The Redhunter

July 31, 2008

Extremism Among British Muslim Students?

From CNS News

British students are rejecting as biased and unrepresentative a new report that finds large minorities of Muslim students at universities in the country hold extremist views. But a scholar who has been probing radicalism in British universities called the report "extremely significant - and extremely worrying." "Those polled are, by their nature, going to constitute Britain's future Muslim elite," said Prof. Anthony Glees of the Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies at London's Brunel University. The report, released at the weekend, has stoked a long-running debate over the broader issue of the extent to which members of Britain's Muslim community hold opinions at odds with Western norms - and what to do about it. Billed as the most comprehensive of its kind, the report by the conservative Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) is based on campus visits, attendance at meetings and face-to-face interviews. It is built around an opinion poll conducted by leading online polling firm YouGov, which in Glees' view "has an outstanding reputation for reliability." In its most startling finding, almost one in three Muslim students polled said it was justifiable to kill in the name of religion. Of that group, most said this was an acceptable action if their religion was under attack, while a small number said it was okay to kill to promote one's religion. Forty percent of respondents supported the incorporation of Islamic law (shari'a) law into British law, while 33 percent backed the introduction of a worldwide caliphate, based on shari'a. The poll surveyed 600 Muslim and 800 non-Muslim students at 12 prominent universities with active Islamic Societies (ISOCs), organizations claiming to represent the country's 90,000 Muslim students.

Wow. Let's go visit the website of the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) and see what we can find out.

You can download the reports directly from their website. Islam on Campus is 6.3 mb and 126 pages, which is a bit to read, but fortunately they've posted an Executive Summary which is only 3 pages.

Here are some of the key findings as taken from the summary:

Killing in the name of religion:

• Just under a third of Muslim students polled (32%) said killing in the name of religion can be justified - the majority of these said killing could be justified if the religion was under attack, and 4% of all respondents supported killing in order to promote and preserve that religion.


• 60% of active members of campus Islamic societies said killing in the name of religion can be justified. By contrast, only 2% of non-Muslims agreed.


• Apostasy:


• Half (50%) of Muslim students polled said they would be unsupportive of a friend's decision to leave Islam. A quarter (25%) said they would be supportive.


• Almost half (45%) of Muslim students polled said that apostates should be encouraged to reconsider their decision by Muslim elders and people that care about them.


• A minority (6%) said that apostates should be "punished in accordance with Sharia."

Views on women:

• Almost a quarter (24%) of Muslim student respondents do not feel that men and women are fully equal in the eyes of Allah.


• Female students (38%) were also more likely than males (27%) to perceive inequitable treatment of men and women in their local communities. While 37% of male Muslim students felt men and women were treated equally, only 26% of females felt the same.


• The majority (89%) of Muslim students polled said that men and women should be treated equally, 5% said they should not and 6% were unsure.


• Nearly three fifths (59%) of Muslim students polled felt it was important to Islam that Muslim women wear the hijab.


• Active members of university Islamic societies (51%) were over twice as likely as non-members (25%) to agree that "women should wear the hijab - female modesty is an important part of Islam."

Support for Sharia law in the UK and a worldwide Caliphate:

• Two fifths (40%) of Muslim students polled supported the introduction of Sharia into British law for Muslims.


• A third (33%) of Muslim students polled supported the introduction of a worldwide Caliphate based on Sharia law. A majority (58%) of active members of campus Islamic Societies supported this idea.


• Islam as a political project:


• Over a sixth (15%) of respondents said that Islam as a religion and Islamism as a political ideology were part of the same thing, and that politics is a big part of Islam. A quarter of active members of campus Islamic Societies agreed.


• Over half of Muslim students polled (54%) were supportive of an Islamic political party to represent the views of Muslims at Parliament. By contrast, over half (61%) of non-Muslims polled were unsupportive.

Compatibility of Islam with secularism and democracy:

• Over two fifths (43%) of Muslim students polled said Islam was compatible with secularism. Almost three in ten (28%) said they were incompatible and a further 29% were unsure.


• Over two thirds of Muslim students polled (68%) said Islam and the Western notion of democracy were compatible, with older students (age 35-54) being more likely (78%) than younger students (age 18-35) (67%) to agree. Active members of campus Islamic Societies (84%) were more likely (64%) than non-members to support this idea.


• Over three quarters of respondents (78%) said that it was possible to be both British and Muslim equally. Female Muslim students (81%) were more likely than males (73%) to say it is possible to be both British and Muslim equally.

Some of these are no big deal: "Half (50%) of Muslim students polled said they would be unsupportive of a friend's decision to leave Islam" is the type of thing you'll get if you survey members of any religion.

Other findings seem to be good news: "The majority (89%) of Muslim students polled said that men and women should be treated equally" is only partially tempered by "Almost a quarter (24%) of Muslim student respondents do not feel that men and women are fully equal in the eyes of Allah." The student's view of women is better than one might imagine. Unfortunately, it does seem at odds with most of what else I've read so it's hard to know what is going on.

"Over two thirds of Muslim students polled (68%) said Islam and the Western notion of democracy were compatible" is also generally good, though one wishes the number was still higher.

Much is bad news: "Two fifths (40%) of Muslim students polled supported the introduction of Sharia into British law for Muslims," "A third (33%) of Muslim students polled supported the introduction of a worldwide Caliphate based on Sharia law," "Just under a third of Muslim students polled (32%) said killing in the name of religion can be justified - the majority of these said killing could be justified if the religion was under attack", and "Over half of Muslim students polled (54%) were supportive of an Islamic political party to represent the views of Muslims at Parliament" are the most frightening.

The more involved in Muslim organizations, the worse the views: "A majority (58%) of active members of campus Islamic Societies supported (a worldwide Caliphate based on Sharia law)." This is disturbing because it is those who are active in politics who get their ideas put into practice.

There are several reasons to be wary of polls. The first of course are all the problems associated with bad polls; unrepresentative or insufficiently sized sample, poor questions, and biased researchers.

Second, people often don't want to tell the interviewer bad things, things that they know are overly controversial. Few people in the United States, for example, will tell a pollster that they are not going to vote for Barack Obama because he is black.

We also need to be aware that the fate of movements and ideas are not usually determined by poll numbers. Often in history a determined minority has held a majority hostage, or in extreme cases takes over a nation by revolution.

I don't have time to delve into each of these and other than stories in British newspapers announcing the story I can't find much about this poll on the internet, so take it for what it's worth. If I find more I'll post it.

On the other hand, polls showing this sort of attitude are nothing new. In February of 2006 I posted on a poll by the Sunday Telegraph that showed disturbing attitudes held by British Muslims. I've seen others as well. Read just about any article by American expatriate and gay-rights-activist Bruce Bawer on his website and you'll get the same picture.

Posted by Tom at 4:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 19, 2008

Book Review - The Last Days of Europe

With the enormous influence of Mark Steyn on the right, I suppose it's inevitable that any other books about Europe will be compared to his America Alone: The End of the World As we Know It. Steyn's basic thesis, if you're somehow unaware, is that through the power of demographics, Muslims are taking over Europe, and this-is-not-a-good-thing. Far from assimilating into Europe and adopting Western values, Muslim leaders, and most of their flock, want Europe to assimilate to Islamic law and values.

Historian Walter Laqueur lays out his vision in his 2007 bookThe Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent. Although he definitely has some differences with Steyn's apocalyptic vision, Laqueur largely agrees with his thesis that Islam is the future of Europe. .

There's a whole slew of books out with this theme; in addition to the above I've also read Melanie Phillips Londonistan. Also popular is Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. I haven't read this last one, but have heard him interviewed on the radio, and he is quite good. Bawer is a prolific editorialist, and his website is worth checking out the the links to his pieces. Lastly, The Force of Reason by the late Oriana Fallaci comes highly recommended by reliable sources, although again this is a book I haven't read.

All of these and other works say the same basic thing; that Europe is on the verge of a historic change, one that if it occurs will not be easily reversible.

There is much immigration to Europe, so much so that it will change the face of the continent forever. Laqueur runs through the demographic statistics that have become so familiar, the bottom line being that in every single European country the population will start to fall precipitously once the "baby boomer" generation passes from the scene. Native Europeans are simply not having enough babies to keep up current population levels, let alone grow. On the other hand, immigrants, especially Muslim ones, have a high birthrate, and their numbers are growing rapidly.

However, not all immigrants are Muslim, and the Muslims are not a monolithic bloc. While it is true that Muslims are resistant to assimilation, it is not clear that this will continue to be the case. So the continent "might be greatly diminished in stature and influence and in deep trouble. But it will not necessarily be predominantly Islamist."

Laqueur doesn't buy the popular notion that the plight of Muslims is because of racism. Other immigrant groups, notably Indians and those of "far eastern" descent, have done much better than Muslims. Further, Muslim girls do noticeably better than Muslim men.

Rather, "young people are told, day in, day out, that they are victims of society and that it is not really their fault." The youth culture of violence, Lacqueur says, has little to do with religion. They may attend Koran schools ("madrassas") regularly, but once out the door show little interest in Islam. He does not, for example, see a religious motive for the Nov 2005 riots in France.

Over the past several decades, Europeans have voted for themselves a vast array of social benefits. Funding these social assistance programs depended on a growing economy and, in the case of retirement benefits, a reasonable ratio of workers to retirees. In recent years economic growth has stagnated, and the number of people receiving benefits exploded. In order to bring in more payees, European governments promoted "temporary worker" programs.

Most of the Muslims immigrants were brought in to fill a need for labor during a time in the 50s and 60s when economies were rapidly growing. But things didn't turn out as expected. While some immigrants did the work that was expected of them, crime in their communities was much higher than among native European neighborhoods, and asocial behavior more commonplace. The problem was worse with second and third generation Muslim immigrants, who also decided that they needed "respect", and decided to get it with aggressive behavior on the streets. Far from adopt European ways and respect existing authority, they wanted to be the new authority, the new masters. All this, while complaining of discrimination, and taking offense at anything that criticized Islam even slightly.

Muslim immigration to Europe was "unplanned and uncontrolled". Initially brought in as "temporary workers", they simply didn't go home and noone made an effort to expel them. Because European economies are not growing as they did in the 1950s and 60s, the rationale for their existence has gone. But they have decided that they like Europe better than the countries of their birth, so see no reason to go home. Couple this with European's guilty attitude towards their colonialist past, and you've got permanent residents. Yet the host populations were never asked if they wanted permanent immigrants, and so never approved the decision.

Some native Europeans are resentful toward the new arrivals. Signs, traditionally in the vernacular, suddenly sprouted up in a multitude of foreign languages, and many of the immigrants showed no inclination to learn the any European language. Government programs, especially in housing, favored immigrants over natives. "Positive discrimination" ("reverse discrimination" or "affirmative action" in the U.S.) in the UK further exacerbated this resentment by natives.

All the while, too many immigrants became dependent on government aid, which not only fosters a culture of dependency, but creates an (attitude) of inferiority. More aid just results the perpetuation of the vicious cycle.

Anyone who dares criticize this massive immigration is typically met with the charge of "racism". Laqueur examines the charge and finds it wanting. Rather than help the newcomers find jobs, immigrants are flooded with offers of government aid, with program after program being made available to them. Indeed social workers have "taught newcomers how to manipulate the social security net." While initially resistant to the idea of taking handouts, they eventually overcame their apprehension to the point where Muslim clerics encourage their flock to take full advantage of government aid. The result is that all too many of the Muslim immigrants have adopted the attitude that they need not work to better themselves because the government will take care of all their needs.

The primary threat to Europe is not terrorism. Rather, the threat is from "Islamist organizations that officially disassociate themselves from al Qaeda-style activities but still believe in jihad, and other forms of violence". They are, Lacquer says, similar to the Nazis and fascists of the 1930s in that their method is "mass violence, (and) dominating the street, rather than in acts of individual violence".

While Russia may be able to create problems now, it's systemic problems are so severe that it poses no long-term threat to anyone. A declining population, high rates of alcoholism and drug use, and an AIDS epidemic will destroy it's potential to retain great-power status.

What does Laqueur see as the future for Europe? Muslims in Europe, he says, are too fractured and diverse be part of any monolithic caliphate. At the same time they show no sign of assimilating or (as a whole) of advancing themselves economically. No Muslim middle or professional classes seem to be emerging. As such, they will likely demand and receive regional autonomy. Sharia law will be introduced, though their be (at least in the short term) exemptions for non-Muslims.

At the same time, he sees Muslim fanaticism as being somewhat overrated. There are "centrifugal trends" in Muslim communities that will prevent monolithic blocs from emerging.

Native Europeans will not, in the end, resist these changes with enough force or in enough numbers from preventing it. Rather, a new form of appeasement will be the order of the day, as they will at all costs wish to avoid the great wars of the early 20th century. "Binational states" will most likely mark the new Europe. Self-censorship will become the order of the day; among native Europeans, at least.

In Laqueur's vision Europe will most likely suffer a slow collapse, rather than a swift, violent one. The decline is probably irreversible, but it will be the death of a thousand cuts, not one cataclysmic one.

Whether Laqueur, Steyn, or any of the others who write about this will be proven to be right is somewhat beside the point. What matters now is that we recognize that Europe has a tremendous problem and hiding behind political correctness will not make it go away. Phillips thinks that we still have a half dozen years or so to get a handle on the problem before the point of no return is reached. Others like Steyn are not even that sanguine. I don't know if Europe is still savable, but do know that it is so important that we have to try. An "America alone" may seem romantic and even attractive to that rugged individualist that fortunately still makes up a great amount of our citizens, but is not really tenable. Saving America will be a lot easier if we have allies, and in order to do that we have to save Europe. And the first step towards solving any problem is recognizing that it exists. As such, I recommend Laqueur's book as a step in that direction.

Posted by Tom at 9:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 8, 2008

Sharia Law is OK by the Archbishop of Canterbury

via today's Washington Times I learn that the Archbishop of Canturbury has "called for applying Islamic Shariah law in Britain in certain instances". The Archbiship, a certain Dr Rowan Williams, said this and more as part of a lecture series. Here are a few tidbits that I picked out this morning

Among the manifold anxieties that haunt the discussion of the place of Muslims in British society, one of the strongest, reinforced from time to time by the sensational reporting of opinion polls, is that Muslim communities in this country seek the freedom to live under sharia law.

He may has well as told us that Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, and that War is Peace.

But it is important to begin by dispelling one or two myths about sharia; so far from being a monolithic system of detailed enactments, sharia designates primarily – to quote Ramadan again – 'the expression of the universal principles of Islam [and] the framework and the thinking that makes for their actualization in human history'

The "Ramadan" the Archbishop refers to so approvingly is none other than Tariq Ramadan, an apologist for the worst excesses of Islam. Ramadan is the grandson of none other than Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the jihadist groups seeking the restoration of the Caliphate and destruction of the West.

The Archbishop goes on to argue for a "transformative accomodation" of Sharia law into the British legal system, because it seems "unavoidable."

In an interview on BBC Radio 4 the Archbishop repeated many of these themes, if anything even more explicity

It seems unavoidable and indeed as a matter of fact certain provisions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law. So it's not as if we're bringing in an alien and rival system.

In other words, we're not going to ask Muslims to accept Western values, so we'll just accept theirs.

When asked if this would bring stoning to Great Britain, he replied that

There's a lot of internal debate within the Islamic community about the nature of Sharia and its extent; nobody in their right mind I think would want to see in this country a kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states - the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well...

No doubt native Britons don't want these things. But how about some of the Muslims who want the Sharia law? The Archbishop avoids that topic with weasel words, going on about

I think one of the points again that's come up very interestingly in recent discussion between Muslim and other legal theorists is the way in which in the original context of Islamic law, quite often provisions relating to women are more enlightened than others of their day; but you have to translate that into a setting where actually that whole area, the rights and liberties of women has moved on and the principle, the vision, which animates the Islamic legal provision needs broadening because of that.

What jibberish.

Does anyone think that it will end here?

To be sure, as he points out,

We have orthodox Jewish courts operating in this country

Which is something liberal apologists love to bring up. But the last time I checked Western-style civil rights were alive and well in Israel, and yes that includes it's Arab citizens too. No one is afraid of orthadox Jewish law. There is reason to fear Sharia law, and anyone who does not need only look at Islamic countries where it has been implimented, like Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states.

In the interview the Archbishop insists that Muslims could appeal Sharia court decisions to the regular British court system, and we are supposed to be reassured by this. But Muslims won't put up with this for long. They don't recognize any higher authority than their law, and as the Muslim population increases they would put what would probably become irresistible pressure on the appeal courts to let their decisions stand.

Liberals often roll their eyes when you tell them about Sharia law coming to Europe. They think it's a conservative scare story, the purpose of which is to take away civil liberties, put us under a permanent war footing, etc etc. I've heard and read many say that oh no, Muslims are integrating into European society perfectly well.

If that's true, then why is the Archbishop so willing to grant them their own legal - limited - system within a European country?

Melanie Phillips has more analysis than I have time to write this morning.

Posted by Tom at 8:16 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

November 15, 2007

Waking Up in the UK?

The British might just be waking up to the danger that surrounds them. A poll published earlier this week in the Evening Standard shows that many Brits are not keen on Muslims who won't adopt Western ways (h/t USS Neverdock).

Methodology being important, the story says that those surveyed were "more than 700 "influentials" - a category including business leaders, innovators, politicians and other prominent individuals - carried out for the Standard by opinion pollsters YouGovStone."

Here are some of the key findings:

Strong opposition to the use of the Muslim veil in schools and face covering in public is revealed today in a new opinion poll for the Evening Standard.

Nearly 90 per cent of respondents say that Muslim teachers should not be allowed to wear a veil when teaching.

And 84 per cent say that Muslim pupils should not be allowed to wear a veil at school.

... Among the most striking findings are that half believe that Islam is a "generally intolerant" faith and that Muslims are "isolated" from the rest of the community.

At the same time, about 40 per cent hold the opposite opinion, while seven out of 10 believe that Muslims make a positive contribution to the economy.

More than 70 per cent also say that they would be happy to vote for a Muslim as London Mayor.

There is strong opposition, however, to the censorship of images or words that might offend Islamic sensibilities and the idea of making Eid a public holiday.

Almost three-quarters of respondents also blame Islam for the 7 July bombings, although nine per cent say it played no role and a further 13 per cent say its influence was minimal.
...

On Islamic attitudes towards others, for example, 49 per cent say they regard the religion as a generally intolerant faith.

Although 44 per cent have the opposite opinion, the survey also reveals that 51 per cent think that the Muslim community is "somewhat isolated" or "mostly isolated" from the rest of society in the capital. Only four per cent of respondents believe that Muslims are "mostly integrated".

Views on the wearing of the niqab or any other full-face covering in public are still firmly against, with 58 per cent describing it as either entirely or somewhat unacceptable.

For example, one respondent states: "I would find it difficult to do business with anyone I could not see." Four out of 10 of those questioned, however, do not oppose the niqab.
...

More than 80 per cent say they oppose the notion of making Eid a public holiday and 54 per cent say they would be concerned if there were plans to build a mosque in their street.

Of these, about half say that they would actively oppose any such proposals.

On the Muslim contribution to society, 20 per cent say that Muslims contribute a "great deal" to the capital's economy, with another 51 per cent saying that they make a "fair amount" of impact on business.

Opinion on the Islamic impact on arts and culture is more divided, with 45 per cent saying that Muslims make "not very much" or no contribution, compared with 42 per cent who take the opposite view.

A more favourable verdict is reached on the Muslim role in academic and intellectual life, with 52 per cent of respondents taking a positive view, far more than the 33 per cent who suggest the impact is small or non-existent.

Half of those questioned think the media should avoid publishing material that would gratuitously offend Muslims but only five per cent favour any formal curbs and 82 per cent are opposed to censorship.

More than a third say there should be total freedom of speech regardless of the damage that this might cause to other people's feelings or to community relations.

Opinion on the introduction of quotas to boost Muslim recruitment to the Metropolitan Police is split, with 41 per cent opposed, 34 per cent in favour and 25 per cent having no view.

More than 70 per cent, however, say that they would back a suitably qualified Muslim candidate who stood for Mayor, compared with 16 per cent who say that they would not.

The majority of respondents also want immigration to be either greatly or slightly reduced, although the 55 per cent taking this view in respect of Muslim migrants is slightly lower than the overall figure of 61 per cent who want cuts to the numbers arriving from elsewhere in the world, regardless of religion or ethnicity.

On terrorism and extremism, 72 per cent of those surveyed say that Islam was to blame for the London bombings.

A total of 29 per cent also want political groups with fundamentalist Islamic agendas to be banned, although a far greater number - 58 per cent - say this should only be the case if a direct link to terrorism can be proved.

This poll is generally good news, I'd say. It means that they've achieved the first goal; recognizing there's a problem. The second is to do something about it.

The first thing to do is to reduce or eliminate Muslim immigration. The second is to demand social integration and acceptance of Western values. The third is that Muslims need to stop playing the role of the "victim". We can go on from there, but these would be a good start.

Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 30, 2007

Hate in London Mosques: A Warning to the U.S.

If we don't keep our guard up we're going to have this here in the U.S. From the Times of London

Lessons In Hate Found At Leading Mosques

Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain’s leading mosques, according to research seen by The Times.

Some of the fundamentalist works were found at the bookshop in the London Central mosque in Regent’s Park, which is funded by the Saudi regime and is regularly visited by government ministers. Its director, Ahmad al-Dubayan, is also a Saudi diplomat and was among those greeting King Abdullah when he arrived in Britain last night for his official state visit.

Extremist literature, including passages supporting the stoning of adulterers and waging violent jihad, was also found on sale at many other mosques regarded as mainstream institutions.

More than 80 books and pamphlets were collected during a year-long project in which researchers visited 100 mosques across Britain.

Read the whole thing but I think you get the point.

Melanie Phillips warned about this sort of thing in her 2006 book Londonistan, so no one should say they're really surprised.

Meanwhile, close to where I live we have an Saudi funded school, and some are worried about what they're teaching. From The Washington Times

Fairfax County officials are reviewing Arabic-language textbooks at a private Islamic school after a federal panel's recommendation that the school be closed.

The county does not expect to find problems with the textbooks at the Islamic Saudi Academy, in McLean, but wants to study the issue "to put the matter to rest," county spokeswoman Merni Fitzgerald said yesterday.

Earlier this month, a federal human rights panel recommended the academy be shut down until a review was conducted to ensure the school is not espousing radical Islam. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in a report issued Oct. 17 that it had no direct evidence of a problem at the academy but is concerned that the school closely mimics a typical Saudi education, which some critics say promotes intolerance of Christians, Jews and Shi'ite Muslims.

The academy, subsidized by the Saudi government, has nearly 1,000 students in grades K-12 at two campuses, in Alexandria and Fairfax. The Alexandria site is leased from Fairfax County.

So the county "does not expect to find problems with the textbooks". Apparently they missed former Director of the CIA James Woolsey's November 16, 2005 testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he said that

On all points except allegiance to the Saudi state Wahhabi and al Qaeda beliefs are essentially the same.

You can't say it any more plainly than that, can you?

Fortunately some people in the U.S. are trying to spread the alarm. One of them is the invaluable David Horowitz. His Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week ran October 22-26, and he's got a complete report on his website FrontPage Magazine.

The week of October 22-26 witnessed the largest, most successful campus demonstrations by students not associated with the anti-American left in the history of campus protests. 114 college and university campuses participated in “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, which highlighted the threat from the Islamic jihad, and the oppression of Muslim women. It featured speakers such as former Senator Rick Santorum, Ann Coulter, Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager and Daniel Pipes, and was organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center with the help of Young America’s Foundation and the Leadership Institute.

Do I have to tell you to read the whole thing?

We had better listen to people like Horowitz and his list of speakers, or it's going to be Washingtonistan DC before long.

Posted by Tom at 8:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 23, 2007

"Britain's Terrible Problem"

The invaluable Melanie Phillips has moved her blog (or "diary", as she calls it) to The Spectator. If you haven't already, bookmark it and make it part of your regular reading.

Phillips is best known for exposing the radical Islam that has so deeply permeated into Great Britain in her 2006 book Londonistan.

Her recent post Britain's Terrible Problem struck me as particularly important. We're all supposed to believe something along the lines of "the vast majority of Muslims are nice peaceful people and only a tiny minority are terrorists." Once again Phillips demonstrates that the pc emperor has no clothes:

More very alarming evidence indeed of the attitudes of ‘mainstream’ British Muslims. As the Telegraph reports, the Conservative Muslim Forum, a body set up by David Cameron to advise the Conservatives on Muslim issues and which is headed by Lord Sheikh, has condemned the government’s support for Israel on the grounds that this displeases Muslims and says that Iran has ‘legitimate’ reasons for wanting nuclear weapons. It also argues that preachers who advocate a rejection of democracy and its institutions should not be denied entry into Britain.

In the document, the group says:

Regardless of the foreign policies of the United States, hostility to Iran is not in Britain’s national interest. A constructive engagement with Iran offers many possibilities for progress.

But of course, this inverts the facts. Britain is not hostile to Iran; Iran has declared war upon Britain and the west. There can be no ‘constructive engagement’ with a country that is currently blowing up our soldiers in Iraq. For British citizens to state that although they oppose Iran getting nuclear weapons, it has legitimate reasons for wanting them when it is committed to the destruction of Israel and war against the west, is appalling.

Indeed, Iran declared war against the west some 38 years ago, it's just that many people have refused to recognize that fact. But then, many on the left don't believe that Iran is supplying weapons to the insurgents in Iraq at all. They think it's all an invention of the Patriarchal-Imperialist-Bush-Cheney-Halliburton-War-Machine, or however that one goes these days.

No, I am not saying we should bomb Iran now. We might need to at some point in the near future, but right now our efforts should be focused towards replacing the current regime with a truely democratic, pluralistic one.

Lest you think that it's all in Phillips' mind, and that we on the right are all making up this bit about Jihadist Islam being a threat, I'll just cut the the end of her post

...the MCB (Muslim Council of Britain) itself subscribes to the philosophy of Maulana Maududi, who along with Syed Qutb was one of the founding fathers of modern jihadi Islamism. Its spokesman, Inayat Bungalwala, has said he is committed to the Islamisation of Britain. Furthermore, it shelters under its umbrella many groups which are even more extreme.

Shocking as all this is, nothing in the document, alas, is surprising. These extremist attitudes are mainstream among British Muslims. The fact that they are regarded as ‘moderate’ — by a British political and educated class that in no small measure actually shares the animus expressed here towards Israel and America —is why Britain has such a terrible problem.

This document follows the recent pronouncement by the 138 Muslim religious leaders reported here which, although hailed as an olive branch to the Christian church, was actually a demonstrable threat. It is only when other Muslims come out and denounce these attitudes loud and clear for the treacherous, bigoted and lethal opinions that they are that we will have any hope that Britain’s Muslims will join the struggle against the jihad instead of fanning the flames of religious war.

Unfortunately, given the attitude of left-wing political correctness and multicularism that is so pervasive in the UK (where it's even worse than here in the U.S.) I wouldn't count on many people demanding these Muslim groups change their attitudes.

Update

Via LGF, Nile Gardiner at NRO has more on this Conservative Muslim Forum group. Apparently they were created by the British Conservative Party. Head over there and read all the gory details, such as the CMF's support of the current Iranian regime.

Maybe it really is the end of the world as we know it.

Posted by Tom at 8:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 1, 2007

Sarkozy Rocks

The more I read about the new President of France the more impressed I am. Consider this in today's Washington Times

New hints that France may rejoin NATO's military wing after a 41-year absence underscore a stunning foreign-policy shift under new President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Gone are the Iraq war diatribes, the Palestinian sympathies, the close ties with Moscow and the crumbling ones with Washington — all trademarks of French foreign policy under former President Jacques Chirac.

With his penchant for jogging, American movies and summering in New Hampshire, the 51-year-old Mr. Sarkozy has embraced a decidedly pro-U.S. tone, even as his government scores trans-Atlantic points through sharpened rhetoric against Iran and overtures to Iraq.

I know that American conservatives have had quite a bit of fun bashing France these past few years, but as long as he's in power and keeps up like this, you won't read anything bad about France on this blog.

Not only does Sarkozy seek better ties with the U.S. and has stopped his anti-American bashing, he has even made statements about joining us in bombing Iran if it looks like they might get the bomb.

In case you're wondering, yes France does have a navy that would come in quite handy in any showdown with Iran. Their flagship is the Charles de Gaulle (R 91), which at 40,000 tones displacement is a smaller version of one of our Nimitz-class ships. But unlike the British carriers, which can only carry the Harrier, the Charles de Gaulle carries regular fixed-wing aircraft, including E-2c Hawkeyes. At only 40 aircraft it's hardly the equal of one of our carriers, but then again Iran isn't the Soviet Union.

We should be very happy if France would join us in any attack on Iran, and at least while Sarkozy is President stop needless French-bashing.

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July 18, 2007

The End of Great Britain as We Know It

For an appalling display of the ignorance and stupidity of British youth, watch the latest edition of BBC TV’s Question Time.

May as well turn Westminster into a mosque right now and get it over with.

(h/t Melanie Phillips)

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July 9, 2007

As Goes Spain...

Aaron Hanscom just got back from visiting relatives in Spain, and his impression of the outward appearance of the country matches what I saw in Britain, France, and Belgium: "The cathedrals were beautiful and the cheese was great."

Ditto that. Anyone who hasn't been to St Pauls, Westminster, or any of the cathedrals in France is seriously missing out. Alas, it's all a facade.

Alas, my prolonged stays in Spain have taught me that the continent’s impressive outward appearances—massive cathedrals, a strong euro, great cheese—obscure a hollowness at its core. The truth is that Europe’s churches are largely empty; its welfare economies are unsustainable; and—most troublingly— its restive Muslim minorities seem unappeasable.

Spain was under Islamic rule for 800 years, and many Muslims blame Spaniards for the loss of Al-Ándalus. Spanish politician and terrorism expert Gustavo de Arístegui has documented how there is already a policy underway to reconquer land and monuments that were once under the domain of Islam. In an interview with me last year, Arístegui said, “Spanish society today is not willing or ready to accept the threat we face.”

My conversations with Spaniards this month gave me reasons for hope and despair. While most people seem to be coming to the reluctant conclusion that radical Islamists pose a threat to their way of life (the first step in defeating radical Islam), they remain unsure how to fight back.

Consider the conversation I had with my wife’s uncle at my brother-in-law’s wedding. I was prepared to be cornered by Miguel, who always finds time at family reunions to bombard me with political commentary. A supporter of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español – PSOE), he has generally agreed with Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero’s policies of appeasement. You can imagine my surprise when he told me that he had recently joined over a million Spaniards in Madrid to protest the government’s early release from prison of ETA terrorist José Ignacio de Juana Chaos. He also agreed with me when I told him that Muslim immigrants to Europe should be expected to assimilate into their new culture, rather than reject a Western lifestyle.

But Miguel wasn’t prepared to call certain Western values superior to radical Islamic values. When I asked him if we could agree to condemn honor killings (a practice spreading across Europe), he said no. Even when I pointed to his three beautiful daughters and reminded him that forced female genital mutilation was regularly practiced in many Muslim countries, he shrugged as if to say “that’s just the way they do things over there.”

Anecdotal, you say. Perhaps, but anyone who doesn't have his head in some left-wing blog all day knows that Hanscom's story rings true. Via Melanie Philips we have this tidbit from the Daily Mail

Up to eight police officers and civilian staff are suspected of links to extremist groups including Al Qaeda. Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Their names feature on a secret list of alleged radicals said to be working in the Metropolitan and other forces. The dossier was drawn up with the help of MI5 amid fears that individuals linked to Islamic extremism are taking advantage of police attempts to increase the proportion of ethnic staff.

Astonishingly, many of the alleged jihadists have not been sacked because - it is claimed - police do not have the "legal power" to dismiss them. We can also reveal that one suspected jihadist officer working in the South East has been allowed to keep his job despite being caught circulating Internet images of beheadings and roadside bombings in Iraq. He is said to have argued that he was trying to "enhance" debate about the war. Classified intelligence reports raising concerns about police staff's background cannot be used to justify their dismissal, sources said.

Instead, the staff who are under suspicion are unofficially barred from working in sensitive posts and are closely monitored. Political correctness is blamed for the decision not to sack them. It is widely feared that "long-term" Al Qaeda sleepers are trying to infiltrate other public sector organisations in the UK.

Wonderful.

Update

I forgot about this last night, but a much better example of how far Europe has it's collective head in the sand comes from none other than the new British PM himself, Gordon Brown.

Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word “Muslim” in ­connection with the ­terrorism crisis.

The Prime Minister has also instructed his team – including new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – that the phrase “war on ­terror” is to be dropped.

The shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more “consensual” tone than existed under Tony Blair.

How exactly does "war on terror" offend Muslims? The fact is that most terrorist acts are committed by groups that claim to act in the name of Islam. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away. The problem is that too many Muslims refuse to recognize or do anything about the extremism in their midst.

If you won't believe me perhaps you'll believe Safraz Mansoor, writing in the left-wing Guardian (h/t Melanie Philips)

As tempting as it is to say ‘not in my name’ when faced with the terrifying facts of Islamic radicalism, the uncomfortable truth is that those who perpetrate and support such extremism do so in the name of Islam. It is no longer enough for British Muslims to pretend it is someone else’s problem or to retreat into the usual ritual of bashing the media. Denial is no longer an option and British Muslims need to accept that the cancer of extremism affects their entire community. They also must utterly and without equivication denounce the use of violence. One might think this would be a relatively straightforward matter but in the past even a simple denunciation has been difficult to extract from the self-appointed community leaders who seek to speak for Muslims.

Read the rest of Philips' post, because she quotes several other Muslims saying essentialy the same thing in other British papers.

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April 30, 2007

Respect Your Neighbor - Or Else!

In the department of you just can't make this stuff up, I bring you today

The British Respect project. It's an official program of the government of Tony Blair.

From the Respect website

The Respect drive is a cross-Government strategy to tackle bad behaviour and nurture good - and so help create the modern culture of respect.

It is about central government, local agencies, local communities and ultimately every citizen working together to build a society in which we can respect one another – where anti-social behaviour is rare and tackled effectively, and communities can live in peace together.
...

The Respect drive, as laid out in the Respect Action Plan, builds on what has already been achieved in combating anti-social behaviour and goes broader, further and deeper to tackle the causes of anti-social behaviour and prevent the next generation becoming involved. It recognises the importance of early intervention in families, homes and schools to prevent children and young people who are showing signs of problems from getting any worse.

Essentially, it's a "denounce your neighbor" to the authorities program.

What happens to the "unruly neighbors"? They get sent to the "sin bin".

Outcast British families are to be thrown into "sin bins" till they learn how to behave in the community, according to the government.

Fifty-three Family Intervention Projects around the country will provide intensive social care for around 1,500 families a year. Some of them will be removed from their communities and housed in intensive units for round-the-clock-supervision under the government's Respect agenda.

The Communities and Local Government department did not say whether it had plans to tackle the other side of the problem for marginalised families - the communities that marginalise them.

Here's another British government website that explains what they mean by "anti-social behavior". Well, they sort of expain it

Anti-social behaviour has a wide legal definition – to paraphrase the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, it is behaviour which causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more people who are not in the same household as the perpetrator. Among the forms it can take are:

* graffiti – which can on its own make even the tidiest urban spaces look squalid

* abusive and intimidating language, too often directed at minorities

* excessive noise, particularly late at night

* fouling the street with litter

* drunken behaviour in the streets, and the mess it creates

* dealing drugs, with all the problems to which it gives rise.

I like that "wide legal definition" part.

The whole thing is littered with acronyms, in typical big-government fashion.

There's ASBOS, which stands for "Anti-Social Behaviour Order". There's even two websites dedicted to it, see here and here.

Then there's ABCs, which stands for "Acceptable Behavioral Contracts". ABCs are helpfully described on the relevant government website as being "voluntary agreements made between people involved in anti-social behaviour and the local police, the housing department, the registered social landlord, or the perpetrator's school."

I heard about the Respect program on the Glenn Beck radio program today and decided to do some poking around. He said today that some 9,000 people have been taken from their homes and put into these "Respect Camps" already. I couldn't find that on any sites today, but I didn't have a whole lot of time. Glenn says he'll have more about it on tomorrow's show. Tune in if you can.

Funny how the more gun laws, hate-crime legislation, and now "respect" laws we have, the more violent and vulgar our societies seem to be getting. Some people just never will understand that big government programs aren't going to solve these problems.

As for the British Respect program; George Orwell, call your office.

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April 23, 2007

As Europe Sinks II

From a post on The Corner by Victor Davis Hanson

Something seems to be going very wrong in parts of the British establishment well before the Iranian piracy/confess to non-crimes/sell your story fiasco.

Palestinian gunmen kidnap a British BBC reporter (now rumors swirl that he may have been executed) and sometime later the British National Union of Journalists vote to boycott Israeli goods. At a time of both increased terrorism and rising anti-Semitic incidents in Britain, some schools question whether studying the Holocaust might offend Muslim students.

Now some members of the British government decry the use of the "American" notion of a "war on terror" not because, as some of us have complained, it is an inexact idea of a struggle against a method rather than the perpetrators themselves of such violence—Islamic jihadists—but because of the very opposite concern: We have no real enemy, or in the words of Hilary Benin, a Labor Deputy Secretary, "This isn't one organized enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives." What will follow then: the non-war on non-terror?

Previous
As Europe Sinks

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April 18, 2007

As Europe Sinks

From a Corner post today by Andrew Stuttaford

Never comfortable with free speech, and increasingly comfortable with reviving the old blasphemy laws, the EU, it seems, is up to its old tricks again. The EU Observer has some of the details:

After six years of heated political debate, EU member states are set to agree on a common anti-racism law, under which offenders will face up to three years in jail for stirring-up racial hatred or denying acts of genocide, such as the Holocaust. One diplomat in Brussels confirmed to EU Observer that the controversial piece of law is in its final-tuning phase and is likely to gain EU blessing at a justice and interior ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday (19 April). The latest draft – cited by the Reuters news agency — foresees an EU-wide jail sentence of at least one to three years for "publicly inciting to violence or hatred, directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin."

Danish cartoonists, beware.

The same rules would also apply to people "publicly condoning, denying, or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes" as defined by international crime courts. According to the Financial Times, such wording has been carefully chosen to only include denial of the Holocaust during the second world war, as well as the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, but would not criminalise denying mass killings of Armenians during the Ottoman empire in 1915, something that Turkey strongly opposes labelling as genocide.

Armenians will, doubtless, have to say something about that, and as for the Eastern Europeans, well....

Poland and the Baltic countries...continue to hold on to their demand that "crimes under the Stalin regime in the former Soviet Union" become part of the bill's scope. "We believe Stalinist acts of genocide should be condemned in this document. It would put them on an equal footing with Nazi crimes in an international forum," an Estonian diplomat was cited as saying by the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita.

Holocaust denial is idiotic, it's cruel, and it's malign, but it should not be illegal. If it is to be illegal, however, there can be no possible excuse for banning denial of that slaughter whilst permitting denial of Stalinist genocide (such as that in the Ukraine in the early 1930s, for example), the butchering of the Armenians, or for that matter, some of the other great horrors that litter human history.

Posted by Tom at 10:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 2, 2007

The Third Islamic Invasion of Europe

Islam scholar Bernard Lewis gave the Irving Kristol lecture at the American Enterprise Institute March 7 (via Melaine Phillips). Among other things, Lewis talked about "a return among Muslims to what they perceive as the cosmic struggle for world domination between the two main faiths--Christianity and Islam. " He points out that among religions, Christianity and Islam claim to be universal, unlike Hinduism or Judaism. In other words, Christianity and Islam want to spread the word to all people. This perception, he says, led to the centuries long struggle between the two for world domination. He then points out that Christians no longer wish to conquer in the name of their faith, however, while Muslims do.

The Muslim attack on Christendom, he says, has gone through three phases.

The first took place immediately after the death of Muhammed in 632 A.D. when Islam spread throughout Northern Africa, into Spain, and for a brief time, modern France. It challenged Byzantium but was eventually stopped, whereby a stalemate ensued. Through the Crusades Christians managed to temporarily recapture the Holy Lands, but in the end this was reversed.

In phase 2 the Muslim world attacked in Asia and Eastern Europe. This was largely carried out by the Turks, and they defeated the Byzantine Empire and tried, with varying success, to expand their empire. The Europeans were able to eventually reverse much of the gains made by the Ottoman Turks.

This brings us to phase 3, which is ongoing.

Lewis spends some time on Islamic radicalism, but then comes to the issue of Muslims in Europe who have immigrated there

Let me turn to the question of assimilation, which is much discussed nowadays. How far is it possible for Muslim migrants who have settled in Europe, in North America, and elsewhere, to become part of those countries in which they settle, in the way that so many other waves of immigrants have done? I think there are several points which need to be made. ...

I mentioned earlier the important difference in what one means by religion. For Muslims, it covers a whole range of different things--marriage, divorce, and inheritance are the most obvious examples. Since antiquity in the Western world, the Christian world, these have been secular matters. The distinction of church and state, spiritual and temporal, lay and ecclesiastical is a Christian distinction which has no place in Islamic history and therefore is difficult to explain to Muslims, even in the present day. Until very recently they did not even have a vocabulary to express it. They have one now.

Lewis also points the differences between becoming an American citizen and a British or French one. If you get American citizenship you're an American. Gaining the same in Europe does not make you English or French.

But then we get to the heart of the matter

What are the European responses to this situation? In Europe, as in the United States, a frequent response is what is variously known as multiculturalism and political correctness. In the Muslim world there are no such inhibitions. They are very conscious of their identity. They know who they are and what they are and what they want, a quality which we seem to have lost to a very large extent. This is a source of strength in the one, of weakness in the other.

…
The Islamic radicals have even been able to find some allies in Europe… They have a left-wing appeal to the anti-U.S. elements in Europe, for whom they have so-to-speak replaced the Soviets. They have a right-wing appeal to the anti-Jewish elements in Europe, replacing the Axis. They have been able to win considerable support under both headings. For some in Europe, their hatreds apparently outweigh their loyalties.

…
Where do we stand now? Is it third time lucky? It is not impossible. They have certain clear advantages. They have fervor and conviction, which in most Western countries are either weak or lacking. They are self-assured of the rightness of their cause, whereas we spend most of our time in self-denigration and self-abasement. They have loyalty and discipline, and perhaps most important of all, they have demography, the combination of natural increase and migration producing major population changes, which could lead within the foreseeable future to significant majorities in at least some European cities or even countries. But we also have some advantages, the most important of which are knowledge and freedom.

Lewis isn't bombastic, and doesn't make his points in the same style as an editorial writer or TV pundit would do. But that doesn't lessen the impact of his words.

We'll see if our advantages overcome theirs. I'm not optimistic, given the plethora of stories like this one that was repoted in a London newspaper on Sunday

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.
...

It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.

Who is assimilating whom?

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February 9, 2007

An Escallation by the Jihadists

While we are spending most of our time debating whether to "escallate" the war in Iraq by sending more troops and/or adopting a new strategy, we seem to have missed what the enemy is doing.

They're escallating too.

But I don't mean in Iraq. I'm talking about the jihadists in Europe.

Walid Phares says that the jihadists are changing tactics and that this represents a "new benchmark" in their war against the West. Last week British police arrested nine suspects for what it says was an "Iraq-style kidnapping" plot. The plan was to seize a British soldier, behead him, and show it on the Internet. The target soldier had served in Afghanistan.

Previously, al Qaeda and other jihadists concentrated their efforts on large-style dramatic attacks. They wanted to emulate 9-11 as much as possible. Now, says Phares, we may be witnessing a change in tactics. Following are excerpts from his article

1) “A factory”: The repetitive arrest in this important city, if anything, tells us that a hub is producing successive waves of Jihadists, ready to strike within Great Britain. ...

2) “Urban pocket:” The concentration of Jihadi Terror activities in this one city (along with other possible sites) could mean that the militants have formed an “urban pocket” out of which they can coordinate activities, and in which they have established one or more safe havens.
...

3) “Urban Battlefield”: The decision to conduct a kidnapping operation against a British soldier, to behead him and to post the criminal scene online presumes that the British Jihadists have chosen the option of “Urban battlefield.”
...

4) “Seizing the community”: One of the most dangerous Terrorist tactics is to apply violence within a particular community, so that the Terrorist leadership would break the ties between the group and the general society. A very risky choice, but from a Jihadi thinking process, it is unstoppable....(S)eizing a community through fear and Terror "within" the West will have unique consequences. In the mind of the Jihadists, eliminating moderate Muslims, starting with the ones who work with Government, particularly in defense and security matters, will spread terror in the hearts of the community, further isolating it.
...

Thus, the Birmingham Jihadi plot is not just “another” Terrorist happening. It is a crossing of a line, a benchmark. Somewhere in a British city, a war room has decided to create an enclave of terror. The arrests are certainly important, but what the Terrorists wanted to achieve is even more important. It is one of these signals, that in Britain and probably in many European cities, a new phase has begun.

Make sure to follow the link above and read the whole thing.

Phares' point, I think, is that the kidnapping and murder of the Muslim British soldier was not meant to be just another attack on the West. We need to give the jihadists credit. As he makes clear in his book Future Jihad, the jihadists have a very sophisticated strategy. They don't just sit around and say "how and where can we stage another big attack?" That's part of it, to be sure, but it's all part of a much larger and more complex plan. More on this when I post my review of his book, which I am reading now.

In the "urban battlefied" section Phares believes that the jihadists think that "they have the necessary numbers to wage successive operations" because they have established a "a “feeder,” that is a continuous flow of new recruits." Melanie Phillips' documented how extensive radical Islam is in her book Londonistan, so Phares' conclusion is supported by a lot of evidence.

We'll see whether Phares is right or not in the weeks and months to come. I've often wondered why the jihadists didn't "scale down" their attacks from big-dramatic ones to lots of smaller ones. Now that I'm half-way through Future Jihad I'm starting to understand why. The short answer is that their strategy is a lot more complex and long-term than I'd imagined. But again, more on this when I post the book review.

But either way, it looks like Britain's toleration of radical Islam is beginning to bear fruit; of the rotten variety. Let's encourage them to take action before it's too late.

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December 11, 2006

Waking Up in the UK?

It's just possible that the British are finally getting it. After years of having their capital city lampooned as "Londonistan" for their sheltering of suspected and even known terrorists, some are recognizing the danger in their midst.

Last week Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a speech in which he - finally - seems to recognize that the excesses of multiculturalism have simply got to be reigned in. Here's the money quote

So it is not that we need to dispense with multicultural Britain. On the contrary we should continue celebrating it. But we need - in the face of the challenge to our values - to re-assert also the duty to integrate, to stress what we hold in common and to say: these are the shared boundaries within which we all are obliged to live, precisely in order to preserve our right to our own different faiths, races and creeds.

We must respect both our right to differ and the duty to express any difference in a way fully consistent with the values that bind us together.

So: how do we do this?

Partly we achieve it by talking openly about the problem. The very act of exploring its nature, debating and discussing it doesn't just get people thinking about the type of Britain we want for today's world; but it also eases the anxiety. It dispels any notion that it is forbidden territory. Failure to talk about it is not politically correct; it's just stupid.

Partly the answer lies in precisely defining our common values and making it clear that we expect all our citizens to conform to them. Obedience to the rule of law, to democratic decision-making about who governs us, to freedom from violence and discrimination are not optional for British citizens. They are what being British is about. Being British carries rights. It also carries duties. And those duties take clear precedence over any cultural or religious practice.

Ok, sure, this it tepid stuff. But in fairness, politicians must always tempter their words. If you read between the lines I think you'll agree that this is dynamite.

Of course, it's one thing to give a speech, quite another to put words into actions. We shall see. But it's a start.

There were two events, I believe, that hit Britons hard enough to wake them from their slumber. The first was the subway bombings of almost a year and a half ago. Blair addresses this in his speech

When I decided to make this speech about multiculturalism and integration, some people entirely reasonably said that integration or lack of it was not the problem. The 7/7 bombers were integrated at one level in terms of lifestyle and work. Others in many communities live lives very much separate and set in their own community and own culture, but are no threat to anyone.

But this is, in truth, not what I mean when I talk of integration. Integration, in this context, is not about culture or lifestyle. It is about values. It is about integrating at the point of shared, common unifying British values. It isn't about what defines us as people, but as citizens, the rights and duties that go with being a member of our society.

Bingo.

And what are these "unifying British values"? Blair defines them as "belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage."

Again, so far so good. As for multiculturalism, he says that

The whole point is that multicultural Britain was never supposed to be a celebration of division; but of diversity. The purpose was to allow people to live harmoniously together, despite their difference; not to make their difference an encouragement to discord

.

I don't want to get into a big discussion on the whole business of diversity and multiculturalism, and there is some sillyness on these subjects in his speech, but I'll forgive him if he puts words into action.

Andrew Struttaford, writing at National Review, identifies the other incident that prompted this self-examination; the Muslim veil

It was, I feel certain, the first time that an article in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph ever triggered a national debate. In the article, written in October, its author, Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons and a former foreign secretary, disclosed that he asked any visitor who came to his office wearing a full Muslim veil to uncover her face when she spoke to him. Naturally, he only made this request if a female member of his staff was present. He’s a gentleman, you know. ...

If this wretched garment, in at least its more stringent forms, has more to do with misogyny than piety, so the hostility it provokes owes less to outraged feminism than to the mounting unease felt by many Europeans at the presence of the increasingly assertive and increasingly extremist Islam rising within their midst. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that there is something about the very appearance of the veil (and I am here referring to the burka and the only marginally less appalling nikab, a get-up that generously allows a clear view of the wearer’s eyes) that is alien, dehumanizing, and, in the context of Europe’s current troubles, thoroughly ominous. Little more than walking shrouds, these women seem like the harbingers both of future theocracy and the slaughter that comes in its wake.

I was cheered when this debate broke out. The full veil is certainly a tool of oppression, and it is among the wonders of the world why the self-styled "womens rights" types don't go ballistic over it.

To be sure, even if Blair is serious, and follows his fine words with action, it's still an uphill battle. The BBC most certainly does not get it. This BBC story is so unbelieveable it led David Frum to joke that Mark Steyn must have hacked their computers and posted a parody.

Sigh.

Posted by Tom at 8:51 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 18, 2006

America Alone II

Earlier this week I reviewed Mark Steyn's book American Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. Steyn's thesis is that the Europe we always knew is almost dead. Declining birthrates among natives, an increasing Muslim minority that refuses to assimilate, and a multiculturalist-surrender mentality are leading the continent into steep decline.

A few recent news stories bear this out. Some Europeans are awaking to their new realities. An article in the Economist claims that multiculturalism is dead, but wonders what will replace it. The "politics of identity" seems to be the answer

...the airwaves and the newspapers have been dominated by what it is fashionable to call the politics of identity. There is still no sign of the debate flagging. Indeed, the government seems to be doing everything it can to keep it going. Last week Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, announced that the government was undertaking a “fundamental rebalancing” of its relationships with Muslim organisations and that funding would shift towards those which actively tackled extremism and defended “our shared values”.

Ms Kelly was reflecting growing government disillusionment with the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), an umbrella body that claims to speak for Britain's 1.6m Muslims. Ms Kelly, a devout Catholic, took particular exception to the MCB's refusal to join in the commemorations of Holocaust Memorial Day. She also criticised both its insistence that British foreign policy was anti-Muslim and its routine denigration of police anti-terrorism operations.

... Since then, the security services have reached alarming conclusions about the number of young British Muslims who have been radicalised and their potential to become terrorists. Increasingly, ministers believe that the willingness of successive governments to tolerate and, in some ways, encourage the separateness of Muslim communities in the name of multiculturalism has been a colossal error.

The result is that the government has started to ask itself some profound questions. How far is a liberal society obliged to go in defending attitudes and behaviour that are hostile to it? Is it reasonable to demand that members of all minority communities integrate, at least to some degree, with the majority?

This has traditionally been difficult territory for many on the left. Partly it is lingering colonial guilt, but mainly it is because the left is uneasy with notions that appear to claim superiority for majority cultural norms or which confuse the duties of citizenship with loyalty to the symbols of nationalism. In the search for a fairer society, the concept of national identity seemed either irrelevant or unhelpful.
...

Ms Kelly has made a stab at defining “non-negotiable” British values—respect for the law, freedom of speech, equality of opportunity, respect for others and responsibility towards others—that every citizen must sign up to. Steps are also under way to introduce an inclusive, narrative account of British history to be taught in schools as part of compulsory citizenship classes.

Both are doubtless worthwhile. But it may be beyond the exhortations of worried, well-meaning politicians to revive an idea of British national citizenship that is relevant and powerful enough to do what is needed. Unless Mr Blair's debate takes place where it matters most, within the Muslim communities themselves, it is likely only to deepen existing prejudices.

The good news, then, is that some in Britain have at least partially woken up to the danger. They have finally realized that their politicies have created what the French security officials once mockingly called "Londonistan".

Tony Blair and his New Labor partisans have been doing their best to "abolish Britain", as Peter Hitchens called it. It is going to be very difficult to reverse the trend.

Thomas Sowell says that the problem in Europe is that they've been insulated from the "reality of the international jungle" for too long, being allowed to live under American protection. Not being responsible for their own defense, they've grown soft. As a result, they "indulge themselves in illusions about brutal realities and dangers." The result, he says, is that Europe is "going quietly". He asks

How can a generation be expected to fight for the survival of a culture or a civilization that has been trashed in its own institutions, taught to tolerate even the intolerance of other cultures brought into its own midst, and conditioned to regard any instinct to fight for its own survival as being a "cowboy"?

Western nations that show any signs of standing up for self-preservation are rare exceptions. The United States and Israel are the only Western nations which have no choice but to rely on self-defense — and both are demonized, not only by our enemies but also by many in other Western nations.

Australia recently told its Muslim population that, if they want to live under Islamic law, then they should leave Australia. That makes three Western nations that have not yet completely succumbed to the corrosive and suicidal trends of our times.

If and when we all succumb, will the epitaph of Western civilization say that we had the power to annihilate our enemies but were so paralyzed by confusion that we ended up being annihilated ourselves?

As usual, Sowell has it just about right.

Heading For The Exits

In the face of all this some native Europeans have decided to call it quits and get out. Rob Liddle, writiing in The Spectator, says that

Apparently almost a million British citizens have left the country since 2000, to live somewhere else. Last year, according to the Office for National Statistics, 380,000 people left Britain, of whom about 200,000 were British citizens. At the same time, though, 565,000 immigrants arrived in Britain, the overwhelming majority from the Indian subcontinent (largely Pakistan and Bangladesh).

Der Spiegel reports that Germans are leaving their country as well.

They are fed up, truly fed up. Fed up with the constant bickering over the costs of wage benefits, social reforms, elimination of subsidies, store closing hours and all the other symbols of a country stuck in bureaucratic and legislative gridlock.

They are tired of living in country where landing a job is like playing the lottery, a country where not even half of citizens live from gainful employment and a country in which even academics in their mid-40s are already considered problem cases when it comes to job placement. In other words, they are fed up with living in a country where all opportunities already seem to be taken: opportunities to succeed in one's career, to own property and to achieve prosperity.
...

Rarely have so many Germans decided to leave it all behind -- their houses and properties, parents and aunts, friends and co-workers. According to the German Federal Office of Statistics, 144,815 Germans left the country last year, a jump of almost 25 percent over 2002. At the same time, fewer and fewer Germans are returning from abroad. The most recent figure is 128,052. For the first time in a generation, more Germans are emigrating than returning. And these are only the official figures.

There are probably just as many who move away without bothering to notify officials in their local municipalities.

Worse, those who are leaving are young, well-educated, and highly skilled. They are just the sort of people that a country can most ill-afford to lose, and whose departure will have the greatest economic impact.

Emigration in and of itself need not be a death knell. After all, Europe lost millions in the 19th century and early 20th. But back then the birthrate was high, and they were able to make it up. Today, birthrates in Western Europe are at 1.5 live births per woman and declining. To maintain a population at a given level, 2.1 live births per woman is required.

To be sure, many of these German emigrants are staying in Europe, so it's not all a net European loss. But overall the population in Germany, like that of the rest of Europe, is declining.

It is ironic that not too long ago schoolchildren were warned that overpopulation was one the world's biggest problems. The issue, of course, is that back when such warnings were a staple of public education, no one thought of the problems of funding old-age retirement. It just seemed a given that there would be enough taxable income-earners around to pay for the ever-increasing benefits packages politicians were voting into place.

Today we know better. The United States will face a financial crisis when the baby boomers reach retirement. The situation in Europe will be much worse, since they have more benefits in place, higher unemployment, and fewer young people.

Add to this in increasingly assertive Muslim population, and you've got a future that doesn't look so good.

Posted by Tom at 11:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 15, 2006

Book Review - "America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It"

Just when I think that the future can't be much darker for us in our war on Islamic Jihadism, Mark Steyn comes along to ruin things for me.

Consider our current situation: Iraq is in the throws of massive sectarian violence and may slide into Rwandan-style slaughter, Afghanistan is not-at-all secure, Musharraf has virtually ceded large parts of his country to the Taliban and their allies, most of Somalia, including it's capital Mogadishu, is controlled by the Supreme Islamic Courts Council, an Islamist militia, and Iran appears to be well on the way towards obtaining nuclear weapons. Did I miss anything?

Actually, as Steyn points out in America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, what I missed was the fact that the United States is now virtually alone in the world. Europe, he explains, is well on the road to being completely lost to the Jihadists.

On the surface, of course, it doesn't seem that way. Their leaders still mouth the traditional pieties, lamenting that "with only proper US leadership" and "less arrogance", why, we would all be together against the terrorists. Traditional institutions such as NATO and a European-dominated Security Council still prevail.

Further, it's tempting to think that of course we can't really lose to the likes of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Isn't Europe the rock of Western Civilization? Surely a continent that survived the Nazis, Communists, and other assorted fascists can take on a bunch of backward Islamic fanatics, right? I mean, maybe they'll get lucky with some terrorist acts, maybe even sneak a nuke into a city, but lose, as in foreign occupation? No way.

"Yes way" is Steyn's response.

Here is Steyn's argument in a nutshell; the populations of native Europeans are headed into steep decline. Not only that, but the radio of young to old people is rapidly declining. Over the past several decades they've set up an enormous welfare state which depends on lots of young people for old-age payments. European leaders, seeing that the young people simply won't be around when needed, have been encouraging massive immigration into their countries. These immigrants are overwhelmingly Muslim, and most have no desire to assimilate into European culture. Not only that, but, most or many of them plan on making Europe a Muslim continent, complete with Sharia law. Native Europeans, infected with leftist multiculturalism and a complete lack of a sense of nationhood, have no will to resist.

America, he says, will be alone in the world before we know it. In many ways we already are.

Combine a powerful argument with his world-famous Mark Steyn wit, and you've got a great book. It is at once deeply sobering and laugh-out-loud funny. Put it on your must-read list.

The Inexorable Power of Demography

In order for a population to maintain its existing numbers, there must be 2.1 live births per woman. More and it's numbers increase, less and they decline. The United States is at almost exactly 2.1. That our numbers are slightly increasing is due, of course, to immigration.

Europe as a whole is 1.38, Western Europe, 1.5 or less. A few country numbers: Germany and Austria 1.3, Italy 1.2, Sweden 1.64, Ireland 1.9, Spain and Greece 1.15. Russia has the lowest at 1.15, and France the highest at 1.89. On the other side of the globe, Japan is at 1.32, and while they'll have a benefits crisis, they don't have to contend with immigrants who want to change the very nature of their society.

All this leads to rapidly declining populations. The populations of Spain, Greece and Russia will start to halve every 35 or 40 years starting sometime mid-century. The population of Yemen will exceed that of Russia.

Besides the fact that the welfare-state will simply come crashing to the ground (it's a mathmatical certainty), no one knows what will happen economically when there are lots and lots of retired people relative to younger workers.

On the other hand, here are the birthrates in Islamic countries: Pakistan 5.03, Saudi Arabia 4.53, Iran 2.33 (though Ahmadinejad is trying to get it up), Afghanistan 6.69 and Yemen at 6.58

Calculators Don't Lie

Into all this come Muslim immigrants. Europeans want(ed?) them because of their labor and ability to fund their welfare states, and Muslims wanted to come because Europe is obviously a better place than, oh, say, Pakistan or Algeria.

Exactly how many Muslims are in Europe now is open to question, and the numbers are probably higher than advertised. However, most sources I checked conclude that about 5% of Western Europe is Muslim, with the total number being at around 23 million.

The Muslim birthrate in Europe is somewhere around 3.5 live births per woman.

The bottom line: Sometime towards the end of this century Western Europe will be majority Muslim. Get the picture?

Islam is Not Just a Religion

This is not the place for a full discussion of Islam, the law, and the nature of society. Suffice it to say that you just haven't been paying attention if you think that the difference between Westerners (whether Christian or not) and Muslims is trivial. We're not talking like the differences between Presbyterians and Mormons, or Jews and Hindus, for that matter.

The reality is that all Westerners, and Hindus too for that matter, live in countries that have been through or deeply influenced by the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment. This is why I'm not worried about the impact of Hispanics on American culture or society; fundamentally they're just like us.

Islam is another matter. There has never been an Islamic Martin Luther, much less a St Augustine or St Aquinas. I'd say Islam was stuck in the Middle Ages, but that would be an insult to Medieval Europe. I believe that Islam is reformable, it's just not on that path right now.

Radical Islam has exported itself to Europe. Melanie Phillips documented how bad the situation in the UK, who's capital was been dubbed "Londonistan" by French police officials. Islamism is an imperial project, says Steyn, and it's coming to a town near you.

It's not just the vast potential for terrorism that is the problem. Surveys show that up to 60% of these Muslims want Sharia law implimented in the European countries where they reside. Many or most of them have no wish to conform to Western standards, they want us to conform to them. Steyn, like any number of authors writing on this subject, provides example after example of demands that radical Muslims are making on their new countries; and time after time native Europe surrenders.

The problem is that the Muslim immigrants see the customs and law of Europe, and reject it. They see women who are free, and it offends them. They see that gays are allowed to live without being stoned to death, and it enrages them. They examine our legal system and believe it unjust because it is not based on Islam. They look at our democracy and seek ways to exploit it. They use our tradion of tolerance against us.

All Muslims? No. But enough Muslims? Yes. If there is a large group of "moderate Muslims" in Europe, it is a well-kept secret.

It's the Identity, Stupid

Population decline in and of itself would only be a economic problem; how to pay for all these benefits? A threat from radical Muslims would not be a problem in a culture and country that firmly believed in itself.

Add the two together, however, and you've got a disaster on your hands.

How Europe lost it's way is no great secret; two world wars, coupled with the threat of complete annihilation during the Cold War, prompted many to distrust or hate nationalism and put their faith in integration and international institutions. And it has, in this respect, worked; the idea of two major European countries going to war with each other is more remote than ever.

Sure, if the Islamists somehow cobbled together a traditional army and hit the beaches in Spain or Italy, Europe would rally to their defense. The problem, as Steyn points out, is that "the dragons are no longer on the edge of the map."

The reasons why Europe is not resisting are several. There is the lack of national identity that I mentioned earlier. There is also it's post-Christian state. Most Americans believe in God whether they go to church or synagogue or not. Most Europeans don't even believe in God. This results first of all in a lack of believing in anything, a lack of identity.

On top of that you've got leftist muliculturalism, which seeks to deny that any one culture or society is superior to any other.

All of this has led to a lack of identity. Islam is not only growing in Europe though immigration, but by conversion. Again, numbers are hard to come by, but there are all too-many news articles about the subject.

What Christian churches are left outside of Catholicism are in full-scale retreat. Most are desperate to retain whatever members they can, and believe that the best way to do so is to become like the society around them. This has led to a milquetoast version of their religion that is utterly unable to resist the threat that is all around them.

The funny part about it all is that if you had to invent an ideology that would be complete anathema to the liberal or leftist mindset, you couldn't do better than radical Islam. It's mysogenic, anti-gay, and theocratic. Yet to most leftists and indeed many liberals, the threat's simply not there. They'll tell you that the Islamists are just upset because we haven't solved the Palestinian-Israeli problem.

In the End

"Jihad can win", is Steyn's message. Although it may seem incredible to us to imagine the sort of changes that would forever change Europe, it is stability that is the illusion. Looking at the broad sweep of history, one realizes that not only do countries come and go, but peoples do to. Meet any Visigoths or Byzantines recently?

So yes, Europe as we know it can disappear. Before it does it will likely catch on as to what is happening, and we'll likely see mass riots or outright warfare, coupled with a rise of fascist parties on the right. We'll also see a mass exodus to the United States, which in my opinion would be a good thing. But in the end the tyranny of demography will prevail unless action is taken now.

What Can Be Done

Steyn doesn't spend much time here, prefering to spend most of the book simply laying out the problem. He does, however have some ideas, most of which are good ones.

First, he lays out our options

1. Submit to Islam
2. Destroy Islam
3. Reform Islam

As Steyn puts it, "because most of us don't take number one as a serious possibility, we're equally unserious about being forced to choose between two and three. But submission to Islam is very possible...."

Because "destroying Islam" is both impractical and immoral, our only option is number three. Ultimately, he says, we can't do this; only Muslims can. However, we can create the conditions for reform.

Some of the things he proposes are supporting women's rights in Islamic countries, rolling back Wahhabi "exports", ie Saudi-funded Mosques. In general, supporting liberty and democracy in Muslim countries is necessary, too. We must think more comprehensively about a ideological strategy as well as a military one. Forget the UN and NATO, they're worse than useless. Changing the government in Tehran must be a priority. Military action when necessary is required, though in general this war will not be won with bombs and bullets.

All of this stuff except ending the military parts are the types of things we don't do very well, but it's quite necessary that we learn.

Trends do not necessarily hold. It is possible that native Europeans will see an increase in their birthrates, or will suddenly come to their senses and enact measures to stop or seriously slow down immigration from Muslim countries. They might rediscover a sense of identity, and maybe even their Christianity. But it seems less than likely to me. Steyn's vision is, if anything, more frightening than even the prospects for defeat in Afghanistan or Iraq. The lights may be going out in Europe once more, and this time I'm not sure we can get them back on.

Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

October 27, 2006

The Intifada in France IV

Don't tell me that everything's normal in France. From the AP (hat tip lgf).

Youths forced passengers off three buses and set them on fire overnight in suburban Paris, raising tensions Thursday ahead of the first anniversary of the riots that engulfed France's rundown, heavily immigrant neighborhoods.

No injuries were reported, but worried bus drivers refused to enter some suburbs after dark, and the prime minister urged a swift, stern response.

The riots in October 2005 raged through housing projects in suburbs nationwide, springing in part from anger over entrenched discrimination against immigrants and their French-born children, many of them Muslims from former French colonies in Africa. Despite an influx of funds and promises, disenchantment still thrives in those communities.

About 10 attackers _ five of them with handguns _ stormed a bus in Montreuil east of Paris early Thursday and forced the passengers off, the RATP transport authority said. They then drove off and set the bus on fire.

Late Wednesday, three attackers forced passengers off another bus in Athis-Mons, south of Paris, and tossed a Molotov cocktail inside, police officials said. The driver managed to put out the fire. Elsewhere, between six and 10 youths herded passengers off a bus in the western suburb of Nanterre late Wednesday and set it alight.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the events "should lead to an immediate response."

"We cannot accept the unacceptable," he told reporters in the northern suburb of Cergy-Pontoise. "There will be arrests. ... That is our responsibility."

Villepin also said efforts should be directed to "revitalize" troubled neighborhoods, and repeated the government's insistence that authorities rid France of "lawless zones" where youth gangs operate.

The overnight attacks and recent ambushes on police have raised concern about the changing character of suburban violence, which is seemingly more premeditated than last year's spontaneous outcry and no longer restricted to the housing projects. The use of handguns was unusual _ last year's rioters were armed primarily with crowbars, stones, sticks or gasoline bombs.

Regional authorities said the Nanterre bus line, which passes near Paris' financial district, had not been considered at a high risk of attack. Francois Saglier, director of bus service at the RATP, said the attacks happened "without prior warning and not necessarily in neighborhoods considered difficult."

Ah yes, those "youths" again.

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The Intifada in France III
The Intifada in France II
The Intifada in France

Update

They're calling it an Intifada in France. From the New York Sun (hat tip Michelle Malkin)

Only days after the violence in the Paris suburbs erupted onto the world's front pages a year ago, these columns described the battles between the Muslim youths and French police, in a November 4, 2005, editorial,"Intifada in France." We wrote: "If President Chirac thought he was going to gain peace with the Muslim community in France by taking an appeasement line in the Iraq war, it certainly looks like he miscalculated. Today the streets of the French capital are looking more like Ramallah and less like the advanced, sophisticated, gay Paree image Monsieur Chirac likes to portray to the world, and the story, which is just starting to grip the world's attention, is full of ironies. One is tempted to suggest that Prime Minister Sharon send a note cautioning Monsieur Chirac about cycles of violence."

The "Intifada" label was dismissed in many quarters. On November 5, John Lichfield in Britain's Independent wrote "from the centre of the world's most beautiful city" that "despite the inflammatory rubbish written by some right-wing commentators in the French press about a ‘Paris intifada', this is not an Islamic insurrection or a political revolution of any kind." He predicted that the riots "will burn themselves out in a few days, just as they have before." The Washington Post editorialized on November 8 that "… It's not the European version of an intifada: Islamic ideology and leaders play no role in the disturbances." Bernard-Henri Levy wrote on November 9 in the Wall Street Journal that "this is not, thank heaven, a matter of an Intifada wearing French colors."

Well one year later, the riots are still going on, and the French themselves are now calling it an intifada.

Posted by Tom at 9:02 AM |