The State and the establishment should stop pulling the rug out from under moderate Muslims
James Forsyth 3:31pmMatthew Parris and Charles Moore both have important columns in their respective papers today about the Lord Chief Justice’s remarks. Matthew eloquently sums up what is most worrying about the argument made by the Archbishop of Canterbury and supported by Lord Phillips:
the second claim that Lord Phillips endorses is more dangerous. Decoded, Dr Williams is saying that in a multicultural society it is fine for people within a culture to agree not to exercise certain rights, even if English law would allow them to.
This is a charter for male dominance. It's a charter for cultural bullying; for peer-group pressurising; for self-oppression. It's a charter against women and teenagers who cannot make wholly free choices because they have nowhere else to go; a charter against individuals whose circumstances have made it difficult to think outside the cultural box; a charter for discreet duress. I am sorry to hear the Lord Chief Justice endorsing it.
In The Telegraph, Charles Moore tackles the flawed thinking, which is gaining popularity in establishment circles, that suggests that only the ‘moderate extremists’—generally, the Muslim Brotherhood—can win over the violent extremists and so the moderate extremists should be empowered. As Charles writes:
The Mosques and Imams Advisory Board, which tries to keep mosques free of baddies, includes representation of the Muslim Association of Britain, which is a British arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the oldest Islamist organisations in the world. To help purge violent extremism from universities, a new organisation has emerged called Campusalam. At its launch, it gave a platform to three Muslim Brotherhood men.
The common thread in all this is how genuinely moderate Muslims in this country are constantly having their positions undercut by the government and the establishment. One hopes that these figures soon realise what damage their actions are doing to community cohesion.
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Comments
D Short
July 5th, 2008 4:28pmThe rug's above, not under!
D Short
July 5th, 2008 4:29pmYou either sum up, or you don't.
How can you 'eloquently' do it, especially as it's in print, not broadcast or in speech?
Frank Pulley
July 5th, 2008 5:20pmJames F
"The common thread in all this is how genuinely moderate Muslims in this country are constantly having their positions undercut by the government and the establishment. One hopes that these figures soon realise what damage their actions are doing to community cohesion."
Oh please! Stop batting for this predatory and proseltysing religion called Islam, James. Until its 'moderate' devotees stand up and condemn the barbarous acts that have been perpetrated in its name over the centuries (particularly this one); until they state categorically that they will obey the law of this country and cease trying to get sharia law through the back door; until they stop littering our cities with their ornate mosques and offending our ears with the muezzin's imperative to face Mecca and moon the West five times a day, then I will believe that tacit approval of the jihad is being implied by their failure. If they come to a Christian country for a better life, then obey the laws that are based on the Christian culture. If they come here as colonists to breed us into Dhimmitude, then they should rather impolitely be told where to stuff the Koran and all that sail in it and 'expletive deleted' off!
The 'establishment' figures of whom you speak know full well what they are doing: they are maintaining and increasing their efforts to establish a counter cultural hegemony and will use any usefulk idiot cause to destabilise an already tottering heritage. All their ducks are in a row. You're switch hitting, James. It's make-up-your-mind time.
Austin Barry
July 5th, 2008 5:45pmThe disconnect between our ruling elites, exemplified by the preposterous ABC and Phillips LCJ (whose naivety surely qualifies him for the "Who is Mr Michael Mouse?" school of jurists) and the people on this issue increases by the day. Almost everyone I speak to has long arrived at the position stated in the gloriously laconic and typically Australian acronym, FIFO, which suggests that you either fit in or go away.
TGF UKIP
July 5th, 2008 6:15pmD Short, is pedantic pillock correct English?
Tanuki
July 5th, 2008 6:18pmI want a state, a society and an establishment that are equal-opportunity rug-pullers-out-from-under. That is, they'll pull the rug from under mohammedans, jews, christians, sikhs, buddhists, hindus... all equally.
Religion is a pervasive self-inflicted mental illness; its followers need to be viewed with a degree of quiet sympathy and support in the hope that they might one day get better.
Tiberius
July 5th, 2008 7:51pmTanuki: you would never have been in a position to formulate that post had it not been for Christianity.
Human beings would have fought over something other than religion if they had taken your enlightened path all those thousands of years ago.
Verity
July 5th, 2008 7:56pmTGF UKIP - Yes. I looked it up. It's correct.
Tanuki - We are talking about aggressive, militant Islam,not aggressive, militant atheism. I think we've had it up to the kazoo with fundamentalist atheists. They've infested every blog, every newspaper comment section in Britain, all shrieking the same noisy message, for around a year now.
You are not saying anything new and you're not saying anything old in a new way. So, be a good sport and FIFO.
D Short
July 5th, 2008 8:11pmYes, it probably is.
Wonder what 'genuinely moderate' means.
One man's pedantry is another man's literacy.
And The Spectator used to be literate.
In fact, it was a wonderful literary and political magazine which I often bought twice a week.
Sometimes I couldn't wait for my subscription copy to arrive before reading it.
Now I do the same instead with The Week, and don't pay money for The Speccie.
Sometimes now it even mis-spells the names of its contributors.
I hope it's not too late to save it from the current brutalism.
Bulldogbreed
July 5th, 2008 8:46pmFrank Pulley and Verity - Well Said. Always a pleasure to read your intelligent comments. Islam badly needs a reformation. It's way past time for Allah to pop down and say, "Look chaps, enough with the murder and mayhem and hatred already. It's my fault really. I made a teensy weeny mistake. I should have made my great world plan available in all languages, not just Arabic and certainly not by word of mouth to someone who could neither read nor write. Too much room there for error. Sorry for all the confusion that caused. All that stuff about killing and subduing and jihad etc - I never said it. He and his friends made it all up to make the book bigger for the publishers. Well, I'm glad I've got that off my chest. It's been bothering me for the past 1400 years. Now off you go and make the world a nice place to live in."
Silent Hunter
July 5th, 2008 9:07pm'moderate muslims'?
Aren't they like unicorns and hen's teeth?
You hear about them but never seem to see one.
The term is surely an oxymoron!
Austin Barry
July 5th, 2008 9:53pmD Short, spot on, but shouldn't there be a full stop after the D?
Frank Pulley
July 6th, 2008 12:29amAustin B
Perhaps D is Short of full stops.
The Proud Carbon Footprint
July 6th, 2008 3:31am"The State and the establishment should stop pulling the rug out from under moderate Muslims" ... or they'll graze their foreheads.
Chuck Unsworth
July 6th, 2008 8:59amWhat's a 'moderate' anything, for that matter?
I'm a 'moderate' psychopath.
Fergus Pickering
July 6th, 2008 12:57pmThere is no moderate Islam. There is just Islam. I don't like it. Do you like it, James?
Verity
July 6th, 2008 4:08pmI see that our highly intelligent, highly trained sniffer dogs are to be forced to wear booties if they are taken to investigate a Muslim household. Why? Dogs are an integral part of British life - and the British police and armed services - and have been by our sides, helping us hunt, and guarding us, for thousands of years.
The ad for the Strathclyde police, with a puppy sitting in a policeman's hat, has been withdrawn because it "offends Muslims".
Does it?
Has any Muslim complained? I very much doubt it.
Did any Muslims complain about the bank, a couple of years ago, that had pictures of piggy banks for children's savings in the windows?
No. It was the self-congratulatory indigenous great souls whose understanding surpasseth all sanity.
I believe we've reached the tipping point - and it is not Muslims themselves who are making all these crackpot demands. It is the destructive, vicious Gramscian left and all the self-regarding, great-spirited mahatamas. See Archbishop Rowan Binkyboots and Lord Chief Justice Tra-La-La.