by Patrick West, spiked
Islamism has thrived thanks to the cowardice and evasiveness of the UK’s liberal elites.
The claim that ‘no culture is better than another’ often tips over into an asymmetrical elevation of ‘the other’ and an abasement of the self. In Britain, advocates of hard multiculturalism tend to celebrate cultures belonging to migrants and their descendants, and to denigrate the culture of the historic, indigenous majority.
In an unwitting sense, the self-hating left-liberals have a point. What passes for ‘British culture’ is indeed rotten and debased in many ways. Ironically, what is most debased about it is the establishment position towards Islamism. Here we see nothing but cowardice, evasion, denial, dishonesty and an ethos of victimhood.
This was put into stark relief amid the 20th anniversary commemorations of the 7/7 London bombings last week. A long feature on the BBC website marking the occasion failed to use the words ‘Islamist’, ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islam’ even once in relation to a day of atrocities carried out by Islamist terrorists. King Charles’s banalities about ‘building a society where people of all faiths and backgrounds can live together with mutual respect and understanding’ encapsulated the spirit of our times, in that they failed to address the actual cause of the terror attack. This reluctance is born of mendacity and fear. The establishment fears that telling the truth will inflame both the supposedly unbridled passions of hot-headed Muslims, and stir the racist knuckleheads they imagine make up the white working class.