Phillips is shocked, shocked, that there are Islamists employed in her country

If surprise is the characteristic mode of liberals, because they are deeply convinced that human beings are all good and are all the same, and therefore they are always surprised when actual human beings turn out to be bad or different, then Melanie Phillips is truly what she always says she is—a liberal. “The scale of infiltration by Islamists into mainstream British society,” she writes, “becomes ever more astounding and alarming.” In addition to the Muslim Doctors’ Plot, a traffic warden in a London suburb turns out to have been convicted for a terrorist attack on a Paris train station in 1995. Britain’s Security Service, MI5, has a list of “eight police officers and civilian staff who are suspected of links to extremist groups,” including al Qaeda. And, “while you’re rubbing your eyes over that,” she adds, there’s the matter that a man who owns the company that supplies security to many important government buildings in Britain is a known Islamist sympathizer.

Phillips of course has never had a syllable to say against the mass immigration of Muslims into Britain; she has never suggested that it be stopped or reduced, let alone that Muslims be removed from Britain. Yet she is surprised, astounded, and rubbing her eyes that a country that with her approval allows a mass immigration of Muslims into Britain employs some of those Muslims in mainstream positions as doctors, police, traffic wardens, and suppliers of government services. She somehow expects that Britain can indiscriminately allow millions of Muslims to enter and live in Britain, even as it keeps “bad” Muslims from working in any number of quite ordinary jobs once they are in Britain. And she is surprised, astounded, and rubbing her eyes that this is not the case.

It doesn’t occur to her that if Britain must exercise, FOREVER, such a high level of discrimination against Muslims once they are IN Britain, it might be better not to admit them into Britain in the first place. Nope. That little bit of kindergarten logic skips by her completely. Liberals NEVER make the connection between their liberal beliefs and the negative consequences of those beliefs. And that is why they are ALWAYS surprised.

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Karen writes from England:

She’s beginning to look very stupid! What does she think Moslems were coming here for if not to infiltrate the society? And how can you tell a good one from a bad one? By all appearances both bombers looked pretty good and no amount of checks would have revealed that they were evil.

Jeff in England writes:

But for every Phillips there seems to be a Leo McKinstry or a Peter Hitchens or a Minette Marrin at least mentioning the option of immigration restriction. Phillip’s narrowness of focus and inflexibility which has served her well in dealing with certain aspects of this issue (she is like a charging bull who never gives up) is starting to work against her. Slowly but surely, she is falling behind many of her fellow commentators on the Islamic issue. It is getting harder for most ‘Suspects’ not to at least mention Islamic immigration restriction. Sadly, Melanie will probably be the last to do so here in the UK.

Ben W. writes:

The fact that Melanie Phillips is shocked to find Muslims working in professions in Great Britain shows how little she knows about the immigration process. In most countries a massive influx of immigrants is usually preceded by a first wave. This first wave is the government allowing professionals from other countries to come in (doctors, nurses, electrical engineers, computer programmers, journalists, school teachers) to be employed by companies who have such positions open.

Typically these companies claim that they cannot fill these positions with native workers. There is a constant clamor in the US by companies to have visa requirements relaxed or extended for this purpose.

Once this first wave occurs, the next phase is a wholesale influx of lower skilled immigrants. Thus to find immigrants working in professional occupations should hardly be a mystery to her.

Another immigration stream coming into a country as part of the first wave of professionals is the use of consultants, contractors, sub-contractors and investors. Organizations will employ consultants on a temporary basis thus getting around certain visa restrictions. In the meantime these organizations get time for petitioning the government to allow these consultants to become full-time employees.

All Melanie Phillips had to do was go into any school, any hospital, any company in any Western country, and she would have seen the influx of immigrants into professional positions (the constabulary included).

Apart from consultants, the other avenue into a country is through investment. An immigrant can invest in a country by creating a business or purchasing an existing company. Nothing then precludes that business from becoming a government supplier of services.

A consideration in this whole immigration fiasco may be the examination of using foreigners as professionals. Why? Because this narrow form of immigration usually leads to wider forms, just as a narrow street may become a boulevard.

In thinking about this first wave of immigration (professionals), the question to be asked is what is the effect of this first wave.

If our professions come to be filled by immigrants, is this a neutral, economic fact that has no other implications? Or do these professionals influence society one way or another?

An example of this would be Ramesh Ponnuru. His concept of America is that it is a set of general propositions. Could this be an expression of an immigrant who came here primarily because of a professional position? I have conversed quite a bit with non-native professionals and in absolutely every case I see that they formulate their concept of this country is such propositional terms. The US for them is to be thought of as primarily a “non-discriminating” country.

LA replies:

I think Ben is breaking down the problem into more parts than are needed in order to understand it. The fallacy in Phillips’s position is self-evident. Consider again her amazing sentence:

“The scale of infiltration by Islamists into mainstream British society becomes ever more astounding and alarming.”

Now she knows that there has been a mass immigration of Muslims into Britain. She also knows that a very high number (let’s say a third) of Muslims in Britain show at least some degree of support for Muslim radicalism, or “Islamism.” She knows that Britain is extremely tolerant and accepting of Muslims, including “Islamists.” Why then would she be astounded at the “infiltration of Islamists into mainstream British society”? What pale is there preventing Muslims, including “Islamists,” from passing from the margins of British society into mainstream British society?

Her statement is the ultimate expression of liberalism surprised, upset, discombobulated, by the reality that it has brought into being.

Ben replies:

Why she would use the word “infiltration” as if these people subversively and secretly infiltrated those organizations is funny. They were welcomed by her government into the country and since they had the appropriate credentials, a “non-discriminatory” society would have to allow them to work in any organization. Just like the American military has Muslim chaplains (and we don’t see the hilarity of this obtuseness).

Thomas writes:

Melanie Phillips is willing to expose certain instances of Islamist infiltration, but not to pass judgment on them. She is a fairly typical member of the “concerned chattering classes” in Britain—a pseudo-conservative commentator without the courage of her convictions (if any).

The reason I’ve started reading here at VFR, is because of the intellectual ballast with which your “incorrect” critique of the “passing scene” is freighted.

Ben writes:

I didn’t realize how widespread the phenomenon of professional occupations going to immigrants had become. The following from Mark Steyn writing at Jewish World Review underlines this:

Some 40 percent of Britain’s practicing doctors were trained overseas—and that percentage will increase, as older native doctors retire, and younger immigrant doctors take their place. According to the BBC, ‘Over two-thirds of doctors registering to practice in the UK in 2003 were from overseas—the vast majority from non-European countries.’ Five of the eight arrested are Arab Muslims, the other three Indian Muslims.

Bilal Abdulla, the Wahhabi driver of the incendiary Jeep and a doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital near Glasgow, is one of over 2,000 Iraqi doctors working in Britain.

Karen writes:

Jeff writes: “Phillip’s narrowness of focus and inflexibility which has served her well in dealing with certain aspects of this issue (she is like a charging bull who never gives up)”

I think Jeff is unfair to Melanie. Her flaw is her inability to write about stopping Moslem immigration and deporting those who are here; in other words sorting out the problem. Otherwise she writes well on a range of subjects and is so far the best writer on Moslem extremism and her persistence in getting that into the public realm with her book “Londonistan” was admirable. The others Jeff mentions haven’t done much and they have just vaguely thrown about the notion of stopping mass immigration and not specifically Moslem immigration. In fact Minette made a point of saying that stopping non European immigration would not be racist to Moslems as there are so many of them in Europe already. That’s as good as useless.

Moslems are still being encouraged into Government jobs—Moslem spies for MI5!! If you can’t believe it read the article. Has the head of MI5 never heard of double agents? How can they be so naïve? I think this confirms that these people are not fit to defend the country.

And Moslems are not very interested in doing their duty when obliged—woman juror sits with hijab and MP3 player all through court case.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 09, 2007 01:30 AM | Send