by Patrick West, spiked
The strain of Islam that’s growing dominant in Britain has no interest in tolerance or pluralism.
Whenever a public figure dares to criticise Muslims or Islam, you can bet that they will be met with two emotive responses. The first is that they will be accused of racism or ‘Islamophobia’. This option was the one taken by the UK prime minister last week when reacting to comments by the shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, who had described a mass act of worship in central London as an ‘act of domination’. Rather than address the substance of Timothy’s claim, Keir Starmer condemned the ‘utterly appalling’ remarks, suggesting that Kemi Badenoch and her Conservative Party had a ‘problem with Muslims’. In effect, he was smearing them as bigots.
The second response – equally evasive – is to indulge in deflective ‘whataboutery’. This was the path chosen by attorney general Lord Hermer. ‘Timothy and Badenoch’s comments beg the question – would they have a problem if I, as a Jewish man, were praying in public?’, he asked. ‘Or is it just Muslim prayer they find offensive, and contrary to “British values”?’ This line of inquiry was repeated and expanded ad nauseam, with many deeming it brilliant and original to hypothesise whether we should also be unsettled by Christians, Sikhs and Hindus engaging in mass worship on Trafalgar Square.
Of course, both responses betray an ignorance of the nature of religion. They fail to address the central concern raised by Timothy: that a variety of Islam practised in Britain today has become distinctly aggressive. The reason public displays of Christianity raise no eyebrows is because Christianity has been intrinsic to these islands for a millennium and a half, and the leaders of England’s established Church largely refrain from seeking the mass conversion of the country’s heathens. Moreover, Christianity, unlike Islam, does not divide the world into two spheres: that in which it reigns (The House of Peace) and that where it does not yet reign (The House of War). To put it more starkly, people simply aren’t worried about Christian, Jewish, Sikh or Hindu suicide bombers.
The Secret Islamic History The Elites HIDE – Raymond Ibrahim