“Non-Islamic religions preach sweetness and light and won’t throw a lethal wobbly if slighted in some obscure way” 

“Pre-emptive action is necessary. Or you could wait for the mother of all terrorist attacks killing thousands?” 

Muslims can and must be peacefully and positively integrated into the British way of life, but first, some uncomfortable home truths have to be faced.

The Koran contains sections that are alien, pernicious, cruel, essentially medieval, and incompatible with the British way of life. These must be acknowledged by British Muslims, and rooted out of their culture. Of course this is fraught with difficulties because the Koran is supposedly the word of the prophet and cannot be changed by humans. That shouldn’t stop British Muslims from writing their own, modernised version of Islam along the lines of Christianity’s New Testament. Muslims can still revere the unalterable words of the prophet in an historical sense, but their New Koran must jettison those texts, used by some to justify despicable acts of cruelty and mayhem.

British politicians are unwilling to face the potential problems caused by unreformed Islam being practised in Mosques here. The media is also frightened of the consequences of facing down some of the unpleasant realities of Muslim belief.   

Churchill on “Mohammedanism”
One politician who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind on the subject was our great wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who in his book “River War” about the Sudan campaign in 1899 had this to say about what he called “Mohammedanism”, the term he used to describe those poor unfortunates whose lives were blighted by a religion designed to enslave the less fortunate, and perpetuate undemocratic and unaccountable rule by oligarchs.

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

Powerful stuff, you will agree. An unfair use of outdated material to make Islam look bad? Take a look at the Middle East Media Research Institute’s web site – www.memri.org – and you will find English translations of what is being talked about in Muslim countries. Currently they are arguing about the possibility of a women’s pregnancy lasting up to 5 years, targeting children with cartoons stirring up anti-Semitism, children being indoctrinated for military jihad duties, holocaust denial in spades. I’ve just watched an interview with a London-based Muslim scholar Azzaz Tamini, who I think I’ve seen on BBCTV’s NewsNight posing as a moderate Muslim. He was talking about the Swiss vote to ban minarets. He was working himself up in to quite a lather.

“The Europeans are wretched people. A man goes to work early in the morning, and returns home drunk, to have dinner in front of an entertainment show on TV, and then he goes to sleep, only to wake up early in the morning, and so the story repeats itself. All this so he can pay taxes to this country, in which the Europeans lead a life of stupidity,” according to Tamimi. “Islam Liberates Europeans from their lives of stupidity,” says Tamimi.

All this points to the fact that Islam, unlike Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Catholicism and Judaism etc, does inherently pose the threat of violence and swivel-eyed zealotry.

Islam can’t be treated simply as just another religion.

What to do
So what is to be done?

Nobody argues with the concept of respect for other religions. But this does ignore an important step. Surely, if we are to respect other religions, we need first to know what these religions stand for. This respect shouldn’t be handed over automatically. Non-Islamic religions tend to preach sweetness and light and won’t throw a lethal wobbly if slighted in some obscure way. But much of what Muslims subscribe to in the Koran is incompatible with British culture and customs. Much of what Islam wants directly confronts treasured and hard won rights that our fathers shed blood for over the centuries. They are simply not up for grabs or negotiation of any kind. Any incomers must accept them.

Freedom of speech, assembly and movement, separation of church and state, secret ballots, the right to be educated to the limit of your potential, male or female, the right to choose your marriage partner, the equal value of a child, male or female, the right to dress as you wish, these are the front line rights that Britons have fought for over the centuries. Any religion that seeks to operate in Briton must accept these bedrock features, starting by accepting that the state trumps religion. Any Mosque wishing to operate in Britain must certify that it will only push this modernised creed. Mosques which refuse to cooperate will be closed.

Many Muslims either don’t think our rights are important, or because of their religion are actively hostile to them. Or worse, they assume that Islam trumps our freely elected government.

Better Red than Dead
This isn’t some boring argument about philosophy which we can shrug our shoulders and leave to others. It is not just another way of looking at the same thing, an argument about nuance and details. This schism with Islam is becoming a bit like the better Red than Dead thing. Back in the 1950s and 1960s most of the left was unwilling to face up to the challenge posed by the Soviet Union, and to its eternal disgrace, really rather liked the utopian, top-down dictatorships which were created. They would have happily conceded defeat to the Communists. The ideological divide is similar today, although how lefties can live with themselves and their tacit support of the medievalist wife-beaters of Islam is beyond me. I suppose it is self-loathing. The communist traitors of the 1940s and 1950s were motivated by hatred of Britain and the West. Those that would trash our traditions still feel that today.  

This battle with Islam has become crucial to the future of our liberal democracy and if you don’t agree, maybe you will after taking on board the words of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali knows about these things. She moved to Holland from Africa in 1992 after suffering forced circumcision, forced marriage, and beatings. She became an MP for the centre-right Dutch VVD party. Hirsi Ali renounced her Muslim faith, and that was her first “mistake”. Fundamentalist Muslims believe that apostasy is a crime punishable by death. (This will be denied in the British version of the Koran) She also wrote the script for Theo Van Gogh’s movie “Submission”, which ridiculed Islamist attitudes towards women. Van Gogh was murdered in cold blood for his pains by a Muslim who then mutilated his body. Hirsi Ali has since escaped to America and the American Enterprise Institute, where she continues to shine light on the truth about Islam.

Religion of peace fairytale
Islam, the religion of peace? That’s a “fairytale”, she says.
“Christianity is different from Islam because it allows you to question it. It probably wasn’t different in the past, but it is now. Christians - at least Christians in a liberal democracy – have accepted, after Thomas Hobbes, that they must obey the secular rule of law; that there must be a separation of church and state. In Islamic doctrine such a separation has not occurred yet. This is what makes it dangerous. Islam – all Islam, not just Islamism – has not acknowledged that it must obey secular law. Islam is hostile to reason,” said Hirsi Ali in an interview with The Spectator a couple of years ago.

Hirsi Ali believes Britain is in the forefront of this battle with Islam.

“You, here in the U.K, are in danger. Of course you can’t ban Islam outright, but you need to stop the spread of ideology, stop native Westerners converting to Islam. You definitely need to ban the veil in schools, and to close down Muslim schools because that’s where kids are indoctrinated,” she said. If you doubt the seriousness of the problem of radical Islam in the U.K., remember the report by the Policy Exchange, the centre-right think tank. The Policy Exchange reported that books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, the stoning of adulterers, hatred of homosexuals, enslavement of women, were freely available at book stores at Britain’s main mosques. The Policy Exchange said many of the publications were aimed at forcing a rift between Muslims and the host nation.

“The individual Muslim must also feel abhorrence for non-believers, hypocrites, heretics and all that is deemed Un-Islamic. The latter category encompasses those Muslims who are judged to practise an insufficiently rigorous form of Islam. Most books stopped short of calling for violence. But they created a climate of intolerance and contempt for non-Muslims that could be exploited by violent jihadists,” the report said.

More than just a faith
Hirsi Ali is clear about the extent of the problem.
“Islam is different from other faiths because it is not just a faith. It is a political ideology. Children learn that Allah is the lawgiver, and that is a political statement. You wouldn’t allow the BNP to run a school, would you,” she said. Hirsi Ali has written a book called “Infidel”, about growing up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia.

There is clearly a problem that is not going to go away. To address it, our Muslim fellow citizens must first of all acknowledge that this problem exists.

The New Koran will not only underline modernity and an open society, but will tidy up some ugly peripheral issues too.  The New Koran should acknowledge that one of the reasons their compatriots in the Middle East live in poverty is the Koran’s incompatibility with economic growth by its ban on interest payments. Why would a religion ban interest? What was the problem a thousand odd years ago that outlawed paying a fee for the use of someone else’s money? It just beggars belief.

Cruel and barbaric hallal killing will go.

The ban on eating pork, which only exists because many moons ago uneducated people didn’t understand the science of cooking, will be rescinded.

Direct route to purgatory
But line one, paragraph one of the New Koran will make clear to every Muslim that suicide bombing of innocent civilians is never acceptable, and will offer a direct route to purgatory. Homicide bombers and their nominees will not be serviced by 72 virgins, or sate their hunger on 72 white raisins, depending on the translation believed at the moment.

“Honour” killing will be an oxymoron to them too.

Surely, doubters may ask, Muslims will only get mad if they are constantly prodded about the stone-age nature of the religion?

“Well perhaps anger is no bad thing,” said Hirsi Ali. “Perhaps it will make Muslims more aware, help them question their beliefs. If we keep on asking questions, maybe Muslim women will realise, as I did, that they don’t have to be second class citizens.”

The cowards that govern us always do the same thing when Islamic extremism rears its ugly head. They just hope the problem will go away. This will lead to disaster. Pre-emptive action is difficult but necessary. Last weekend there was an ominous news story reminding us of the need for action. “British Al-Qaeda hub is biggest in the West” said the Daily Telegraph. These terrorists are plotting attacks around the world, according to what the Telegraph called U.S. government sources. If we don’t flush out these potential murderers, they’ll get us in the end.

Forcing Mosques to sign up to a modernised Koran will stir up trouble, but at least will give us a chance of finding out exactly who this fifth column is. Or would you rather wait for the mother of all terrorist attacks in central London which would take the lives of thousands of innocents?

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Neil Winton – January 20, 2010  

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