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I would say the UK is simply toast, but "halal toast" is a much more appropriate description given the facts.
The problem that the UK is having with the radicalization of its Muslim population is so severe as to be the worst of any nation in Europe. The problem got that way through years of Britain's practice of a virulent type of multiculturalism in accordance with which Britian uncritically tolerated the radical sects of Salafi / Wahhabi / Deobandi Islam. And even now, the Labour government is showing no intention of changing its approach.
Labour is burying its multicultural head deep into the dhimmi sands. Specifically, the Labour government has decided to stop calling Islamic terrorists "Islamic terrorists." Instead, the UK government will henceforth label Islamic terrorist activities as "anti-Islamic." One would be hard-pressed to find a better example of Orwellian doublespeak.
Labour is completely out of touch with reality. To judge this - and to see the potential ramifications of Labour's latest foray into doublespeak - all one need do is juxtapose the recent article in the Daily Mail in which the Home Office announced this new policy with a few other articles.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to the UK Home Office:
Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism. In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity".
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam.
The Daily Mail
But . . .
Wish as the Home Secretary might, the truth is of course the exact opposite. Wahhabi / Salafi Islam, exported from Saudi Arabia to all four corners of the world with billions in petrodollars to become the dominant form of Islam in the West, has also become the driving force behind the Pakistani variant dominant in the UK, Deobandi Islam. According to Dr. Tawfiq Hamid, a former Salafi terrorist and member of Ayman al Zawahiri’s Jamaah Islamiyah, their faith in the medieval dogma of Wahhabi / Salafi / Deobandi Islam is what drives their violence:
The goal of Salafi Islam is "complete Islamic dominance." Salafi dogma holds that the duty of every Muslim is to wage "jihad against non-Muslims and subdue them to Shari'a - the duty of every true Muslim . . . [It is] to engage in war against the infidels, the enemies of Allah.
And as Zuhdi Jasser explains, terrorism if far more than a mere anomaly as the Home Office is suggesting:
[Citizens] need to understand that this is not a conflict against a tactic but rather a common ideology which utilizes a radical interpretation of Islam and is a natural off-shoot from political Islam.
NRO Interview of M. Zhudi Jasser
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According to the UK Home Office:
Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion.
The Daily Mail
But . . .
If you consider radical Salafi Islam mainstream, than the Home Office may have a point. Otherwise, this is a bit of dhimmi insanity.
The only people who complain of being alienated when terrorists motivated by the Wahhabi / Salafi / Deobandi ideology are identified as "Islamic terrorists" are the Salifists and, by orders of decibels, their enabling organizations. You often hear them decrying it is a form of Islamophobia. For example, it is the Salafi organization CAIR that asked all news organization not to mention the Islamic ties of the six terrorists who planned to strike Fort Dix in the name of Allah. And in the UK, it is the Deobandi organization the MCB – the organization with terrorist ties that wants to see Sharia law imposed in Britain - that does not want Islamic terrorists described as Islamic.
You do not hear other Islamic group complain of this. To the contrary, they want the brightest light possible shown on the Salafists. Indeed, the term Islamofacism was first coined by a Muslim, David Sulyman Schwartz, who is the director of the Center For Islamic Pluralism – a site that even has a section dedicated to "Wahhabi Watch."
As to the average non-Muslim – and Muslim – in the UK:
Conservative MP Philip Davies said no Muslim constituent had ever complained to him about the use of the term "Islamic extremism". The Shipley MP added: "Whenever anyone refers to Islamic terrorism, they are not saying all Muslims are terrorists.
The Daily Mail. This complaining is all a tactic of radical Islamists to keep their activities in the dark and to forestall any criticism by portraying it as Islamophobia. But, the West buys into that bit of dissimulation at its own great peril, as Zhudi Jasser explains:
[The greatest challenge facing Western Muslims] is not Islamophobia. If anyone is to blame for the existence of the concept of Islamophobia, if it even exists, it is Muslims who have been unable to articulate a manifestation of Islam which is free of a political state which threatens the sovereignty of the states in which Muslims reside. I don’t subscribe to the existence of the notion of Islamophobia because I believe that we are in just the beginning of a global conflict of political ideologies (Islamism vs. Americanism), and the conflation of "Islamophobia" is intentional by Islamists to deflect . . . the free world from the necessary debate of political ideologies.From where I sit, as a devout anti-Islamist Muslim, the greatest challenge facing Muslims today is an intellectual victory over the Islamists. . .
NRO Interview of M. Zhudi Jasser. And as Tawfiq Hamid explains, the onus for the problems of radical Islam lie with Salafism. "Salafi ideology is what is largely responsible for the so-called ‘clash of civilizations.’" And indeed, Hamid notes that Salafists see "any criticism" of their dogma as a sin "punishable by death and eternal damnation."
The problem with the Home Office, and indeed, the entirety of Labour’s reaction to radical Islam is that it is based on the wholly failed premise of multiculturalism. As one Muslim leader in Britain, Manzoor Moghal, chairman of The Muslim Forum, recently noted:
Multi-culturalism has backfired spectacularly. . . What we really need is not special treatment for Muslims and endless appeasement, but genuine equality. That is supposed to be the bedrock of our modern democratic society. We should turn it into a reality before our society fractures even more.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to the UK Home Office:
In one passage [the Home Secretary] said: "As so many Muslims in the UK and across the world have pointed out, there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorise, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief."Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic'.
But . . .
This is simply a refusal to acknowledge reality. It is pretending the situation does not even exist, let alone taking stock of how far reaching it is in Britain. According to a recent report in the Times:
Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline [Salafi / Deobandi] Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to "shed blood" for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.
The Times, Hardline Takeover Of British Mosques
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According to the UK Home Office:
[The Home Secretary] referred to enlisting the Muslim community against "anti-Islamic activity".
The Daily Mail
But . . .
The result of Britain's brand of multiculturalism is that it makes no cricial assessments or value judgements about the differing sects of Islam. Thus, the Home Office is not turning to "moderate Muslims" to help the community, but rather to the large, well funded radical organizations that are the apologists for Islamic terrorism in the first place. This only makes any sense if you believe the total fantasy Labour is positing, that terrorism and radicalism are simply anamolous anti-Islamic acts. That is the only way to explain Labour's decisions a few weeks ago, when they established Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB), a board to oversee the appointment of foreign Muslim clerics and the to establish the standards for educating Muslims in the mosques. Instead of appointing "moderates" to head this board, two of the four organizations Labour chose were the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). Both are radical organizations with strong ties to terrororist organizations. Both organizations promote seperatism, espouse Islamic triumphalism, and have clearly stated a desire to see Sharia law enacted in Britain.
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According to the UK Home Office:
The strategy emerging across Government is to portray terrorists as nothing more than cold-blooded murderers who are not fighting for any religious cause.
The Daily Mail
But . . .
What chance does any doctor have to diagnose and treat cancer if they refuse to acknowledge that cancer exists? As Tawfiq Hamid explained the Salafist religious motivation behind his desire to slaughter non-Muslims:
Jihad against non-Muslims seemed to me to be a win-win situation. The following verse, commonly cited by Jamaah members, validated my duty to die for Allah: "Allah has purchased the believers, their lives and their goods. For them [in return] is the garden [of paradise]. They fight in Allah's cause, and they slay and are slain; they kill and are killed... it [paradise] is the promise of Allah to them" (Koran 9:111).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to the UK Home Office:
Sir Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has also said phrases which liken London to a " battlefield" will no longer be used.
The Daily Mail
But . . .
This is like something out of Harry Potter with "he who shall not be named." But Harry Potter is a children’s fairy tale. Believing in it will not lead to bloodshed and turmoil. The same cannot be said of the fairy tale being spun by Labour. Whether or not the government will name the problem, the truth is that radical Muslims are turning areas of Britian into Muslim fortresses:
Islamic extremists have created "no-go" areas across Britain where it is too dangerous for non-Muslims to enter, one of the Church of England's most senior bishops warns today.The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester and the Church's only Asian bishop, says that people of a different race or faith face physical attack if they live or work in communities dominated by a strict Muslim ideology.
Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali's warning that Islamic extremism is creating 'no-go' areas in parts of Britain has provoked a predictable barrage of outrage. He has been condemned for making 'inflammatory' remarks, distorting the truth about our inner cities and 'scaremongering' against the Muslim population.
But, paradoxically, this reaction from the politically-correct establishment is an indicator of the weight of his case. If our ruling elite were not so worried that his views would strike a chord with the public, it would not have been so anxious to condemn him. His statement about the dangers of the rise of radical Islam matches the reality of what people see in our cities and towns, where the influence of hardliners is undermining harmony and promoting segregation.
Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Muslim Forum
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According to the UK Home Office:
[The Home Secretary] will meet members of the online industry in the next few weeks to decide how to crack down on Al Qaeda inspired sites.
The Daily Mail
But . . .
Britain in fact has already started an internet crackdown. The UK government intends to arrest a UK blogger, Lionheart, for his criticism of Islam on the internet. That is an insane silencing of free speech. It is the government's means of forcing multiculturalism on Britain's population by the government's police powers. And it is directly aimed at silencing any criticism of Islam in the UK. It is a travesty.
As to radical Islam, the problem there is only partly on the internet. The big problem is in the UK’s mosques themselves - yet that problem is being studiously ignored:
Pamphlets advocating jihad by force, hatred for insufficiently observant Muslims, Christians and Jews, and segregation" are readily available at hundreds of the UK’s mosques, according to a recent report.
The Telegraph
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According to the UK Home Office:
Mosques will be helped to root out extremism, with imams encouraged to learn English.
The Daily Mail
But . . .
Expecting the radicalized mosques of Britian to police themselves is simply a dangerous fantasy. Here is a bit of what goes on in a large number of Britain’s Salafi / Deobandi Mosques:
For the rest of the show, go here and scroll down to the bottom.
Labour has no chance whatsoever of meeting the problem of radical Islam if one of the centerpieces of their strategy is to enlist the Mosques in voluntary cooperation. And this nonsense about having Imams learn English ignores the scope of the problem completely. The Labour government has allowed the problem of radical Islam to fester so long that radical Deobandi Imams are now home grown in the UK:
Seventeen of Britain’s 26 Islamic seminaries are run by Deobandis and they produce 80 per cent of home-trained Muslim clerics. Many had their studies funded by local education authority grants. The sect . . . has significant representation on the Muslim Council of Britain . . .
The Times, Hardline Takeover Of British Mosques
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According to the UK Home Office:
Youngsters will be taught about all faiths in schools, and £2million will be spent "twinning" schools of different faiths.
The Daily Mail
But . . .
If you read Tawfiq Hamid describe how he became a Salafi terrorist, you will find that it had nothing to do with his interaction with people of other faiths while growing up. Indeed, the opposite is true. He had numerous friends that were not Muslim and he attended a Catholic school in Egypt. The problem is in the Salafi / Deobandi mosques.
This Home Office idea is just more multicultural insanity under a slightly different heading. It will have no effect whatsoever on whether Muslims become radicalized. It seems designed more to promote a positive view of Islam among non-Islamic children than to do anything about the reality of radical Islam. And as Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Muslim Forum points out:
Yet still, even after all the lessons of recent years, the Labour government has refused to abandon multi-culturalism. Instead it has merely presented this outlook under a new name, describing it as "multi-faithism".
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As I hope the above makes clear, the ramifications of the Home Office's embrace of Orwellian doublespeak goes far beyond mere semantics. The Labour government is attempting to appease the radical Islamists that it has nurtured like a viper in its midst through the practice of multiculturalism. It is an incredible disservice to the Muslims in Britian who accept Western values and do not want their faith radicalized by the ever increasing influence of Wahhabi / Salafi / Deobandi Islam. Yet the Home Office’s actions almost assure the opposite. The government has no chance of dealing with the problem of radical Islam so long as it fools the nation by pretending the problem of terrorism is completely separate from Salafi ideology.
Possibly the most important thing we can do in the West is shine a spotlight on the radical dogma of Wahhabi / Salafi / Deobandi Islam in the hopes of supporting true moderates, such as Tawfiq Hamid and Zhudi Jasser, as they attempt to evolve their faith. As Jasser said in a recent interview at NRO:
I and so many others of the majority of Muslims who are at home in Western pluralistic society are living modern interpretations of Islam which can if given a chance and the resources can directly counter the radical interpretations of fanatical Muslims which have abused so many in the world.
But the Labour government is not supporting people like Jasser. To the contrary, Labour is supporting the well-funded Salafist organizations and, with this foray into Orwellian doublespeak, has just gone the further step towards extinguishing the last bit of candlelight on radical Islam in the UK. This of course poses an equally grave danger to the non-Muslim population of Britain who need to fully comprehend the beast in their midst. Again to quote Jasser in a different interview:
[A] better informed . . . citizenry can hold Muslims and non-Muslims alike . . . accountable for their facilitation of the radicalization of Muslims. Once this process is understood the contribution to jihadism of political Islam and the dreams of the Islamic state will become clearer to every [citizen] and the ideological threat will be realized.
That is clearly not happening in Britain. Instead, as the threat increases, the Labour government is feeding its non-Muslim citizens disingenuous pablum worthy of Neville Chamberlin.
Radical Islam will only be defeated when the ideology of Wahhabi / Salafi / Deobandi Islam is marginalized and Islam itself made to evolve through its own Period of Enlightment. No one knows this better then the former Salafi terrorist turned reformist Tawfiq Hamid. Let’s give him the last word:
The civilized world ought to recognize the immense danger that Salafi Islam poses; it must become informed, courageous and united if it is to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant ideology.
Tawfiq Hamid (emphasis mine)
Update: Brits at Their Best have a post that relates directly to the issues raised above. And Soccer Dad has a post that supplements these issues. As he notes in his post:
Islamist hatred of the West is not a grievance we can address. Attempting to accomodate the demands of Islamists only encourages them. For there to be peace between Islam and the West, there needs to be a change of heart in Islam. Anything else is useless.
One could analogize the utter insanity in Britain this week to putting the foxes in charge of the hen house, but that comparison falls far short of reality. The only danger of that fact pattern is that the farmer is out a few chickens. One needs instead to analogize to a fact pattern where the foxes radicalize the chickens and establish a heniphate on the entire farm.
