Yesterday, there came the news that Lord Pearson, the UKIP Lord, was reported to the speaker of the House of Lords because he raised this inconvenient question:
”My lords, are the government aware that Fusilier Rigby’s murderers quoted 22 verses of the Koran to justify their atrocity? Therefore, is the Prime Minister accurate or helpful when he describes it as a betrayal of Islam? Since the vast majority of Muslims are our peace-loving friends, should we not encourage them to address the violence in the Koran – and indeed in the life and the example of Muhammad?”
This question was deemed to be offensive by two Labour lords, both muslims.
You can read all about it here.
Given the news about ‘Brits’ traveling in large numbers to fight in the side of ISIS, given the news that police have again arrested a couple of returning ‘British’ jihadis, and above all given both the porous state of our borders as well as the desperate attempts of the Home Office minister to introduce more ‘anti-terror’ legislation which can easily be turned against innocent civilians, should the term ‘terrorist’ be defined as anybody daring to ask inconvenient questions, like Lord Pearson did in the House of Lords, it is surely time now to grasp the nettle and start talking about the relationship our Muslim citizens have with us and with our society.
I also don’t need to remind you of the disgraceful case of Rotherham, which Jane Collins MEP is keeping at the forefront of debate in South Yorkshire.
What we must indeed start talking about is the way the government is brushing all these problems under the carpet with official statements that are patently false.
Yes, the vast majority of our islamic citizens are peaceful, but are we now not even allowed to ask how come that these peaceful citizens or rather their children turn into jihadis, how come that they feel justified to hack the heads off of innocent citizens in London? There was not just Drummer Lee Rigby; there was an elderly lady who was decapitated in the back garden a few weeks ago.
Do the powers that be think that these murders won’t happen if we just don’t ever ask the questions Lord Pearson asked?
It is facile by the government to find excuses, to blame some facebook pages, some hate preachers, and go on blithely about their business of doing nothing much at all, except telling us not to ask the questions Lord Pearson asked?
We know the police have the force to arrest those they deem to commit ‘hate crime’. There was the case of an independent EU MEP candidate who was arrested for quoting from a book by Winston Churchill on the steps of a County Hall. He was not arrested for disturbing the peace – he was arrested for ‘racially aggravated hate crime’!
There was the case of a pensioner who was arrested because he dared to say to security staff at Stanstead Airport that he was not a muslim when told to remove his shoes.
We must start asking those inconvenient questions not because we are ‘islamophobes’, or racists (islam is not a race!), but because there are more and more examples of legislation being introduced which are undermining our civic liberties in the name of anti-terrorism.
We must dare to ask these questions also on behalf of our peaceful muslim fellow citizens, whom we should not abandon to these ‘hate preachers’ who are getting a free ride because ‘it’s their religion, innit’, while we must keep our mouths shut, because we can and will be accused of ‘hate speech’ since there will always be one or two who feel offended by what we say, and call the police.
This has now reached the House of Lords, as Lord Pearson now knows.
We must grasp this nettle; we must ask these questions because we cannot abandon our civic liberties for fear of offending those who have no compunction to offend us.
We must do this, because we must not let certain groups and their political representatives deprive us of our right of Free Speech!
Dear Pamela,
Yes, I posted the same comment twice, because I had the same thing to say in both places. You don’t like my comment but you don’t answer it. Do you not agree that our armed forces have attacked Muslim countries? Do you think our aggressive action was justified? I don’t.
We are right to be indignant about this situation, but our indignation should be directed against the governments of Britain which have simultaneously promoted multiculturalism in Britain and attacked and invaded Muslim countries.
Let’s not get involved in a crusade against Islam. Let’s have a crusade against the political classes who have got us into this mess. That’s what UKIP is all about.
One of the reasons I joined UKIP is that it adopts an anti-war stance and disagrees with interfering in other countries’ poitical affairs and conflicts unless there is a clear and present danger to the UK, in which case we would be justifiably defending ourselves. Yes, I agree with you that getting involved in Afghanistan and Iraq was futile and very costly, not just in terms of blood and money, but also in making our country the target of terrorists from within and without. Blair, in particular, was a fool and a liar and is much to blame for the mess we’re in now. Let’s hope that one day soon, we have saner minds in control of foreign policy and some of the damage can be repaired.
However, for the present, when push comes to shove you have to pick a side to support, and although I abhor religion of any kind, I support Christianity as a bulwark against Islam in this country and the world; I support democracy against Islamist fascist ideology; I support Britain and its values against so-called ‘British’ enemies plotting within our borders and foreign enemies overseas who wish to destroy us. I don’t believe there is any ‘Let’s be friends’ with Islam: it’s a religious political movement as dangerous as the Nazis in my opinion.
You posted the same thing, Mike Munford, in response to Richard Mott’s article “Muslims: Time to Act, Time to Decide” (see that article for my unique response) and it won’t wash. For one thing, no one forced these people to come to the UK, and the native population certainly wasn’t consulted as to whether they wanted muslim immigrants, or indeed any immigrants at all. Second, all the countries you mention have bred various groups of Islamist terrorists who have attacked the West, including the UK, in many vicious attacks over many years. They cannot live in peace with their neighbouring countries, let alone the rest of the world. Islam is a warrior religion which conquered pagan or Christian peoples by the sword hundreds of years ago – and they’re still at it now. Islam wants to force the whole world to submit to Islam – that is their ideology and their goal.
If muslims emigrated here voluntarily, they have no business to be adopting anti-British attitudes based on what’s happening abroad. If they can’t stand us, they should clear out and live in an Islamic country where they’ll feel more comfortable. At least we wouldn’t have to wonder what they’re planning to do next in the way of causing terrorist acts from within.
And at least we wouldn’t have all anti-terror legislation, all the airport checks, all the news laws coming in as fast as Theresa May and her department can dream them up, and most important of all, there wouldn’t be all these restrictions on free speech, which we have enjoyed for hundreds of years. (And fought and died for.)
OK, but ” Islam is a warrior religion” misses the point that Islam is not a single entity. Historically you could say the same thing about Christianity and the Western World. Neo-Cons can be seen in such a light today. Essentially mankind is a warring species and the ability to see and create ‘them and us’ is alive and well with us all.
I agree with everything you say. But my conscience troubles me. It seems to me that at least some of the anti-British attitudes and behaviour of Muslims in Britain has its root in what we are doing in Muslim countries. British armed forces, including of course the RAF, have recently been involved in hostilities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and other Muslim countries. As far as I know, none of these countries have attacked or threatened the UK. Is this not a factor which we ought to bear in mind? Might it not arouse some indignation among Muslims worldwide? Let’s try making peace on our side too.
This may be part of it but I hear that many of the young Muslims feel alienated in Britain and are looking for something ‘solid’ in their lives. Usually, if there is a ‘void’ anything will do to fill it up and with these preachers and the internet they have much to grab on to. Why we have been lumbered with having to deal with this mess beats me; they should never have been allowed in to Britain in the first place. Generally, the Muslim culture is not compatible with our western one.
Everyone says the majority of British Muslims are peaceful, which I agree with, but when there is an atrocity against Palestine or Muslims are insulted because their faith or Kuran has been maligned, they take to the streets in numbers and demonstrate. Where were they when this atrocity against fusilier Rigby happened? Why weren’t they all on the streets of London condemning this atrocity as an abhorrent interpretation of Islam? Why are they not supporting the law of the country they have chosen to reside in and condemning these extremists? Maybe it is because deep down they agree this is the right way to behave? I don’t know because they don’t show what they think or feel. They need to remember that “all that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing”
I told Cameron when he first took office that he had to do something about Islam invading this country. He has done nothing.
Rod Little is banging this drum very well. His article in Spectator on the British “jihadists” going to fight in Syria was absolutely brilliant. Although larded with irony he pointed out the stupidity of trying to prevent them. He felt if they hated Britain so much they should be encouraged to go and with any luck would never return.
We have encouraged and actively financed a fifth column in our midst and none of our political rulers have any idea of what to do about it.
I am not interested in the opinion of any Muslim on any subject except their travel arrangements to leave us alone and go where they will.
Joe CUMMINS
Correction to the article above. Mahmood and Quereshi are not Lords, but MPs.
Which makes it worse, in a sense, since 2 MPs are trying to suppress debate in the upper chamber.
But Harperson’s law says that anybody can report to the police any statement they consider to be offensive racially, even though he is not the one addressed.