Melanie Phillips on Britain’s response to Sudan
Karen writes from England:
This from is Melanie’s latest article in the Daily Mail:
But the fact remains that, in response to this persecution of a British citizen under Islamic sharia law, the Foreign Secretary’s craven response was to say how much Britain respected Islam.
OK, she shows that she recognises that this persecution is occurring under Sharia law and she points out how utterly dhimmified the Foreign Office has been in its enfeebled response. This is evidently a problem which will recur. What therefore is her proposal to resolve this issue, so that no British citizens are persecuted again in Britain or abroad?
Mr Miliband should have thrown the ambassador and every Sudanese diplomat out of the country, cancelled all visas and stopped British aid to Sudan.
And he should also have denounced the religious precepts which produced such a barbaric response to a preposterously imagined slight.
Moreover, the only reason Mrs Gibbons was placed in this predicament at all was because, for more than two decades, the British Government has kow-towed to the Islamist rogue regime in Sudan.
“Cancelled all visas”—does this include the large number of Sudanese who are living in Britain? Does she mean they should be expelled? Can all Sudanese citizens be expelled from Britain now including those with dual British citizenship?
“Denounced the Religious precepts”—this is tantamount to denouncing Islam and sharia. She cannot be selective about which bits she likes and which bits she wants removed.
And then:
This puts all of us at risk, including the many British Muslims who abhor extremism and want to live in freedom.
But up to 50 percent of Muslims in Britain want to live under Sharia Law!
Of course, most British Muslims are peaceful. But as an increasing number of reformist Muslims are now openly saying, to deny the religious roots of this terrorism and extremism is absurd—and knocks the ground from under their own feet. True, a number of Muslim bodies have denounced the sentence on Mrs Gibbons.
They say this is because the whole thing is absurd as she obviously had no intention of criticising Islam. But one wonders whether, had she done so, they would have been so vociferous in her support.
People who want to live under Sharia law are not peaceful. She recognises the religious basis for this terrorism and extremism but fails to recognise that if it is commanded by Allah as the Koran claims, it cannot be reformed. And then she wonders if Muslim bodies would have denounced the sentence on Gibbons if she had criticised Islam. Freedom of speech is a fundamental of Western civilisation. Melanie should realise that Muslim bodies don’t accept that.
And finally she becomes ridiculous:
Yet even the peers who have lobbied for her release have been equivocal in the past in the defence of freedom. Thus Lord Ahmed denounced the knighthood for Sir Salman Rushdie, which he likened to honouring those who masterminded the 9/11 attacks.
And Lady Warsi has said that it was “a very dangerous step” to expect British Muslims to weed out the extremism in their midst.
Such ambivalence is most disturbing. All civilised people must surely denounce any enforcement of the most savage and literalist form of Islam.
Muslims are not civilised people. It is her misplaced belief in the sameness and equivalence of all people which leads her to this erroneous conclusion.
And lastly, her non conclusion and worthless ending:
Courageous Muslims in Britain and around the world are engaged in a battle to reform their religion. No one knows whether they will succeed.
But any such reformer must renounce explicitly and unequivocally the Islamic doctrines fuelling such barbarism.
And this country in turn has to get real, and see the plight of Mrs Gibbons as yet another symptom of the great onslaught being mounted against our civilisation—and towards which not one inch of ground must be given if that civilisation is to survive.
Where is this Battle for Islamic Reform? How can any “reformer” denounce the doctrines which fuel barbarism when they are Allah’s direct commands?
If not one inch of ground must be given, that means all signs of Islam and Muslims must be removed and all Mosques demolished. The presence of a Mosque represents the erosion of Western civilisation on Western territory. Why can’t she say this? By giving “Islamic Reformers” credence, she is a prime supporter of the destruction of Western civilisation.
As usual she is waste of time, but I thought you might like to read it!
LA replies:
Phillips writes:
Courageous Muslims in Britain and around the world are engaged in a battle to reform their religion. No one knows whether they will succeed.
Well, if it is uncertain, even highly uncertain, whether such internal reform of Islam will take place, isn’t it an inescapable conclusion that we cannot depend on the hope of Islam reforming itself, and that therefore for our own safety we must assume Islam will not reform itself, which means that that we must defend ourselves from Islam—not from Islamic “extremists,” but from Islam, period? And that that means, at a minimum, stopping all further immigration of Muslims into the West?
But what a fool I am, asking a logical question of Melanie Phillips, which if she answered logically and honestly would require her to give up her liberalism.
She also writes:
… the great onslaught being mounted against our civilisation—and towards which not one inch of ground must be given if that civilisation is to survive.
Not give an inch, my foot. When it comes protecting our civilization from the threat of Islamic extremism, Phillips is the British Jewish version of the West Texas Methodist George W. Bush: all hat, no cattle.
- end of initial entry -
Memo To: Lawrence Auster
From: The Longhorn Collective at Crawford, Texas
Dear Sir,
Regarding your comment,
“Not give an inch, my foot. When it comes protecting our civilization from the threat of Islamic extremism, Phillips is the British Jewish version of the West Texas Methodist George W. Bush: all hat, no cattle.”
All the bovines from The Longhorn Collective at Crawford Texas (LCCT) would like to commend you on using us metaphorically to show the unreality and lack of substance in the above mentioned people. We would like to bring to your attention that LCCT never recommended GWB to steer our nation nor to beef up our foreign policy in the MidEast the way he did. Now we are on the horns of a dilemma. We hope to moo-ve on…
Respectfully,
Cows #1-3, Steers #5-9
P.S. Unfortunately steer #4 abstained from approving this letter of recommendation; he has bought the bull from nosing around Cindy Sheehan.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 04, 2007 01:48 PM | Send