The Sun, which in Britain is loosely categorised as a national newspaper, last week “exposed” a pole dancer called Yasmin as the daughter of the Muslim cleric and former leader of Hizb ut Tahrir and Al Mujahiroun, Omar Bakri Mohammed.  She doesn’t see much of daddy these days - he’s stuck in Lebanon because the British government won’t let him come back - and anyway they don’t get on.  She’s a single mum who ran out on an arranged marriage, and what with the pole dancing and tattoos, she’s not exactly a stereotypical Muslim, yet she’s apparently fasting, and she doesn’t eat pork.

David T at Harry’s Place cites Yasmin as an example of how…

In a free and pluralist society, an awful lot of people move backwards and forward between different iterations of their identity. One generation is not like the next.

The inference we are supposed to draw is that Muslims in western society (in this context, particularly British society), are quite capable of integration and assimilation into the wider community.  This is what other groups have done down the centuries - is there any reason to suppose that Muslims should be any different?

All of this has implications for the proposition, advanced by various commentators, including Mark Steyn, that Europe is undergoing a process of Islamification driven by demographic change: catastrophically declining birth rates in Western Europe - particularly among the indigenous population, contrasting with much higher birthrates among Muslim communities (many of whom are immigrants or the children or grandchildren of immigrants), and combining to deliver a very rapid demographic shift in favour of a very greatly increased Muslim population.

David T lists three premises which seek to characterise, but largely misrepresent, this theory:

How is this going to happen?

• First of all, the birth rates of Muslims will outstrip those of non-Muslims indefinitely.
• Secondly, all Muslims will demand, and subject themselves to Sharia.
• Thirdly, people will convert to Islam, but nobody will leave Islam.

Each of those premises is dubious.

The first premise is indeed false (or most probably false).  The birthrates in Muslim communities are already falling and will probably match those of the majority community within a couple of generations.  However, that still gives a fair amount of time for fairly rapid growth in the Muslim community as a proportion of the total population.

The second proposition is equally false.  The degree of adherence to Shari’a law is variable within and across Islamic countries - at least insofar as the citizens of these countries have any choice in the matter.

The third proposition is the most interesting and the most significant.  Currently approximately three percent of the British population is Muslim.  Current demographic trends would suggest that this proportion will increase to somewhere between ten and fifteen percent within the next fifty years or so, depending on the impact of additional immigration.  The other unknown factor is what the effect of conversion will be.

Walking through some of the great cities of Northern England, as I do reasonably frequently, it is striking these days not that so many women are wearing hijab, but that so many of the faces under the hijab are white.  For Islam is not an Arab religion, nor is it an Asian religion or a “Black” religion.  Islam is a religion with a global mission and, like Christianity, it assumes a global mandate.  The call to Islam is being heard and accepted by an increasing number of the ethnic majority in British society.

The big questions here are “Why?” and “How strong will this trend become?”.  The why is reasonably straightforward.  There are several reasons why someone might find Islam an attractive proposition as a religion.

Firstly (and most destructively), many on the far left of politics, having discovered that their old socialist gods are made of clay, have discovered political Islamism as an alternative outlet for their totalitarian predilections.  The ironically-named Respect Coalition led by George Galloway MP was founded as a marriage-made-in-Hell between the Trotskyite Socialist Workers’ Party, a bunch of Galloway groupies and another group of Islamists.  Although Respect has recently collapsed (as the SWP control-freaks found riding the tiger of Islamism rather too draining of their revolutionary energy), the ideological convergence has yet to run out of steam.  The (largely unrequited) love affair that many leftists have with Hamas and Hezbollah, and the continuing and alarming rise of anti-Semitism within the mainstream left are both disturbing indications of this.

Secondly, mainstream Christianity in Britain has largely given up the ghost.  The Church of England is largely paralysed by squabbles over gay rights and women bishops.  Other churches are in catastrophic decline.  Meanwhile the mosques are heaving.  Moreover, the government, the political establishment and the media are willing to give Islam an easy ride whereas Christianity, its beliefs and institutions are simply regarded as an easy target.

For example, back in 2005 the BBC televised a performance of Jerry Springer - The Opera, a comedy show which included, among other things, a representation of Jesus in a nappy.   Christian activists in the UK rarely get outraged about anything, but in this case the result was pandemonium, driven not least by the suspicion that if it had been Mohammed in a nappy then the Jerry Springer Opera would have got nowhere near a television screen, or indeed a stage. Compare and contrast the uproar among the so-called liberal elites about the publication of certain Danish cartoons…

Sooner or later, the logic of this situation will begin to sink in.  Muslims get some respect for their beliefs (even if this respect derives to no small extent from fear).  Christians get none and therefore regularly get a kicking - in fact sometimes they get the kicking which would otherwise be given to Muslims - the gay police association produced a pamphlet denouncing religious hate crimes against gay people.  The booklet had a picture of the Bible on the cover.  What happens when those of a traditional frame of mind see Muslims articulating their beliefs and worldview (more or less), and getting respect for it, while the Christian churches spend all their time in pointless handwringing and getting a regular pasting for their pains?  Perhaps some of those pretty parish churches in the shires will be mosques in a few decades time.

Thirdly, we live in a time of unprecedented social breakdown.  The family as an institution is in real trouble.  In some council housing estates fathers are an endangered species.  Many young people are rootless, without hope or prospects, without direction or even much of an education.  Islam offers a structure to life, a goal for the future, membership in an extended family and community.  Particularly when so much of what passes for Christianity seems to have lost the plot, would it really be a surprise to see these people turn to Islam as a solution in their lives?

The fourth part of “Why?” addresses the second question.  How strong will this trend become?  We can’t at this stage know.  Western societies generally have lost their sense of direction.  There is no longer much of a sense that we believe in the superiority or even of the worth of the liberal democracies for which our grandparents’ generation had to shed blood.  We won’t stand up for freedom and human rights abroad.  When our governments try to free an ancient and noble people from an appalling dictatorship, millions of numbskulls take to the streets to chant “Not in my name!”  The protagonists of the culture wars have sought to erase all memory of what our societies stand for - and in its place all we have is a blank page - tabula rasa - anything goes.  The point is that the page can’t remain blank forever.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  If we no longer know what we are for, then somebody else will step in who does.

The only question is when.  What will the tipping point be?  What will be the trigger?  A major environmental disaster?  Another war?  A collapse of the global financial system perhaps…

Read about this at EuropeNews and it should be a shocking reminder of just how perverted the justice systems of the West have become.

The picture is an affront to all victims of terrorism and their families. Abu Qatada, Al Qaeda’s ambassador in Europe, strolls along a busy London street fondling his prayer beads.

This is the first photograph of the greying 47-year-old - said to be one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist suspects - since he was released on bail from a high-security prison after the courts ordered that he could not be sent home to Jordan because his human rights would have been breached.

It was taken on July 7, hours after the families and friends of the 52 innocent people killed in the London transport suicide bombings three years ago remembered their loved ones at a memorial service.

The radical cleric was freed three weeks ago when a judge ruled that there were no grounds to detain him after previous attempts to deport him to Jordan, where he was convicted of terror attacks and bomb plots, were defeated in the courts.

So apparently if you’re a terrorist and you can’t be deported that also means you can’t be detained.  Hell, it’s much easier just to let you go so that you can do it again–perhaps your freedom will inspire other would-be terrorists to blow up innocents as well!  What a win-win situation all around…

The fanatical preacher, who was 20 stone but slimmed down on prison food, was pictured on a shopping trip near the £800,000 home he shares with his wife and children.

Exact details of the location where the Qatada family are living on benefits of an estimated £50,000 a year are protected by court orders.

Indeed, the more one reads the more one thinks to oneself…hmmm…the life of a radical Islamist cleric/terrorist doesn’t sound so bad.  Sure, one could find oneself hiding in the Pakistani hills, but then again, if one could only make it to the UK, one could instead lead a life of luxury and relaxation…

Neighbours who came forward soon after Qatada was freed spoke of their outrage over having such a man in the area while British soldiers are being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The decision to free Qatada has left Britain’s anti-terror laws in tatters and the taxpayer facing a bill of tens of thousands of pounds to keep the preacher under surveillance by the security services.

Truly, nothing is certain but death and taxes, and Abu Qatada is surely the man who will make both those outcomes far more likely for far too many innocent people…

Read the full article here.

~by Robin Simcox

[TO JOIN THE BLOGBURST CLICK HERE]

Events are currently unfolding in Britain which will almost certainly not penetrate any international newsreels (or any in the UK for that matter), but the importance of which transcends the geographical boundaries of the British Isles. It concerns an organisation known as the British Muslim Initiative (BMI).

The BMI have been accused of being a front group for terrorist organisation Hamas. BMI President Mohammad Sawalha was formerly the head of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the British wing of the Muslim Brotherhood (of whom Hamas are the Palestinian wing). He has been accused by the BBC in 2006 of being a key political and military strategist for Hamas, and one of BMI’s senior members, Azzam Tamimi, has declared his wish to become a suicide bomber in Palestine.

On 29th June, a rally celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday was held in London’s Trafalgar Square. In response, Sawalha gave an interview in Arabic to the al-Jazeera news channel. This interview was translated by the UK blog Harry’s Place, which describes itself as “an open forum for the democratic, secular, anti-fascist, liberal, anti-totalitarian left”. Their translation of al-Jazeera’s initial transcript showed Sawahla commenting that “We, the Arab and Islamic community, gather here today to express our resentment at the celebrations by the Jewish community and the evil/noxious Jew in Britain”.

Harry’s Place dutifully reported its findings, which is where the controversy begins.

Al-Jazeera physically changed its report, with the word “?????? ” (translated as a variant of “evil”) replaced with “?????? ” (“lobby”). Harry’s Place then received a letter from BMI saying they had “inexplicably grossly mistranslated [Sawalha’s] reference to the Jewish ‘Lobby’” and that unless an immediate apology was issued, they would pursue the matter legally. An al-Jazeera reporter explained that he had made a mistake in his initial report, and Sawalha had, indeed, referred to the “Jewish Lobby”. Al-Jazeera, then, had made the error; Harry’s Place were simply reporting the translation as it originally appeared.

(more…)

In 2004, Scotland Yard detectives slept on the floor of their offices as they gathered evidence that could be used in court against a terrorist network led by Dhiren Barot. The intelligence was overwhelming but it was only in the final moments of the two week time period that they were able to prevent the release of Al Qaeda terrorists onto the streets of London.

As The Telegraph noted: “Two years later, they pleaded guilty to plotting to make a dirty bomb and to kill fellow citizens in huge numbers.”

Many journalists, politicians and bloggers like to make comparisons of Islamic terrorism to the atrocities of the IRA. Former British Prime Minister Sir John Major made the astoundingly naive claim that the United Kingdom had, “faced far more regular - and no less violent - assaults from the IRA”.

(more…)

~by Jillian Becker

I am a convinced law-and-order conservative, an eagerly practicing capitalist, an ideological libertarian. I accept enthusiastically the whole package of US Republican Party policy and sentiment - pro-America, pro-victory in Iraq, pro-gun, anti-abortion (with sensible reservations), pro-death penalty, pro-tax cuts, pro-smaller government, pro-spreading democracy and freedom throughout the world, pro-Israel, anti-welfare - all except one of its usual ingredients: belief in God. I do not accept God.

Quite simply, I cannot believe in God. I am old, past my three score years and ten, and decade upon decade I have read and listened, and there cannot be much that is old or new, famous, terse, verbose, smart, innocent, insidious, widely published or commonly uttered, learnedly debated or popularly discussed on the subject of God that I have not read or heard.

(more…)

from Churchill’s Parrot

“Our loyal, brave people… should know the truth. They should know that there has been a gross neglect and deficiency in our defenses… This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of the bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year, unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in olden time.”

- Sir Winston Churchill, 1938
A remarkable document has been produced by our good friends at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the leading forum in the United Kingdom for national and international Defense and Security, founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington. So pointed and soaring are its words and concepts we are surprised we did not author it ourselves. In fact we did, in so many words. But as many seem apt to regard the word of high ranking British officials weightier than that of a 108 year old blogging parrot, we shall defer, for their clout and experience more than warrant it. We advise, in particular, our American cousins to consider this essay’s observations carefully, as you are less than a year away from deciding whether to follow Britain further down the path of surrender under President Obama/Clinton, or continuing the fight under President McCain.
“Security is the primary function of the state,” declares the RUSI essay Risk, Threat, and Security: The Case of the United Kingdom, “for without it, there can be no state, and no rule of law.”

Sixty years ago, such plain logic was so engrained in the minds of Western man that it scarcely required penning. Today, in the era of post-Leftist-enlightenment, it is “controversial” as the state no longer sees its rightful role as security guard, but as doting nanny charged with tending the every whim and desire of spoiled and feckless children. This dereliction of duty has not only rendered Britain disarmed militarily, but has inspired the contempt of the British people and drastically eroded their faith in their system of government. Thus the sad case of the United Kingdom. She is a soldier, thrust onto the battlefield, with neither the weaponry nor the will to fight. And, in Western democracies, while security is indeed the primary function of the state, keeping faith that theirs is a state worth securing is the primary function of the people. Neither function is being duly tended. And this, the RUSI report warns, is potentially lethal.
“The United Kingdom presents itself as a target, as a fragmenting, post-Christian society, increasingly divided about interpretations of its history, about its national aims, its values and in its political identity.”
This statement encapsulates what makes this RUSI report so remarkable to us. British defense officials have made plain their objection to governmental mismanagement and under-funding of the military before. But never can we recall this level of officialdom publicly decrying the erosion of the national character and the perils inherent therein. We and others throughout the blogosphere have been screaming this point for years. Now that it is echoed by Privy Councilors, Vice Admirals, Generals, and Field Marshals will any one listen?
“The confidence and loyalty of the people are the wellspring from which flows the power with which all threats to defense and security are ultimately met,” they rightly remind us.
And diminishment of that flow is inversely proportional to increase in vulnerability. “Our loss of cultural self-confidence weakens our ability to develop new means to provide for our security in the face of new risks. Our uncertainty incubates the embryonic threats these risks represent. We look like a soft touch. We are indeed a soft touch, from within and without.”

This is a crisis we can scarcely afford, particularly in our present circumstances.
“The country’s lack of self-confidence is in stark contrast to the implacability of its islamist terrorist enemy, within and without. … The jihadists deploy the power of conviction that comes from a sectarian understanding of religion. They also surf the Internet and use it to their advantage and our peril. They are not state-bound, but can take over part or all of a state, as has happened in Afghanistan and Somalia, and as could happen in Pakistan.”

The report lists other risks as well, none of which the authors feel, Britain is particularly well suited to address at present. These include the vanishing Royal Navy, the emerging superpowers of China and India, the politics of climate, the re-emergence or Russia, and Britain’s messy love triangle with Washington and Brussels.
A bleak assessment to be sure. But equally certain is that there is hope. We need look no further than our own history.
“History and experience have been neglected in favor of ‘group think’ and enthusiasm for ideological projects. Public expenditure has been directed in correspondingly perverse ways with clear consequences for our defense and security. All this has contributed to a more severe erosion of the links between the British people, their government, and Britain’s security and defense forces, than for many years.
What is needed is to reverse the vicious circle and turn it into a virtuous one. Fortunately, our history and experience suggest tried and reliable tools for doing this.
We need to remind ourselves of the first principles which govern priorities in liberal democracies. Defense and security must be restored as the first duty of government.”

Various strategies are proposed for accomplishing this. One of particular interest is the formation of a Cabinet Committee not dissimilar to The United States’ Department of Homeland Security. This committee would “draw together all the threads of government relating to defense and security whether at home or abroad. It would be ‘somewhere for anyone to go’ in raising concerns.”

This would come as welcome news to those left to fight Britain’s Street Jihad on their own, with no government assistance, only harassment.
Lastly the authors advocate that Britain reclaim her sovereignty from failing multilateral institutions (if you’re thinking the United Nations, The European Union , and NATO you’re tracking nicely) and place her trust in more proven alliances.
“What are the essential features of alliances worthy of that name? Shared essential values; shared culture, and especially military culture; shared interests; and, most basic of all, trust – trust enough to permit the special intelligence relationships enjoyed by the UK for the last sixty years with Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand.”

Ladies and gentlemen – the Anglosphere.

“Foul weather friends are to be preferred to fair weather friends; and the British people know precisely which are which. The English-speaking world – manifestly close friends – and, less openly, those with interests common to ours, emerge as our main diplomatic resource.”
The echoes of Sir Winston are unmistakable. However, the Britain of his day differs from that of today in that his contemporaries – with a bit of prodding - knew who they were and from whence they came. Such self-knowledge is essential, the report points out, if alliances are to be of any real consequence.
“In making our choices, however, we need to know who we are ourselves and what we stand for. How else should we ourselves be reliable allies to others? Once we know these things and admit them, we can restore our divided house to harmony and thence to security.”

As dismal a portrait this report paints of Britain in her current state, it brings great joy to our heart that such has been compiled and put forth by those who have done it. The nexus of the Queen’s Privy Councillor and Lionheart, of the people and their proud history, of Britain and her true allies is the point at which our “supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor,” begins, that we might, “arise again and take our stand for freedom as in olden time.”

The power is ours to use if we choose. For as the contributors to this essay declare “The deep guarantee of real strength is our knowledge of who we are.” The question for Britain and all free nations is - after nearly forty-five years of demonizing our histories, mocking our principles, and transferring our responsibilities onto government - do we care?

Cheers,
Charlie

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