What They Are Saying in London

BRITISH MUSLIMS MUST SHOW
WHICH SIDE THEY ARE ON

British Muslims Need to Pick a Side

Monday July 2, 2007
By Leo McKinstry
London Daily Express

WHERE are the marches and demonstrations, the passionate speeches and angry slogans? Where are the protesters shouting “not in my name”?

Usually so quick to take to the streets at any perceived slight against their religion, all too many Muslims in Britain seem indifferent to attempted mass slaughter being carried out in the name of Islam.

When an obscure Danish newspaper published a satirical cartoon of the prophet Mohammed last year, there were such huge Muslim rallies that central London was brought to a halt on three successive weekends.

Yet the serious terrorist incidents of recent days have incurred no such heated response. In some cases, there was an outright attempt to deny Muslim responsibility. The deputy general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, Daud Abdullah, came out with this preposterous statement after the London bombings had been foiled: “Let’s not create a hypothetical problem. It can be the work of Muslims, Christians, Jews or Buddhists.”

“We will not win with yet more appeasement of Islam.”

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To make such an assertion after the record of Islamic terrorist barbarity across the globe over the past decade is an insult to our intelligence. Elsewhere, half-hearted words of condemnation were mixed with the inevitable self-­justifying blather about Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan.

This points to a worrying state of denial within the Muslim community in Britain. Too often, there is a shameful unwillingness to face up to the reality of murderous Islamism, which uses the Koran as a blueprint for terrorism. As the former radical, Hassan Butt, who has now renounced jihadism, puts it: “Most Islamic institutions in Britain just don’t want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the difficult topic of violence within Islam.”

Even when Muslims admit to the link between their religion and political violence, they slide into the pose of victimhood, pretending that the actions of the terrorists are only a response to poverty or U.S. imperialism.

What is just as sickening is that some of our key political leaders, who should be protecting our society, collude with this grotesque narrative of denial and blame-passing. So in Scotland, shortly after the assault on Glasgow airport, the new First Minister Alex Salmond claimed that “individuals, not communities” were responsible for terrorism, a piece of nonsense given that it is the Muslim community that has bred the terrorists.

In London, Mayor Ken Livingstone was even more reprehensible. He dismissed the idea of any connection between Islam and terrorism, claiming that: “Muslims are less likely to support the use of violence to achieve political ends than non-Muslims.” Yeah, right—tell that to the relatives of those killed in the July bombings, or the Twin Towers, or tell it to your own or the Bali attacks or the Madrid massacre. Metropolitan Police, which says there are at least 2,000 Muslims in Britain linked directly to Al Qaeda. Then Livingstone sought to excuse the bombers by referring to the war in Iraq and to levels of unemployment among young Muslims, both of which had left them alienated from our ­society.

This is a seriously warped analysis. Hardline Islamists are alienated from the British mainstream because of their own sick, divisive ideology. They are the ones who constantly seek separation, demand special treatment, and hold our democratic civilization in contempt.

Their so-called “disenfranchisement” is entirely of their own making. Violent jihadism was occurring long before Britain and America toppled Saddam Hussein. The continual wailing about Iraq also points to the dubious loyalty of too many British Muslims, who seem to have more sympathy with a cruel dictatorship than with their own nation. Let us remember that, despite the abuse heaped on Bush and Blair, almost all the carnage in Iraq has been caused by Muslims killing fellow Muslims.

They have a nerve complaining about their lot, when it is their co-religionists who have built a climate of fear in our society, murdered scores of innocent British civilians and brought chaos to our transport network. Rather than moaning, Muslims should take res­pon­sibility for reforming their own religion. For there is something rotten with the state of Islam in modern Britain.

We can see that not just in the propensity of radicals to resort to mass murder but also in the repression of women, the spate of “honour” killings, the shrill demands for the imposition of separatist sharia law, the refusal to integrate and the eagerness to cling to alien customs, such as the wearing of full Islamic dress.

All Western countries have had some problems with Muslim communities. But it is telling that in the U.S., where there is a far stronger sense of national identity, Muslims are much more integrated.

In contrast, the British official state creed of multiculturalism has encouraged victimhood and alienation, through the provision of separate housing, faith schools, language translation, support for mosques, grants to ethnic groups, and the abandonment of border ­controls.

Home-grown terrorism is the price we are paying. And we will not win with yet more appeasement of Islam. Muslims’ grievances are nothing more than the expression of regret that they do not control our society. We have to fight back, and that means abandoning multi-culturalism, cracking down on immigration, and re-establishing a sense of national identity. Those Muslims who are really opposed to terrorism will join in this struggle, not sit sullenly on the sidelines.

Could it happen here in the U.S.?