some commenters seem to.
“Witness the fact that the Canadian government is going to allow Islamic courts and Sharia law to be used alongside Canadian law. Just what exactly is your response to this?”
It’s called arbitration and is no different to Jews using a Beth Din.
Julius, thanks for the clarification on that one.
Newsflash for Julius and A_t: Shariah is being introduced in Ontario. Shariah law is hateful to women. The Muslim women in Ontario are trying to get this move stopped because, if shariah is not available, Muslims are enjoined to take their disputes to whatever court is appropriate in the country in which they are living.
If shariah law is available, every Muslim must take his/her disputes to the shariah court. They cannot make a choice to go to a civil court instead. In shariah, a women’s testimony counts for half as much as a man’s. In shariah, in disputes re inheritances, daughters can only receive half of what sons receive. In shariah, a man can tell his wife he’s divorcing her, and the woman has no rights to demand a settlement. Mohammad kind of signed an eternal prenup on behalf of Muslim men. I can’t remember the other things, but it’s a very nasty, brutish way of settling disputes. I wish the Muslim women who are working to get this stopped success.
Further, right now, shariah in Ontario is intended for civil disputes only. Thin end of the wedge. How long before Muslims are demanding separate courts of justice for legal offences? Ten years? Sooner? Five years ago, who would have predicted that a Western, civilised country would import a debased concept like shariah?
As I have said, the leaders and high profile Muslims have an agenda and they are advancing it inch by inch.
Verity:
“If shariah law is available, every Muslim must take his/her disputes to the shariah court. They cannot make a choice to go to a civil court instead.”
Must? This must be a new meaning of “must”. The option to arbitrate is a choice – something libertarians usually regard as a good thing.
“So why the big panic? Your boiling frog analogy holds no water; we’ve agreed that the ‘stealth takeover’ isn’t really going to happen outside their fevered fantasies,”
No we havent. There is in fact, long term, a very good chance that they could succeed. The combination of the differential in birth rates, the cultural/religious decline of the West, especially in Europe, and the cancer of liberal-left poltical correctness, has created a real window of opportunity for Islam.
Already, Spain, Italy and France could have majority Muslim populations before the end of the century, and quite possibly in only 50 years.
So there is good reason to take the threat seriously.
“It’s called arbitration and is no different to Jews using a Beth Din.”
Except Jews are no longer in the habit of stoning women to death.
Sharia law is not simply a different form of arbitration, it is a violent and primitive religious law that is alien to Western values. There should only be one law for all in any Western nation.
As Verity points out, the Canadian case is evidence of what I’m talking about. A little here. A little there. And when Muslims start becoming majorities in some Western countries, how long will it be before we are all subject to Sharia? Of course you will say that will never happen. But how do you know? And given the undeniable fact that millions of Muslims do not have our best interests at heart, at the very least an intelligent, objective person would be cautious about the long term effects of Islmic immigration.
Again, the fundamental mistake both you and A_t make, and the point which you have both failed to address, is that Islam is unlike any other cultural/religious group, and that it has a history of confrontation and antagonism towards the West. Islamic immigrants are not like any other immigrant community within the West, and treating them as though they were requires you to simply ignore history and facts. Many Muslims, not just fringe extremists, remember the re-conquest of Spain as though it happenned yesterday. Of all immigrant groups in Europe, Muslims fail to intergrate to a degree unlike any other. They maintain cultural/religious seperatism far more than any other immigrant community. And as the article on Denmark I posted above shows, large scale Muslim immigration is destructive to law and order. Allowing such a cultural group to grow unchecked within the West is plain stupidity.
Having been pressed to earn a living, I’ve missed several hours of this thread, but I’m pleased to see Shawn’s spirited and informed rebutting of the Muslim apologist nonsense being spouted by A_T and Julius.
In particular, I would endorse Shawn’s observation that when presented with the hard evidence that militant Islam (and one might well go on to question the extent to which “moderate Islam” is an oxymoron) is absolutely incompatible with secular or non-Islamic society, they retreat to evasion, broad generalisations, or vague multi-culti theory.
You would have to be either blind or wilfully stupid to look at the world and not conclude that wherever Islam exists it is in conflict and that this is an inevitable consequence of the beliefs at the very core of this absolutist, patriarchal, monotheistic, militaristic faith.
Of course, the beautiful irony is that (just like the IRA apologists of the Left) it is those very liberals, with their beliefs in homosexual and women’s rights, secular society, a lenient justice system and the rest, who would suffer most, were there ever to be Moslem rule.
And, as for the claim that could never happen, why not? Had it not been for Charlemagne (admittedly one of the more loathsome rulers in history) France might well have eventually followed Spain. Islam has achieved a great deal by conquest and though its apologists and appeasers seem only capable of thinking ten years ahead, it is clear that the proponents of Islamic rule wear no such blinkers.
Julius pettishly responds to my point:
“If shariah law is available, every Muslim must take his/her disputes to the shariah court. They cannot make a choice to go to a civil court instead.”
by noting:
“Must? This must be a new meaning of “must”. The option to arbitrate is a choice – something libertarians usually regard as a good thing.”
Julius, you wilfully misunderstand the arguments advanced on this thread and I have concluded you are a troll.
Let’s say I am a young woman in a dispute with my ex-landlord, who is refusing to return my deposit. I have no means of forcing him to do so and perhaps no money to find a lawyer. I choose to go to arbitration because it’s free and I need my money back.
But I’m a Muslim. Going to a Canadian government arbitration panel is no longer an option for me, because Shariah courts have been introduced. So I do not go to arbitration after all, because my landlord is a man, and his word counts for twice as much as mine. I say I left the flat impeccable. He says I left it filthy. So no point. I live with bitterly with the injustice.
Yes, she had the option to go to arbitration. And because shariah was imposed on her, she chose not to go.
In your eyes, this was a free choice?
Verity:
I don’t claim to have any particular knowledge of the Canadian system, but I presume that it is similar in all relevant respects to the English system.
In England, a judgment of a religious court (be it the Beth Din for jews, or an equivalent for Moslems) is enforceable as an arbitration award. This means that it is enforceable if but only if the parties have previously agreed to resolve their dispute in that way. There is nothing new about this. It has been the case for decades.
There is nothing in the system which obliges a moslem or a jew to agreed to be bound. It is entirely their free choice (subject always to the dictates of their own conscience). If they do not wish to be bound, then they remain legally free to pursue their claim in the ordinary civil courts (as would be the young woman in your example).
That is why the availability of arbitration (whether for commercial disputes between merchants or civil disputes between members of a particular religious group) entails an increase in freedom; without such a system, people are forced to use the State Courts if they wish to obtain an enforceable judgement. With it, they have a consensual alternative.
The only sense in which a moslem or a jew “must” use such a court is if they feel that their religious beliefs require them to do so . But then they will do so whether or not the resulting judgements are recognised and enforceable in the wider world (just as religious jews who wish to divorce will always seek a get, irrespective of the availability of civil divorce). Furthermore, “must” in this sense has nothing to do with coercion or the use of force in the libertarian or classical liberal sense of the word (which was why I queried your usage).
Julius the troll
Shawn:
“Except Jews are no longer in the habit of stoning women to death. Sharia law is not simply a different form of arbitration, it is a violent and primitive religious law that is alien to Western values.”
What possible objection could you have to two moslems agreeing (I stress agreeing) to use Sharia law to resolve a civil dispute that has arisen between them? Stoning has nothing to do with it; and for you to invoke it is the debating equivalent of name-calling.
Julius writes:
“What possible objection could you have to two moslems agreeing (I stress agreeing) to use Sharia law to resolve a civil dispute that has arisen between them?”
Because if one of them is a woman she has effectively no choice at all.
For heaven’s sake, do you not have even the vaguest clue what life is like for women under strict Islamic rule?
Or is it that you just don’t care?
Julius – ‘The only sense in which a moslem or a jew “must” use such a court is if they feel that their religious beliefs require them to do so .’
Julius, you are a bit of slow learner, and those of us who fail the kumbaya test might call you stupid. They “feel that their religious beliefs require them to do so”?
Islam means “submission”. They don’t get a choice to “feel” what their religious beliefs require them to do. Their ‘feelings’ have all been charted for them. They are compelled by their law (which is supranational, by the way and divinely ordered, according to the insiders who administer it), to conduct their arbitration through their primitive constructs. And not obeying their law is not the same as not paying your gas bill on time. It’s not a tweak.
Julius, you are ignorant.
Hi Verity and G,
I didn’t see this thread at all so that’s why I didn’t comment. Maybe something about the name “Robin Cook” caused my eyes to glaze over and my mouse to automatically manipulate the scrollbar past it.
My comments:
Comparing Beit Dein and Sharia: Judaism is not a proseltyizing religion and it is practiced by a very small number of people in the world which is not likely to grow to a large number any time soon — if ever. Jews can have their arbitration courts but it will not impact the rest of us. They are a miniscule population that keeps to itself.
On the other hand Islam IS a very aggressive proselyzing religion and a very aggressive expansionist/reproducing religion and a very aggressive PUBLIC religion.
Sharia courts will end up definitely impacting the non-Muslim population. Eventually we will have an entrenched two-tier law just like they have in India. And judging from the Indian press, sharia personal law is a HUGE problem there. For example, poverty stricken divorced Muslim women, with no job skills, thrown out on the street with little in the way of alimony or divorce settlement. In the West they will end up as wards of the welfare state which will come out of all taxpayers’ pockets, not just Muslim ones. If they want to practice sharia then they should have to live with the consequences, not use th Western welfare state to soften the blows of what sharia does to women and children. Just one example I can think of, there are many more.
Contrary to what Muslims are always saying in the West, sharia personal law also impacts non-Muslims in very unpleasant ways, mostly those of us who are unfortunate enough to be closely related to Muslims. In the matters of inheritance, child custody, etc. I’m the grandmother of several Muslim children, but if I lived in a Muslim country, I couldn’t adopt or raise my own grandchildren if something happened to their parents. The sharia court would place them with Muslim parents who were strangers rather than their own blood grandmother who is a kaffir.
The unfairness of sharia inheritance laws to non-Muslims — don’t even get me started. Basically it is legalized theft. Want to screw all of your siblings out of their inheritance? Convert to Islam, you get it all. Doesn’t matter what your parents wanted or not. Often whole families will convert to Islam (in Islamic-ruled states) if one family member does — to protect their inheritances.
The arbitration courts in Canada are the first step, the camel’s nose under the tent. It is not comparable to Beit Dein in any way, shape or form.
Ian wrote:
Excellent comment, and that’s the “mutlicultural” problem in a nutsell. This should be a Samizdata quote of the day!
Susan, welcome aboard. You are far more adept and informed than I am, and your knowledge is a flashlight in a darkened cinema.
I doubt that Julius will be emboldened to reply to your post. Yet Britain today is made up of lofty, smug Juliuses, and they are a source of hilarity and comfort for people advancing their programme.
Ontario, which has already been sending out signals, via its parent, Canada, of latent insanity, will live to regret this move. The Americans should cut them off now, because they will seep in, little by little.
Verity: Eastern Canada is riddled by multi-cultis from stem to stern. It’s a bit better out West. In fact there’s a separatist movement afoot in Alberta, Manitoba and parts of BC. They either want to be independent or apply for statehood with the US. The multi-culti sharia experiment is only more fuel for the separatist movement to run on.
Did you see this op-ed by Charlie Moore on Islam in Britain:
Islam is not an exotic addition to the English country garden
I’m amazed he had the balls to write it, and that the Torygraph had the balls to print it.
Well some people in Britain are waking up.
“What possible objection could you have to two moslems agreeing (I stress agreeing) to use Sharia law to resolve a civil dispute that has arisen between them?”
Sharia is incompatable with Western values.
” Stoning has nothing to do with it; and for you to invoke it is the debating equivalent of name-calling.”
Stoning has everything to do with it as stoning is a part of Sharia law.
Sharia is not simply a form of civil arbitration. It is also very different from Jewish law. Jewish law can exist within a non-Jewish, ie, Christian or secular society. Sharia cannot in the long term.
Sharia is a total, that is totalitarian, system of law that does not recognise as legitimate any kind of secular or non-Muslim rule. So long as Muslims remain a small minority, then Sharia is not imposed on society as a whole. But as many Muslim clerics have said, this can only ever be a temporary state of affairs. As soon as Muslim numbers are large enough to start forcing the issue, then Sharia must be imposed on society as a whole. Again, your simply ignoring the long term threat that Islamification poses.
Shawn – another unanswerable argument that Julius will nevertheless “answer” with name-calling.
Julius – If the depth of your ignorance about the people who are slowly colonising your country (and, as we know, Muslims think long term; to them, the loss of Spain was just the day before yesterday) were unique to you, you’d merely be silly and irritating. But I fear there are a lot of smug, self-satisfied people like yourself in Britain, basking in the breadth of their tolerance and the depth of their understanding.
You cannot accept that Muslims are the only immigrants in the Western world who have refused to assimilate in the country they chose to try to get in to. This isn’t an accident. The tiny pinpricks of subversion of the host societies aren’t accidents either.
Jews, W Indians, Indians, Chinese and various others throughout the centuries have settled in Britain and immediately gone about fitting in. Just the Muslims have brought their culture, lock, stock and gun barrel. They don’t even adopt our names for their children. You find Iqbals and Tariks and oh, those Mohammed Alis! – all over Europe, burrowing in.
Why? Because they view present day France, Britain, the US, Holland, Norway, Sweden, etc as temporary aberrations. Longterm, these countries are all supposed to “return” to Islam. It won’t happen, but there will be an almighty struggle in around 40 or 50 years if Muslim immigration to the West is not halted. They cannot win, but they can make things very uncomfortable for our civilised Western societies in the meantime. As in concrete blocks around the White House and the Houses of Parliament; endless security checks at airports, railway lines shut down because of bomb threats, etc. Massive inconveniences in countries that have the intelligence and technological expertise to run smoothly.
An Indian Hindu looks at Britain’s (and other Western countres’) inability to deal with Islam — in a sad, knowing way:
Cultural Extremists
I have now done some online reading on the position in Canada. It is exactly as I thought (and as I have tried to explain here).
It would seem that Verity and others are opposed to the principle that people should be free to agree among themselves how their legal disputes are to be resolved; a strange stance to take for people with libertarian sympathies.
Julius writes:
“It would seem that Verity and others are opposed to the principle that people should be free to agree among themselves how their legal disputes are to be resolved; a strange stance to take for people with libertarian sympathies.”
And if I were to appear at your front door tomorrow evening and “invite” you to settle a dispute according to my terms, whilst threatening to tear your fingernails out with a pair of pliers, in fine Taliban style, just how fair and reasonable would that be?
Clearly, you have neither an understanding of, nor a shred of sympathy for, the position of women under sharia. Women in Moslem communities have no choice but to accept sharia – a position with which you seem perfectly content.
My temperament is not as fiery as Verity’s, so when she called you a troll, I felt she had gone a little over the top. But you are simply playing hopscotch here – changing the subject when you have boxed yourself into a logical corner (need I remind you that your original position was the risible claim that the UK faces no serious threat from Islam?). And now we have a defence of misogynistic Islamo-fascist “law” in a country which, previously, had a perfectly fair and equitable legal system of its own, simply due to pressure from the very immigrants which you, A_T and other Guardian readers claim are exerting no significant influence on the host nations into which they have infiltrated?
A troll is someone who deliberately sets out to create chaos on a discussion forum by being contrary for the sake of it. I’m still not sure you qualify, because I suspect you genuinely believe this multicultural nonsense and are simply too insecure to challenge your Left-liberal prejudices by examining the facts. Certainly, that has been the case here. Several posters have offered you chapter and verse on the danger Islam presents – for their pains, in response they have received airy assertions of Newsnight chic.
Whatever. Judged by what you have posted here, you are, effectively, on the side of people who wish to undermine and then destroy civilisation as we know it and are willing to endorse things I feel sure you would hate, rather than admit that another culture could possibly be wrong, to the point of being evil.
And that is even worse than being a troll.
Well, G Cooper, that was a good, elegant slap with a kid glove for Julian.
You may be right that he is just a blind lefty fellow traveller, although I sense something more willful behind his posts.
Verity, G Cooper, check it out:
Read the whole thing!
Islam’s plan to destroy British secular laws, including the legalization of polygamy:
http://www.aml.org.uk/resources/AMSS_AT_Notes_22_02_04.pdf
Imagine that — instead of being able to import just one illiterate 16-year-old bride from Mirpur, they’ll be able to import FOUR of them. And of course Ali won’t be able to support four wives and 16 children from his little ole tax-driving job, so who do you think will end up picking up the tab?
“The indegenes” of course, who will be provided with the vast “privilege” of paying out more and more tax dollars in “benefit” for people who provide little “benefit” in return — and who in fact, more than likely, only seek to turn “the natives” into second-class citizens in their own country!
Well I think we have done this one to death, so I won’t respond further.
On a tangent, what this thread does show is the disastrous consequences that the Government’s proposed religious hate legislation would have.
Whilst I have dismally failed to persuade any of you that your views are false, if the Government had its way this whole debate would have been illegal and Samizdate would have been risking prosecution for hosting it.
I may do something about this on my own blog….
I have now posted something on this:
http://www.20six.co.uk/juliusb