The mystery is explained: Why, with the enemy inside the gates, acting as the enemy, Britain still doesn’t react

In a secretly taped speech to a closed meeting of his party members in a room in a pub a couple of years ago, British National Party chairman Nick Griffin said that Islam is a “wicked, vicious faith,” and was arrested and tried for the crime of “stirring up racial hatred.” When he was acquitted, all manner of British politicians said the law should be toughened up to make sure that saying that Islam is a “wicked, vicious faith” would land a man in prison.

In a secretly taped sermon in a British mosque a few months ago, an imam praised the Taliban for killing British soldiers and urged the Taliban to cut off their heads. That’s beyond stirring up racial hatred, that’s calling for murder; that’s treason. Yet when this and other murderous and treasonous outpourings by Muslim imams were shown on the tv program Dispatches recently, there was no reaction from the mainstream media or from the government. Similar statements calling for jihad war and the destruction of Britain have been made in the past by Muslims in Britain, and in most cases no legal steps have been taken against them. Britain’s laws against “race hatred” are mainly designed to punish and silence white Britons, not Muslims.

However, let’s not just blame the government for this. If the people remain supine, why should the government changes its appeasing ways, which, in the absence of popular outrage, the government probably think most of the people support?

Who could have imagined in 1215, or 1415, or 1715, or 1815, or 1915, that the British would end up like this? Who could have imagined, when Winston Churchill mocked Labor Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald as the “Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench,” that 70 years later the entire British nation would have turned into the Boneless Wonder?

Here are the key excerpts from Richard Littlejohn’s column in the Daily Mail about the Dispatches broadcast:

Over four months, Dispatches recorded an assortment of mad mullahs calling for “jihad” (holy war) against the “kuffaar” (unbelievers).

Muslims are urged to hit women who refuse to wear the hijab, kill homosexuals, reject British law and democracy and set up in this country an Islamic state within a state.

Praise is lavished on those who kill British soldiers, particularly the Taliban. “The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulder,” screams one imam at the Sparkbrook mosque, in Birmingham, which has been hailed by Tony Blair for its contribution to its “multi-faith and multicultural activities.”

The unrelenting message is one of Muslim world domination and denigration of “infidels.” At the nearby Green Lane mosque, Channel 4’ s undercover reporter was directed to a secret website where the popular convert Abu Assama preaches that Jews and Christians are the enemy of Islam and it is the duty of all Muslims to fight them….

At the Regent’s Park mosque, in London, as well as many others throughout Britain, DVDs disseminating the most disgusting slurs on the “kuffaar” are on open sale.

Needless to say, the “moderates” who run these mosques deny any knowledge of the preachers of hate and their violent propaganda, which almost exclusively follows the teachings of the extremist Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia.

Littlejohn then points out that the revelations have been entirely ignored by the leading media organs and by the government and the parliament.

Meanwhile Peter Hitchens suggests that there is nothing to be done about this ongoing surrender to Islam, because the problem is not that official Britain hasn’t realized what is happening. The problem is not that official Britain has realized what is happening and doesn’t like it but is too cowardly and intimidated to do anything about it. The problem is that official Britain has already consciously accepted what is happening and has signed on to it. Hitchens writes:

The real menace to this country does not come from terrorist bombs, which a calm, resolute people can cope with. It comes from the liberal elite’s decision to appease Islam.

The louder the Blairites talk about the ‘threat to our way of life’ from Muslim extremists, the more they themselves increase that threat.

Criticism of Islam, jokes about Islam, are rapidly becoming taboo, even legally restricted. Yet Muslims have total freedom to say what they like about the rest of us.

Quietly, the Civil Service, the police and the education system (and many big companies) have already begun to adapt themselves to the idea of an Islamised Britain. [Emphasis added.]

Was Ruth Kelly, Minister for Political Correctness, really shocked when a group of Muslim lobbyists abruptly demanded partial recognition of Sharia Law and the official celebration of major Muslim holy days?

She shouldn’t have been.

Any observer of what is happening in this country would have known this demand was coming. It will be made with increasing force as the Muslim population grows and the Muslim vote—already decisive in many constituencies—grows with it, because all the major parties are without principles and will do anything for votes….

Islam responds to tolerance by demanding more. It responds to retreat by advancing. It is wisely cautious when weak, ruthless and ferocious when strong. It recognises no equals and makes no compromises.

Once it is dominant, all others are subjected to it. Those who live in the Pennine towns, or in parts of London, can already see its flexing of muscles.

The number of Muslim women wearing headscarves, or total veils, has risen sharply in the past few years. Large new mosques have appeared on many skylines. Many more are being built. This is happening now, here. Our Government is helping it.

I don’t want to believe what Hitchens is saying, but I must confess that the moment I read the words,

“Quietly, the Civil Service, the police and the education system (and many big companies) have already begun to adapt themselves to the idea of an Islamised Britain,”

everything clicked into place and the treasonous sickly conduct of the British elites made complete sense. Indeed, what else can explain their behavior other than that they have already decided to surrender to Islam?

In other words, what I predicted a year ago would happen in Europe someday, has, according to Hitchens, already happened, at least in Britain. On January 4, 2006, I wrote the following:

WESTERN LIBERALS’ ULTIMATE EMBRACE OF ISLAM

We need to face the possibility that the left-liberal citizens of the West really do hate our civilization and really do desire that it come to an end. True, they may not be completely consistent (and certainly not consciously explicit) about this, since they still want their material comforts and familiar way of life to continue, for the time being. Nevertheless, civilizational surrender and suicide is the true end toward which Western liberals are moving.

That chilling thought came to me as I was reading over the last paragraph of my critique of Mark Steyn’s New Criterion article, in which he stated as a conclusive fact that much of the West is going to disappear and be taken over by Islam in our life times:

[Steyn’s] notion that the dying-out and retreating Europeans would be in a position to preserve their culture and somehow bestow it on the triumphant Musulman is too ridiculous for words. However, perhaps Steyn is inchoately glimpsing, not the assimilation of the Muslims into a somehow still intact European culture, but an image from deeper in the past and outside our own civilization, namely that the surviving whites of Europe, having converted to Islam, will offer the use of their skills and knowledge to the Muslim rulers, just as Christian and Jewish converts serving under the Abbasid Caliphate provided it with many of its cultural and scientific works. In any case, it is an embrace of doom to which this “conservative” pied piper is leading his readers.

As I read this, I suddenly realized that my whimsical image of Western Christians and Jews serving some future Caliph of Europe is a prospect that would be highly pleasant and attractive to many Westerners. I realized that these spiritually emptied-out elites are not just anti-Western, as has been said a million times, and do not just seek to harm and weaken the West before its enemies, as has been said a million times, but that they literally do not want our civilization to continue. It’s too guilty, too powerful, and its guilt and its power are too much of a burden for them. How do you go on upholding something that you don’t believe in anyway? It is similar to what I have called the hilarious dilemma of liberal patriotism, in which, for example, the Democrats at their 2004 Convention felt constrained to indulge in a four-day-long extravaganza to dramatize their fervent commitment to national defense, when, as everyone knows, the very idea of national defense is repellant to most of them. By the same token, Western liberals can no longer stand pretending to care about and to be responsible for a civilization that they no longer believe in. They resent the charge; they’re weary of the task. If the opportunity were offered to them, they would much prefer to be the retainers and attendants of a Muslim Caliph of Europe, no longer having to carry the unwanted and disliked burden of Western-ness and white-ness, but serving in a subordinate though still useful and honorable role in a new Islamic Golden Age. They would be happier and more fulfilled that way.

Is this the true motive of the dhimmi-like mindset that is now rife in the West? Is this the true consummation of the Western intelligentsia’s five-centuries-long romance with Islam?

If it is, then the European awakening and turnabout that I have hoped would result from the horror of losing much of our civilization to the Muslims may not occur. Instead, as Europeans see their civilization being defeated and destroyed by the triumphant Musulman, they will accept what has happened, and convert.

If something like what I predicted a year ago is already coming to pass, and if, as Hitchens has said, the British elites have already decided to adapt themselves to an Islamized Britain, then nothing short of a revolution can save Britain now, driving the current political and cultural establishment from power, and replacing them by people who will defend Britain.

- end of initial entry -

Cyrus R. writes:

Not that anyone needs to tell you this, but it’s not just Europe, and to their credit, at least the rulers of Europe do not yet exhibit the effrontery of American ones. They silently abet the Islamization of Europe, but have not yet gone so far as to speak hopefully of the day when their peoples are assimilated out of existence in their own countries. Our leaders—George Bush, Gov. Huckabee, and the overwhelming majority of the Democratic party—are only too happy to predict and work for the re-Indianization of the United States by the mechanism of unlimited Latin American immigration. They’re not ashamed enough to dissemble, but rather glow with self-righteousness as they look forward to the new, non-white, non-Western America and scold the rest of us for our resistance. On both sides of the Atlantic, it’s simply a case of the finding the nearest hostile party to accept their surrender.

LA replies:

Of course you’re right, but the Mexicans are not waging jihad, openly promising murder and death and destruction, while the authorities do nothing. THAT is on a different level of “amazingness” than any other issue today. And in the item I wrote tonight the puzzle finally (horrifyingly) came together and made sense to me. There’s no mystery about this. The British elites have already accepted and subscribed to an Islamized Britain. That explains their behavior. It’s not pleasant to realize this. But at least now things make sense.

Alan R. writes:

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I marveled at how liberals and leftists could ignore the massive body of evidence that Islam, or at the very least, Islamic terrorism, is a major threat to them (and to all of Western Civilization). I hypothesized three causes of this maddening phenomenon:

(1) Cowardice. The terrorists are a fearsome bunch, and to counter them will be difficult. Perhaps there’s an easier way than fighting?

(2) Bamboozlement by liberal propaganda, which teaches that non-Westerners and non-Christians are all virtuous. Maybe the terrorists are just a lunatic fringe on an otherwise good religion?

(3) Hatred of the West, which is part of liberalism. This, of course, would be fundamentally caused by self-hatred, because your nation is an extension of yourself, so to hate your nation is to hate yourself.

But now there is a horrifying fourth possibility: they want the terrorists to win! Unfortunately, this is perfectly consistent with all three points above: the laziest way to protect yourself from a bully is to submit to his demands. And if he’s actually virtuous, submitting to him would be good, wouldn’t it? And if you hate the Ways of your Fathers, then to submit to an alien religion seems thrillingly liberating. I had assumed that if the attacks made by Islam were to continue and to become more ferocious, then most of the liberals would come to their senses. But they might not. We gotta fight this with everything we have. Ultimately, we need to reassert the Ways of our Fathers, the most important of which is Christianity; not just the individual being saved by faith in Christ, but the Christian society, rooted in the transcendant truths of the Bible so that it can reject the fads of the moment. And to do this, we must aggressively attack, in public, the ideas of our enemies, so that uncommitted onlookers will see that we know what we’re talking about, and our enemies don’t.

Under the subject heading, “Why England is comatose,” Jim Kalb writes:

Just a thought on your “mystery explained” post: It seems to me that acceptance of Islamization would follow the same path the universities, churches and other institutions have followed since the 60s. In both cases:

1. There’s a substantial self-righteous and disruptive minority that doesn’t recognize the validity of any rules that don’t go their way, e.g., the 60s left or the Muslims.

2. From a liberal standpoint the claims the minority puts forward can’t simply be dismissed, because there are no enemies to the Left and no multicultural third-world enemies. So it would be a lot of trouble and cause a lot of controversy to squash them.

3. Therefore, the answer is to give in to the minority, to thank them for disrupting things because it draws attention to what has to be done, to keep the majority quiet by giving them comforts and amusements and letting them do what they want so long as they shut up, to tell moderate conservatives that this is what the authorities have decided and your job is to respect the authorities, and to demonize and squash immoderate conservatives.

As such the problem seems more like abandonment of our civilization than hatred of it. Things are ending with a whimper and not a bang. Think of present-day university presidents or bishops. Most of them don’t hate their institutions. It’s just that their highest goal is to stay comfortable, stay respected, avoid trouble, and keep the institution going and money coming in. They’re willing to sacrifice everything to those goals.

LA replies:

Two points.

First, if your main objection is to my use of the word “hate,” your analysis may be correct, because while I said “hate,” hate is not the essence of my point. I wrote a year ago, quoted in the current entry:

“As I read this, I suddenly realized that my whimsical image of Western Christians and Jews serving some future Caliph of Europe is a prospect that would be highly pleasant and attractive to many Westerners. I realized that these spiritually emptied-out elites are not just anti-Western, as has been said a million times, and do not just seek to harm and weaken the West before its enemies, as has been said a million times, but that they literally do not want our civilization to continue. It’s too guilty, too powerful, and its guilt and its power are too much of a burden for them. How do you go on upholding something that you don’t believe in anyway?”

So what I’m describing is not at bottom hate (or at least it does not have to be described as hate), but rather lack of love and belief.

However, if you’re saying that the mere desire to “avoid problems,” is sufficient to explain the left’s behavior, I can’t believe that. Yes, that is surely a major part of their motivation, but I don’t see it as the totality. There also has to be the radical de-valuing of our own civilization, as well as the desire to avoid problems.

To put it another way, in order for the avoidance of problems to become the liberal elites’ highest priority, as you have put it, they already had to have radically devalued our civilization.

Jim Kalb replies:

Oh, I agree. The reason comfort is the highest value is that all others have been given up. These aren’t lost violent souls, only hollow men. Of course, the fact they are hollow men empowers savages and the deranged. And in a way hollow men like to be abused because it gives them a feeling of reality.

LA replies:

Yes, like Sir Ian Blair, head of British police, who reportedly was offended that a Muslim female police cadet refused to shake his hand at a graduation ceremony. Blair is a leading dhimmi, yet suddenly he gets miffed that a Muslim woman behaves as a Muslim woman is supposed to behave. Blair has given up the reality of Britain and of standing for Britain; but he gets the substitute reality of being annoyed at a social rebuff by a Muslim, even as he continues the British surrender to Islam.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 21, 2007 06:41 PM | Send