The former Home Secretary Suella Braverman is in trouble. She recently wrote that Britain was “sleepwalking right into a ghettoised society where free expression and British values are diluted. Where Sharia law, the Islamist mob and anti-Semites take over communities…Islamists are bullying Britain into submission.” Cue outrage.
A number of days later Conservative MP Lee Anderson told GB News that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, had given “our capital city away to his mates”, before adding, “I do not actually consider that the Islamists have gotten control of our country, but what I do consider is they have control of Khan, and so they’ve got control of London.” The uproar and cries of racism and Islamophobia have been so loud that Anderson has been suspended by the Conservative Party and the hunt is on for Braverman.
Once again, the noise on either side is overwhelming, but is it possible to have a more balanced, Christian perspective?
Firstly, let’s begin with some basics.
To critique Islam or Islamism isn’t racism
Islam isn’t a race. As most Muslims will let you know, there are Muslims from all different races. I even have asked quite a few commentators and politicians in the event that they would regard Christophobia as racist and never one in every of them would. So why does one religion get this privileged status? When politicians akin to Sadiq Khan, Anna Soubry and David Lammy claim that being critical of Islam is racist, they’re playing a really dangerous game.
Islam and Islamism are usually not the identical
All Muslims are usually not Islamists, although all Islamists are Muslim. What, then, is Islamism? Wikipedia defines it as “a political ideology which seeks to implement Islamic precepts and norms as generally applicable rules for people’s conduct; and whose adherents seek a state based on Islamic values and laws (sharia) and rejecting Western guiding principles, akin to freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, artistic freedom and freedom of faith”.
I even have known Muslims within the UK who got here to this country precisely because they desired to escape Islamist regimes, although most could be too scared to say that such is the reach of Islamism within the UK.
This distinction is significant. In a pluralist society we welcome Muslims to the country and support their right to freedom of worship. That is why I wrote this text on Christian Today in defence of Muslims being permitted to construct a mosque in Stornoway.
But there’s an unlimited caveat to that. Muslims who come to this country must realise that it is a country built on Christian principles which include the very freedoms they might exploit, and which don’t exist for many Christians in Islamic countries. If we don’t want to live under Sharia law, or have an apartheid society where Muslims have separate laws from the remaining of us, then we must always be free to say so – without being silenced by the cry of ‘Islamophobia”.
Lee Anderson was silly in his remarks not because he warned about Islamism, but quite because he accused Sadiq Khan and London of being controlled by Islamists. That is a serious charge which without evidence is each harmful and silly – playing right into the hands of the true Islamists.
But was Braverman correct in her evaluation that Islamism is a transparent and present danger within the UK? I think she was.
Firstly, it is vital to notice that this whole situation arose out of an astonishing week in Parliament. The SNP, in search of to recommend a motion in Parliament calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, recommend one which was so extreme that many Labour MPs couldn’t have supported it. The trouble was that those self same Labour MPs were coming under such pressure from Islamists and left-wing supporters (Hamas and the Socialist Workers make strange bedfellows!) – a pressure which included physical threats to themselves, their families and their staff – that the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, modified parliamentary procedures, with the intention to allow a Labour amendment as an alternative. Cue uproar. If you ought to read more on this, Konstantin Kisin summarises the situation well.
But the important thing point is that such was the Islamist threat to MPs that our parliamentary procedures needed to be modified. As the journalist Stephen Daisley tweeted: “The Islamist threat to MPs is so severe the Speaker needed to upend parliamentary procedure to appease it, but in addition the Islamist threat is being overblown by the fitting, but in addition MPs need more protection. From Islamists. Whose threat is overblown. Gotcha.”
Was Sir Lindsay right to be concerned? Absolutely. Private security firms are being deployed to guard MPs after the Hamas attack on Israel – and so they are usually not being deployed to guard them from Jewish extremists!
The Islamist movement has already killed one MP, launched a deadly automobile and knife attack on Westminster, forced the Jewish MP Mike Freer to resign and killed 94 people in Britain prior to now couple of many years. The Far Right are cited (rightly) as a threat, but there isn’t an equivalence. The Far Right have killed three people. Ironically the Far-Right flourish when mainstream society refuses to take the specter of Islamism seriously.
It’s incredible how the specter of being accused of racism or Islamophobia silences people. Take for instance this text on the BBCÂ from Laura Kuenssberg. It has no difficulty in mentioning the Far Right, Brexit etc, but not a word about Islamism. Why? Could or not it’s fear of being accused of blasphemy?
We at all times hear about ‘extremists’ but unlike others, Islamic ones are rarely named. Singer Morrissey summed it up with a biting remark after the Manchester Arena bombing (where 22 people, including children, were murdered by Islamist Salman Abedi): “Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says the attack is the work of an ‘extremist’. An extreme what? An extreme rabbit?'”
The doctrine of equivalence is such a dangerous one. The organisation Hope Not Hate made a fantastic fuss this week about gaining access to the private tweets of Paul Marshall, one in every of the owners of GB News. They seemed greatly enthusiastic about a number of tweets (not written by Marshall) which he passed on, warning concerning the dangers of Islamism. This was proof of being ‘Far Right’ and ‘racist’.
Hope Not Hate is a hopeless and hate-filled organisation that when issued a report claiming that writers akin to Douglas Murray, Rod Liddle and Melanie Phillips were far-right extremists. Meanwhile they provide a free pass to the hatred often being expressed in some (thankfully not most) mosques within the UK and on our streets.
What concerns me essentially the most isn’t these larger issues but how they’re played out in our society. I could provide you with many examples that I even have experienced but listed here are just a number of – and for obvious reasons I won’t name names. I feel of the gay activist in Scotland who told me he was leaving the country due to the hatred. When I asked if it was homophobia, he said, “Oh no, I’m a Jew, and for the primary time in Scotland we now have serious antisemitism.” The proven fact that this has include the arrival of more Muslims isn’t a coincidence.
Or one other gay couple in a Yorkshire town who had bought their very own house and were living together. As the neighbourhood became increasingly Muslim, they got ‘offers’ encouraging them to sell their house. When they refused, they faced a campaign of harassment – excrement through the door etc. They complained to the local council and an official got here round, who was himself a Muslim, and in effect told them they need to sell, because the world was now Muslim and so they were offensive to Muslims.
Or the feminine Asian Islamic teenager who got here to see me because she had turn out to be a Christian and had a white boyfriend. She was facing considerable harassment from her family and the local council and police had told her to go to her local Asian community group for help. She couldn’t because a few of her clan were officials in that individual organisation. She ended up having to go right into a protection programme of sorts where the police removed her to a different area of the UK, anonymously for her own safety.
What astounded me about that incident several years ago was that there already existed a special unit within the police for safeguarding Muslims who converted. I assumed then, as I do today: why are we not prosecuting those that threaten, abuse and harm within the name of their religion, quite than simply removing the victims out of harm’s way? Why not take care of those that would cause the harm? Is this since the authorities have already lost control?
In Sydney after the Hamas attacks last October, the New South Wales government decided to project the Israeli flag onto the Sydney Opera House. An indication was arranged by Islamists, and unbelievably Jews were ordered to keep away from town centre. Anyone who waved an Israeli flag was at risk of being arrested while witnesses reported hearing chants of ‘F*** the Jews, where are the Jews, gas the Jews”. The waving of Palestinian flags was permitted, but fly an Israeli flag and also you could be arrested – for your individual protection! That is a situation that might and is being repeated in lots of UK cities and towns.
The situation is obvious. Islamism is an actual danger in Britain and it’s the primary danger by way of social cohesion, terrorism, and non secular and political freedom.
And where is the Church in all this? Pathetically silent – except to hitch in the final warnings about Islamophobia. Has the Church of England or the Church of Scotland, or any denomination, warned concerning the dangers of Islamism? A taxi driver in a northern English town told me that in his area which was now largely Muslim, two churches had been burnt down and nothing could possibly be done about it. Maybe he was lying or unsuitable, but the very fact is that many who live in areas where Islamism is an issue share those fears, while those that live in areas where it doesn’t exist, decry from the security of their gated communities anyone who complains about it as racist and Islamophobic.
If the Church doesn’t speak up for freedom and democracy on this once Christian country, who will? The politicians? The media? Or the far right? When people turn out to be desperate, as they see their neighbourhoods and their country happening this direction, it’s little wonder that they turn to real extremes.
We should speak out now – while we still can. Because once the strange alliance of Islamists and progressives get their way, a latest hate crime bill shall be passed and any criticism of Islam or any Muslim shall be considered Islamophobic and racist.
Is there an answer to all this? Yes – and partially two we’ll see what it’s.
David Robertson is the minister of Scots Kirk Presbyterian Church in Newcastle, New South Wales. He blogs at The Wee Flea.
