British authorities explicitly gave green light to jihad advocacy

The British authorities are as pathetic as they seem. This is from Powerline:

In January, at his trial for incitement to murder and other charges, the radical cleric Abu Hamza claimed that between 1997 and 2000, members of MI5, the British domestic security service, effectively O.K.’d his frequent incitements to jihad, on one occasion telling him: “Well, it’s freedom of speech. You don’t have to worry as long as we don’t see blood on the streets.”

That is truly the ultimate expression of liberalism. Everything you do is is okay with us, up to and including public calls for jihad mass murder against our country, so long as you don’t actually commit jihad mass murder.

And get this. Not only did the Brits tell the jihadists they could freely preach jihad (so long as they didn’t kill anyone); even today, a year after the London bombings, the British leaders responsible for that disgraceful policy defend it. In a New York Times article picked up at Reflecting Light, Christopher Caldwell writes:

When I asked [David] Blunkett [the former home secretary] if he accepted the idea that terrorists had enjoyed too many freedoms in London in the 1990’s, he said, “Well, in the sense that Karl Marx moved to London, Britain has always had a tradition of taking in people oppressed in their own countries.” This is a common view. Immigrant troublemakers are likened to Marx and Engels, and any difficulties welcoming whole groups are likened to those occasioned by the arrival of Russian Jews in the 19th century or of Huguenots in the 17th.

I hate to say this. I have always liked and admired the British. England is our mother country. I feel a closer connection with England than with any country on earth other than my own. But I am really starting to despise them.

Please don’t misunderstand. This is not a final or definitive statement. I am not saying “I despise the British, quote unquote.” But unless we can express our gut instinct of revulsion at behavior and attitudes that so richly deserve it, there is little chance that those attitudes will change. The British need to know how contemptible they have become. Not that we are much better. But even in our hyper-liberal country officials never allowed Muslim jihad preachers to preach jihad in public, and then continued defending the policy even after a Muslim terrorist attack had occurred. There is something uniquely sickening and effeminate about it. Indeed, even the former Home Secretary’s name, David Blunkett, makes him sound like a man without … well, like a man without a chest.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 26, 2006 10:44 AM | Send