Muslim ‘moderates’ in Britain are calling for changes to British foreign policy as the only way to prevent Muslim ‘extremists’ in Britain from attacking the rest of us.
This is of course the same approach used by Sinn Fein and other Republicans in Northern Ireland, who held that only by political engagement and accommodation with ‘moderate’ political figures (i.e. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness) could the wicked IRA be stopped from blowing people up. Of course the fact Sinn Fein and the IRA were actually inseparable parts of the same movement was something only a reader of the Guardian could have failed to notice.
And so a ‘moderate’ Muslim, a member of the Tory Party no less, tell us that ‘Muslim anger’ must be recognised (our old chum root causes). Is that so? Well I think increasingly it is being recognised. It is being recognised as an excuse used for getting a non-democratic Muslim veto over British foreign policies just as a majority of Muslims also appear to want a Muslim veto over freedom of expression in Britain.
If the solution to Muslim extremism in Britain being offered by ‘moderate’ Muslims is to give the extremists what they want (i.e. changes in British foreign policy), then the so-called ‘moderates’ are nothing more than the mouthpieces of the extremists they claim to reject. No doubt if given the changes they want, we will be told that only if yet more legal restrictions are placed on what we kuffir can say about Islam will we be able to to placate Muslim ‘anger’ and thereby prevent those wicked extremists from blowing us up. And homosexuals must be legislated against in order to placate those wicked extremists. And alcohol must be banned in order to…
I think it is well past time for some British anger and a great deal of it needs to be directed at the British establishment for allowing this to happen via a policy of appeasment towards domestic Islamists.
Recognizing Muslim anger is to say that we should live in the past. You are to be excused from personal responsibility if at any time you were repressed. Car bombs and the lobbing of missiles is understandable given ethnic tensions.
B.S. Given this train of thought, no one would ever have peace.
But we never hear about the foreign policy that sent our boys over to save hundreds of thousands of muslims in Bosnia, do we? Or the ‘foreign policy’ that provides shelter to thousands of oppressed muslims all over the world? Or how about the foreign policy that provides aid and reconstruction to muslim states that are hiot by natural disasters?
The message now should be clear to the muslim community – hand us over the dangerous ones in your midst. Do something constructive, or get out of the way – we will padlock the extremist mosques; deport the imams; close down the madrass style bookshops; and then start naming extremist families. These scum all come from the same sources – mosque, bookshop/madrass, extremist families (usually the father).
Why not face the facts? A recent poll indicated that 8% of muslims feel British first and muslim second, while a staggering 91% felt the reverse. These people aren’t going to help us, they clearly support the terrorists or sympathise with them. It’s a mess.
It is time to apply Lenin’s dictum,”Who, Whom”,who is killing whom here?
An atrocity on the tube killing 52 and maiming and injuring 700,is greeted with the call that there should be no backlash against muslims. The latest plot has “Muslims fear backlash” in our newspapers.
Now there is a demand for the democratically elected government to implement the foreign policy of Iran and Syria.
What is missing from the letter? Any expression of real regret,no admission of guilt
I agree the main culprits are the liberal left establishment,if Anthony Lynton Blair wishes to avoid Anglo anger,or to be held in the same regard as Oliver Cromwell was in restoration England,this must be addressed very quickly.Perhaps he could set up a committe of people from the English community to study the alienation of the nayives.
On the subject of “disgruntled” Muslims living in Britain, Islamist terrorism and our Foreign Policy, Michael Portillo in The Sunday Times has written an article about “Divided Britain” that is an interesting read and relevant to this discussion.
(Divided Britain makes a tempting terrorist target – Michael Portillo)
First up that open letter to TB et al sounded like a threat rather than anything else.
Leave the Umma alone or else…
And perhaps most worrying it sounded like a Pontius Pilate moment. Heed this warning or we’re washing our hands of what the real nutters will do in the name of Allah.
TD, Your point about Nato forces expending blood and treasure around the world to protect muslims is duly noted. True but it doesn’t matter because they cut their cloth according to whatever suits them at the time.
The absolute fucking cheek of that letter is breathtaking.
And homosexuals must be legislated against
Well, that’s not far away. Sir Iqbal Sacranie of the MCB stated in a Radio 4 interview a while back that homosexuality was bad for society. Note he doesn’t say he thinks it wrong or even that he and his coreligionists think it wrong but that it is bad for society full-stop. very much Islam knows best what is best for everyone – even poor dhimmis.
Interesting comparison with the IRA/Sinn Fein. It put me in mind of some grafitti on a toilet door of the George Green Library, University of Nottingham: I’d sleep with Gerry Adams, but I’d be thinking of Martin McGuinness.
It was so random it amused me. I have a store of little random things that amuse me. I have to otherwise I’d have to spend 24/7 thinking about what is really happening in this screwed-up world of ours.
Samsung,
Bloody hell! I’m finding myself in agreement with Portillo. That was an excellent piece. Wonders never cease.
Excellent post Perry, you’ve been on top form recently.
Perry is correct, the distinction between moderate and extreme in this context has become degraded to the point of worthlessness.
We have appeased to the very brink of collapse, no more can we (or should we) give.
The clear association of ‘Muslim-Groups’ calling for a change in foreign policy – against the backdrop of this recent threat of violence is appalling. We are not looking at a lunatic fringe, or the misguided product of testosterone and youth-full disillusionment. We are looking at an increasingly organised (and increasingly brazen) invasion of our physical and mental space.
Whilst there may be no road-map, no master-plan, no blue-print for what must be done, simply because it is too complex, too abstract to derive. What isn’t so complex, what isn’t too hard to resolve is what mustn’t be done, what mustn’t be given away, who mustn’t be appeased. The complexity of positive options (what to do) to us in a post-islamofacist world is bewildering, I would contend that the options on what not to do (negative options, if you like) are far less complex. If I’m presented with a sophisticated and bountiful menu in a restaurant it might take me some time to decide what type of flesh I wish to eat, it will take me far less time to decide that I don’t want to eat a camel shit sandwich. In the same sense the act of appeasement must be approached [tackled] in a what do we want the least fashion.
Commentators on this very board have advocated a position of sophisticated ignorance: that somehow the threat posed is not an evolving one, that somehow (like a spoilt child) if we ignore it it will stop misbehaving. This position is woefully naive – naive in that it runs the risk of a) being wrong and b) it ignores the costs so often borne as a function of continued ‘ignorance’. In the same post Guy urges us to think of the Islamic threat in terms of the:
which is fine, until you remember exactly what the average 1970s trade unionist actually achieved! Whilst I might fume at damage inflicted by their voodoo economics and the cost I continue to pay for the ground lost in that conflict I fear it is nothing compared to what I might loose as our society races to appease ‘Muslim Britain.’
We must not appease. Where we can not currently find cause for common ground in what positively to do, we are still more than able to agree on what we all mustn’t do -this is our first course of action.
We should start by telling the ‘Muslim-Groups’ to take their letter and fuck off – if they want to influence government policy they should buy access to a minister like everybody else.
Great post Perry, and I second also every word of what Dan Badha said. (I have not seen this commenter before. Welcome aboard.)
By the way, has the vacuous “Dave” Cameron, leader of the Tories, had anything of value to say about this? Someone should tell him upon his return from holiday, that the leader of the Tory Party should express, in the most direct terms, how no country like Britain can possibly have its foreign policy dictated by a minority, particularly by one that has, in contrast to most other groups, refused to integrate.
The message to Muslims living in Britain has to be this: this is a country, not a hotel. If you want to make a prosperous life here and live in liberty and peace with everyone else, excellent. If not, then get out to a place more to your liking.
If this is not said by mainstream political parties, then the extremist thugs like the BNP will continue to advance. Make no mistake, this issue can and will play into the hands of the far right unless Labour and the Tories show some backbone.
“Whilst there may be no road-map, no master-plan, no blue-print for what must be done,”
Yes there is ,you have to back thirteen hundred years to read it.
When is it going to be understood that this is the SOP for the ROP?
There’s an interesting full editorial in the Sunday Times where they essentially reject this appalling “open letter” and make (in a guarded way) many of the same points that you do.
It’s all very well, but it needs to be supported by our media, not least the Sunday Times itself. Ultimately there is a massive propaganda war going on and the West is getting its arse kicked, as much through ignorance and laziness as through Orlaguerinesque bias.
We have bored Yorkshire youths trying to kill us in the name of a set of beliefs that Monty Python could scarcely have bettered, and no-one has the courage to challenge them.
In positively storming form, in fact. I get the impression he is more than a tad angry and it does wonders for his blogging!
Oh, they do. There are plenty of Ministers and other public figures who suck at the teat of the Middle Eastern “think tanks” and I reckon there are a few who are on a more direct payroll
This is simply infuriating. A “moderate” Muslim seems to be one who might not blow up an airplane himself, but certainly “understands” the anger that would drive a demented dull normal death cultist to do so. The “moderate” would also be quite happy to pocket whatever benefits might accrue from the “terrible tragedy.” After a pro-forma expression of regret, of course.
Enough. The supposed roots of Muslim anger keep changing, depending on what may be in stock at any given time. What was it before 1948? Too many Jews in the mandate territory. Afterwards, but before 1967, it was the existence of Israel itself. After 1967, it was allegedly the location of the borders of a country they didn’t recognize. For one reason or another, they are angry. Anger is the only constant. Whatever you give them, they will be angry again.
As far as I’m concerned, Iraq is the last chance for the Arab Muslims. If they would rather keep expressing their anger at us and each other than behave like grownups, any further truck with them should be conducted according to the principle vae victis. Nation-building? Not likely!
And why do these clowns continue talking about “anger” instead of treachery, bloodlust, nihilism, and fanaticism? When I’m angry, I use bad language rather than mixing up some chemicals. Mass murder as an expression of a foreign policy disagreement? Oh, please.
Perry is definately on a roll!
May I nick a slogan from Northern Ireland?
NO SURRENDER !!!
Newish blogger has written a reply to the article in the Telegraph and some other good stuff in the last week.
http://sceptered-isle.blogspot.com/2006/08/response-to-ali-miraj.html (Link)
It’s long but a good read.
Mark Steyn
Well earlier in the week skynews was interviewing plently of people who claimed the latest terrorist arrests had nothing to do with Islam.
At least this letter exposes that old lie that a lot of people still like to hang on to.
They are boring, aren’t they. Tedious, insolent… I have thought something of the kind myself and ended up amusing myself drafting a manifesto all of my own(Link), with particular reference to being a person of the feminine gender with no interest whatever in accommodating Muslim or any other religious sensibilities.
Well done Perry, you have swallowed hook line and sinker precisely what the authorities want you to swallow and then regurgitate, that this is a war of cultures that we are engaged in, and that this has nothing to do with middle east policy.
It is clear that you do not have anyone who is not from a foreign land in your circle. If you did, you would have an inside understanding of what motivates the words of these people, and you would never have reacted in this way, propping up the imbeciles who are trying to tear this country apart.
The muslims, all of them only want the UK to stay out of affairs that have nothing to do with them. That means everything going on in the middle east. This is simple. This has been repeated over and over. It is the sole cause of the threats and this letter. If you fail to understand this, then you are not listening. Period.
To talk about ‘next they will want Sharia law, and will bomb us if we don’t accept it’ is utter nonsense. If you allow millions of people into britain, and then allow them to vote, and they turn their city into a Sharia zone, this is firstly entirely your fault, and secondly it is totally separate from british foreign policy.
The first thing that must be done is the UK must detach itself from the insanity of american foreign policy. Then there will be no problem from any muslim in this country.
The second thing that the UK must do is detach itself from the total insanity of letting people come into this country. You think its bad now, just you wait until the EU enlargement takes hold. You will have triple the number of muslims, and Sharia cities in the UK WILL become a reality.
You have to face the fact that Britain is a Christian country. Letting other religions in in millions is a recipe for disaster, not because Christians in this era are not tolerant, but because enough of these muslims are intolerant of Christians and the values of tolerance.
If you want to save this country, I am sorry to say that a very difficult choice is going to have to be made. All of these people, all muslims, are going to have to be expelled. If we do not do this, more of them will have the right to come here, and their population will overtake the Christian population, and then we will have councils with two bus lines running concurrently, one for the women and one for the men.
If this is to be done, it must be done with absolute clarity of thought, which you have not displayed in this post by conflating the reaction to Britain’s illegal immoral and inexcusable alliance with state terrorism and mass murder and the ‘Sharia pressure’ being built up as a consequence of muslims living in britain in their millions.
Britain is a place and a culture that is worth preserving. That means that it should not subjugate itself to muslims OR to Americans, the latter who are just as bad as any muslim terrorist. For those of you who think that that statement is OTT, do a google search for ‘Operation Northwoods’ to find out just what kind of monsters Britain has jumped into bed with.
Face the facts Perry. Face them cleanly and clearly. If you do not, then you are just another frothing at the mouth imbecile who believes anything that comes over the television and newspapers and then reacts to it to order. Employ the critical thinking that your blog claims to be about for heaven’s sake.
The muslims, all of them only want the UK to stay out of affairs that have nothing to do with them.
Except, of course, when it suits them, hence their anger over Britain’s failure to intervene and prevent the massacre at Screbrenica.
Silly comment, surely. Quite a cosmopolitian bunch at this site, in fact, although I have not noticed too many religious fundamentalists at Samizdata blogger bashes.
Mr West, Muslims living in this country have chosen to become British citizens. That means accepting the foreign policy of the duly elected government of the day. That does not mean craven acceptance of that policy or refusal to criticise but it does mean, at some point, a willingness to accept what the government has decided. If they want to change Britain’s foreign policy, then let them campaign for such in elections, as anyone else wants to do. They do not have a veto over that policy, any more than Born-Again Christians, Jews etc. do.
And by the way, Mr West, the fact is that Britain does have interests in the Middle East, and is likely to continue to do so for some time. So Muslims had better get used to the idea.
Reading Noam Chomsky is bad for the brain. Give it up.
Tom, given that you contradict yourself (i.e. “it is not about the Middle East, it is a culture war… but if we only stopped being America’s ally and got out of the Middle East…”), I find it amusing you suggest I am the one who has a problem with critical thinking.
Also just because I think you are wrong about most of what you say does not mean I am not listening, it means I disagree.
If you had actually been reading my articles you would see that I do indeed think it is a culture war. I have been saying that since 2001.
Wrong again. A large proportion of the Samizdatistas are quite, quite English.
Wrong again. It is one of the most secular countries in the world and probably best described as post-Christian.
Sorry but your points are just not worth more of a reply than that. I have little time for fascists.
Tom is just a troll. Perry has been arguing that it is a culture war for as long as I have been reading this blog. It is never worth arguing with someone who is so incoherent that they contradict themselves. Enough time wasted on Tom.
What I am gratified to see is that the mainstream media are starting to slowly realise that appeasment is really a bad idea. Muslims need to be firmly disabused of the hope that they can gain political change through intimidation and if that “angers” more of them, well that is what we have the security services for. Confrontation not appeasement.
Assimulate and be welcome, or get out, there are no other options.
As a person that detests George W. Bush I do however have to give him a bit of credit for coming out and using the term “Islamic Fascists”. Not that he is the first; I read it here in Samizdata and other Blogs many times, but finally the cat is out of the bag.
However that said, denial is still rampant in the Media. I agree that it is cultural, but more than that I think the seeds of Islamic Fascism lies in the Koran. How else can one explain the attitudes of the so-called “moderates?”
Tom is right when he says the more you let into the country the worse the problem will get. This is just the begining, WW3 is on the way and it will be worse than WW2 because the enemies live door to door, street to street. It will be savage.
Which is why it needs to be made clear what Muslims have to do to be made welcome.
Strange that the government are doing quite the opposite then!
Employers face ethnic quotas
Where will it all end?
Let me get this straight… you think it is strange that the government is making a complete and utter mess of things?
If the answers are so clear as you say.
Absolutely right. The next message we need to be sending the MCB/Imams here is that the police and the authorities will sort their community out for them unless they sort it out themselves pronto. Having this endless Tony Blairite bleating of ‘community responsibility’ is beginning to wear thin. I don’t ever recall Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major, telling Cardinal Basil Hume to get the Catholic community in Ulster sorted out as a way of dealing with the sectarian violence and terrorism there.
Assimulate and be welcome, or get out, there are no other options.
We’re on the same page we were a year ago after the 7/7 bombings.
Why all this talk of assimilation? That sounds vaguely coercive to me, and not a little totalitarian to boot, “You will adopt Western liberalism, or else!”
All I ask out of my fellow citizens is respect for the law, respect for democracy and respect for the individual.
The welfare state is responsible for funding these muslim ghettos, our first step should be to eliminate welfare, and not just for muslims either, but for all.
We don’t need any government dialogue with Muslims, the state is not my friend and doesn’t speak for me as an individual. We should ask the state to disengage from society, not seek to promote increased interference. Muslims will work out that in a free society, no one trades with those that they don’t trust.
And I’m not particularly concerned about Muslims turning Bradford into an Islamic Republic if we remove state subsidisation of Islam. I really couldn’t care less if people voluntarily choose to be subject to Sharia law, so long as it clear that the common law provides protection to all that choose it. So if a woman submits to being stoned to death for adultery voluntarily, the state should not interfere, unless the woman claims protection under the common law. I’m guessing that they’re aren’t too many women who would choose to be stoned to death.
Freedom is freedom to live under 7th century barbarism as well as under 21st century enlightenment. It’s when people start trying to impose limits on my freedom that I’m going to give a shit, which is why I advocate police action on terrorist criminals, but balk at state attempts to improve my security by restricting my freedom.
It has always been against the law to plot to kill people, and we need no new laws to deal with terrorists.
For heaven’s sake why doesn’t everybody do the math instead of quaking in their shoes about the Islamist threat.
In one corner we have slightly over a billion of the world’s most ignorant and under-developed marked by their addiction to utterly horrifying marriage customs and in the other corner the rest of us.
The problem is that we are treating the former like rational human berings capable of transcending the horrors of their customs and allowing them access to our countries.
What do the Muslims contribute to the UK apart from staggeringly high social service and security costs? The answer isn’t even nothing but rather a huge deficit so why are they here?
The peace and safety of the majority should not be sacrificed so that a minority can feel good about their social experiments which are as unrealistic and costly as Labour’s great economic groundnuts scheme for Africa.
Really? Why? If a group of people share antithetical views to mine and want THE LAW to reflect their values, I fail to see why opposing their totalitarian views is itself totalitarian. I am only willing to tolerate people who tolerate me (respect and civility are not required). just because I am willing to tolerate someone’s existance that does not mean I cannot despise what they believe.
Then clearly you must have a problem with many Muslims in Britain. However it is not reasonable to expect respect, only toleration. It is clear (to me) that a majority of Muslims think their collective sensibilities trump my individual rights and as a result I have no problem describing myself as anti-Islamic as a direct consequence of being pro-liberty.
In truth I am pretty hostile to religion generally, but as I have yet to have a Methodist or Anglican try and make the rude things I say about Christianity illegal, I am quite happy to tolerate their (what I think are) daft beliefs as they seem quite happy to tolerate my (what they think is daft) Godlessness.
Amen to that.
Indeed, but did you not notice the ‘Mohammed cartoons’ issue? We are waaaaaay past the point at which these guys just want Islamic sensibities to apply only to Muslims.
Agreed.
Really? Why? If a group of people share antithetical views to mine and want THE LAW to reflect their values, I fail to see why opposing their totalitarian views is itself totalitarian. I am only willing to tolerate people who tolerate me (respect and civility are not required). just because I am willing to tolerate someone’s existance that does not mean I cannot despise what they believe.
My point is we can’t force people to accept liberal values, they must come to that conclusion themselves. I have no problem in loudly denouncing desired for censorship and curbs on freedom. I do have a problem with reach out style programmes, it’s the Muslims who entered our society, let them reach out to us.
Agreed, but people can be motivated.
Again I agree, but they are not reaching out to us and are having the economic consequences of that off-set by the state, which is why I think only a social, rather than a political, approach can work. However in truth state subsidy of Muslim non-assimulation is one of the main problema.
What do the Muslims contribute to the UK apart from staggeringly high social service and security costs?
Well my local off-license is owned and operated by Pakistanis, and I enjoy being able to buy a £5 six pack of Grolsch from them on my way home.
I also don’t mind heading down to Brick Lane once in a while for a curry.
Come to think of it, my company’s biggest clients all happen to be Muslim, mind you I am in oil and gas…
The answer isn’t even nothing but rather a huge deficit so why are they here?
Maybe Britain should have kicked all the Irish out as well during the Troubles.
I’m not going to get into a argument that seems to be leading to a new reconquist of Britain from the Moors.
Perry: ” my (what they think is daft) Godlessness.”
Its funny how a lot of people claiming to be godless like Marxists/libertarians actually just swap one set of wacky beliefs for another.
Its human nature, we all gotta believe in something.
Libertarianism has nothing to do with religion. Funny you cannot see part a person’s “-ism” to figure that out. You can be a religious or Godless libertarian.
Dave, I think you are a bit out of your depth in some of your rather weird comments about “god genes” and the like (sorry if that sounds patronising but it is what I think). Lack of belief in X is not the same as belief. That is a basic error of logic. There is also a world of difference between belief in an ineffable and unseeable Supreme Being and support for institutions like law and property rights.
Mr Halfwit er Halfweeg (beg your pardon, damn these typos)
“I’m in oil and gas”
Errrrrrrr Yeesss indeed as Paxman might say.
You must have missed my post about my buying my booze from Hindus, not Muslim hypocrites.
Jonathan I mentioned the “god gene” but it is not my idea. It is the name of a book written by a Geneticist and its far from as simplistic as it sounds from the title.
And yes I certainly believe nature as well as nurture affects the way we behave. I don’t know how an intelligent guy like yourself can deny it, the evidence is all around us.
Dave is just another racist trying to seem reasonable (he probably calls himself a “race realist” or something like that). Don’t be fooled. One of the give-away sign is he refuses to change the subject. I have never met a racist who was not an obsessive.
This article is NOT about race or nature vs. nurture, it is about muslim attitudes and the political consequences of that in Britain.
It really is time to end this disease of political correctness and actually do something about the Muslim problem in Britain. Yes, its true, these scum living here on the dole and benefitting from free education and healthcare really do believe that ‘Allah provides’ – a direct quote from one of the would-be terrorists interviewed on Jon Snow’s C4 documentary. Let us not fool ourselves, most of these Fifth Columnists wish us ill, and the minority who do voice a Britain-friendly opinion do so only when they fear a backlash. Again today there have been more arrests: A Muslim school in Sussex was raided, believed to be a front for training Islamic terrorists. The first priority for this government should be to close down Islamic ‘faith schools’ and then to ban mosques, the other source of anti-western hatred within these shores. Don’t doubt it, the majority of Muslims in Britain sympathise with 9/11 and 7/7. Remove them all before its too late. Extreme? Yes, but then so is living with 7th century barbarism.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/5301512.stm