UK: Multiculturalism vs. Islamism

by Samuel Westrop
April 18, 2014 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4264/uk-multiculturalism-islamism

In the West, the Arabization of Muslim communities has occurred with government assistance, which, through imposed policies of multiculturalism in the name of diversity, has effected the destruction of South Asian culture.

Britain's multiculturalism policies have imposed Islamist leadership upon Britain's Muslim communities and brought about the destruction of South Asian culture.

British suicide bomber and jihadist, Abdul Waheed Majeed, in his last moments before ramming a truck laden with explosives into a Syrian prison, posed in a white Islamic tunic and black scarf for the cameras. Asked by the cameraman to say a few words in Arabic before his "martyrdom," Majeed replied: "Sorry? I can't speak. Everyone asks me that and ... I'm not a very good speaker."

Abdul Waheed Majeed (left), of Crawley, England, poses for photographs moments before driving a truck-bomb into a prison in Aleppo, Syria. (Image source: Jabhat al-Nusra video)

Majeed, like a large number of British Muslims, was not an Arabic speaker. He was of Pakistani heritage. About 70% of British Muslims are, in fact, South Asian. A mere 6.6% are believed to be of Arab descent. And very few British Muslims can actually speak Arabic.

Nevertheless, British Islam is firmly focussed on the Middle East. The poet Hamza Beg, writing in the journal of a taxpayer-funded organization, Asfar, noted: "Since 1999, Pakistan, for example, has had a military coup, a purported return to democracy, and the assassination of the leader of the opposition, Benazir Bhutto. However, an entire generation of British-born Pakistanis have been more interested in Israeli incursions into Lebanon, the occupation of Palestine, and the war on Iraq. How has this occurred and what does it mean?"

British Muslims, Beg continued, have rejected "their parents' cultural understanding of Islam as a religion. British-Pakistani Muslims have become Muslims first, and are losing patience with the Pakistani practice of the religion embedded in Sufi traditions."

"In rejecting a culturally conditioned Islam," Beg concludes, "Muslims in Britain have given up their equal footing and fallen prey to Arab imperialism." Indonesian scholar Azyumardi Azra refers to this process as "Arabization."

In a similar story, one South Asian blogger in the United States writes, "Why hasn't South Asian poetry, art and dress impacted any of the large American Islamic organizations of today? Why are nearly all Muslim converts distinctly Arabic in appearance, style, and culture? ... This idea of Arabization of tongue and culture, of course, has been devastatingly successful, and fed right into the weaknesses of the colonized South-Asian inferiority complex. Hence South Asia began marginalizing their own culture only a few decades after the Saudi's [sic] began the propaganda machine. The rich colors of the South Asian woman have been discarded..."

Over the past century, Arab-focussed Islamists have attempted to homogenize Islamic cultures outside the Middle East. This process initially occurred in South Asia – Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of India.

The Indian academic Baladas Ghoshal blames the "Wahhabi creed" of Saudi Arabia, which, he claims, has attempted to purge South Asian Islam of its cultural practises and emblems, and has instead imposed a "pure and ideal form of Islam to be followed by Muslims all over the world."

Wahhabis, Ghoshal writes, believe that the "adaptation of other customs, traditions and cultures in its path toward the expansion of the religion had only led to aberration and corruption of original and pristine ideas of Islam. It is only through the practice of mediaeval [sic] Arab traditions and way of life that the evil eyes of other religions can be kept at bay."

Islamist movements in South Asia also adopted these efforts at Arabization. In the 1930s, ideologues such as Abul Hasan Nadwi – part of the radical Islamic Deobandi sect, which later gave birth to the Taliban – attempted to establish in India a single, unique Islamic identity based on "pure Islam." According to Nadwi, this meant dressing like Arabs, speaking Arabic and reading the Arabic language press.[1] Islamic revivalism, Nadwi claimed, required "emphasizing its affinities to his Muslim confreres in the Middle East."[2]

Islamist groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami have since adopted these ideas; they claim that culture cannot exist outside of Islam and that Pakistani Muslims were part of the "Arab nation." The Jamaat-e-Islami ideologue, Abdul Ala Mawdudi, has said that culture destroys the "inner vitality" of Islam: it "blurs its vision, befogs its critical faculties, breeds inferiority complexes, and gradually but assuredly saps all the springs of culture and sounds its death-knell."[3]

Over the past decades, since Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have distributed vast amounts of money to non-profit groups and schools run by South Asian Islamist movements, Jamaat-e-Islami, for example, set about purging Pakistani and Bengali Muslims of their cultural ideas. The Muslim writer Sazzad Hussain observed the consequences of Islamist-led homogenization of his culture in the Indian state of Assam:

"The Islamist fundamentalist has one very distinctive characteristic—the denial of modern nation-state identity of Muslims to form a uniformed 'Islamic' identity at the cost of local tradition and cultural practices. … These days the Muslims of Assam are not identified as Assamese Muslims or Muslim of East Bengali descent. Instead they are merely homogenized as 'Muslims' … The use of Burqa and Hijab are alarmingly rising among the Muslim women in Assam. The ankle length Thaub, a Bedouin male dress and the red and white chequered headgear Kaffaiah are now in fashion for many Mollahs and Maulvis [clerics] and Madrassa students in Assam. It has reached to such an extent that this red-white or green-white chequered Kaffaiah is now replacing the Phoolam Gamocha, the symbol of Assamese culture…"

"Arabization and Islamization," Ghosal writes, "are inseparable parts of a single cultural ideal." In the West, and particularly in Britain, the loss of South Asian identity to the pervasively unifying label of "Islam" is readily apparent. The change of Muslim dress, some British Muslims believe, is a telling sign of this Islamization. Muslim cultures in the West, some claim, became Arabized before parts of the Muslim world itself. Pakistani writer Bina Shah has written:

"Growing up in Pakistan, I'd never seen anyone wear a hijab …. It was only in the late 1980s that I saw my first hijab, worn by the mother of a Pakistani-American girl from Peoria, Illinois. Saudi-Wahabi social influence filtered to Pakistan and much of the rest of the non-Arab world throughout the next two decades, thanks to a campaign that attempted to export the kingdom's religio-social values to its would-be satellite states. Slowly, more and more women started to wear the black burqa and the tight hijab."

The Islamization of Western Muslim communities has occurred with government assistance, which, through imposed policies of multiculturalism in the name of diversity, has effected the destruction of South Asian culture.

British multiculturalism has encouraged British society to exist as a federation of communities in which each minority community was not required to adopt the values of the majority. This inverse segregation only served to chain particular communities to their self-appointed community groups. Among Britain's South Asian community, these groups were Islamist-run. Consequently, multiculturalist polices served to homogenize a community whose very diversity it had promised to preserve.

Former Islamic extremist Ed Husain has referred to the result of "25 years of multiculturalism" as not "multicultural communities" but plural "monoculturalism." Husain recalls:

"Many Muslims want to live apart from mainstream British society; official government policy has helped them do so. I grew up without any white friends. My school was almost entirely Muslim. I had almost no direct experience of 'British life' or 'British institutions'. So it was easy for the extremists to say to me: 'You see? You're not part of British society. You never will be. You can only be part of an Islamic society.' The first part of what they said was true. I wasn't part of British society: nothing in my life overlapped with it."

Kenan Malik, a British writer of Asian heritage, noted: "Where once [it was] argued that everyone should be treated equally, despite their radical, ethnic, religious or cultural differences, now it pushed the idea that different people should be treated differently because of such differences."[4]

The first victim of multiculturalist policies was the individual. The Indian economist, Amartya Sen, has stated: "The way that British authorities have interpreted multiculturalism has very much undermined individual freedom. A British Muslim is not asked to act within the civil society or the political arena but as a Muslim. His British identity has to be mediated by his community."

Groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami have never achieved popular support in South Asia, not even in Pakistan – despite the best efforts of their Wahhabi patrons. When Hassan Butt, a former member of the British extremist group, Al Muhajiroun, visited Pakistan – the home of his parents – he said he was regarded as a stranger "because he had rejected traditional Islam." Butt said he felt similarly isolated in Britain because the establishment treated him "as a Muslim, not a British citizen."[5]

The second victim of multiculturalism was the very cultural expressions that multiculturalism claimed to preserve. Britain's multiculturalism policies offered taxpayer funds and political legitimacy to anyone who claimed to represent a community. As with all communities, it was the politicized activists who rose to the top and asserted their authority with little opposition. In the case of the British Muslim community, these activists belonged to Jamaat-e-Islami, the Bangladeshi Islamist group responsible for acts of genocide during the 1971 Independence War in Bangladesh.

Groups such as the Muslim Council of Britain are mostly run by individuals and groups tied closely to Jamaat-e-Islami. A 2007 poll by Policy Exchange revealed, however, that 94% of British Muslims do not believe that the Muslim Council of Britain represents their views.

The Italian academic Lorenzo Vidino has observed: [6]

"The British multicultural model has traditionally relied heavily on community leaders who act as trusted intermediaries between the community and the state, to whom the latter can delegate the administration of various services. No such class existed among the masses of poorly educated South Asian immigrants in postwar Britain. The situation created the opportunity for the Mawdudists [Jamaat-e-Islami], thanks to their superior resources, organizational skills and good understanding of the British political system to surpass other groups in the competition for the role of community leaders."

British Islamists, exploiting the imposition of multiculturalism, forced their officially recognized and publicly funded model of Muslim identity upon their conscripted South Asian constituents. The bright colors and sounds of Pakistani and Bengali culture were lost to the dark homogeneity of Wahhabi-inspired Islam.

As Amartya Sen has noted: "It is … not surprising at all that the champions of Islamic fundamentalism would like to suppress all other identities of Muslims in favour of being only Islamic."

In the 1970s, British Asians had identified themselves in racial terms. They described themselves as Pakistani, Indian or Bangladeshi. After the imposition of multiculturalism, however, these labels became "Muslims" and "non-Muslims." The academic Delwar Hussein writes that in the 1980s, the British establishment embraced the concept of "Muslim community" and started to fund Jamaat-e-Islami groups such as the East London Mosque to deliver social welfare programs.

Lorenzo Vidino concluded that, "the funds received from councils ... allowed Mawdudist [Jamaat-e-Islami] organizations to significantly alter the balance of power in East London as secular organizations struggled to compete."[7]

As groups that actually represented Britain's South Asian community disappeared under competition from well-organized, well-funded – and yet unrepresentative – Islamist groups, the diversity of South Asian identities started to fade:

"At the time of independence Bangladeshis who came here [to Britain] had a very strong sense of Bengali identity. But all that disappeared, because the official government classification ignored language, culture and secular politics, and insisted on viewing all Bangladeshis as Muslims. Suddenly they had lost all identity other than being Islamic. And suddenly Bangladeshis stopped being Bangladeshis and were merged with all other Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia."

In 1988, the Rushdie affair helped to consolidate the Islamist hold over Britain's Muslim community. Although initial protests against Salmon Rushdie's Satanic Verses began in India, it was in Britain where the most significant upheavals took place. Saudi Arabia encouraged Jamaat-e-Islami organizations in the UK to establish the United Kingdom Action Committee on Islamic Affairs (UKACIA) to coordinate the campaign against Rushdie. The Deobandi sect contributed to the anger – organizing book burnings and mass marches.

Several months later, the Iranian regime issued its infamous fatwa [religious edict] against Rushdie. An Iranian charitable organization run by the regime offered $3 million for the Muslim who murdered Rushdie.

The fatwa served to unite British Muslims and to isolate them even further from a state that had already made clear that they were to exist as Muslims and not as private citizens. Inayat Bunglawala, a British Islamist, recalls the importance of the fatwa: "I felt a thrill. It was incredibly uplifting. The fatwa meant that as British Muslims we did not have to regard ourselves just as a small, vulnerable minority; we were part of a truly global and powerful movement."[8]

The establishment's response to the Rushdie crisis was, in part, pusillanimous. Although the government criticized Iran and provided police protection for Rushdie, it did not break off diplomatic relations with the Tehran regime. Moreover, British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe told the BBC: "We can understand why... [the book] could be criticized." It was "found deeply offensive by people of the Muslim faith" and "offensive in other ways as well … The British Government, the British people have no affection for the book."[9] Norman Tebbit, then a cabinet minister, called Rushdie "an outstanding villain" whose "public life had been a record of despicable acts of betrayal of his upbringing, religion, adopted home and nationality."[10]

By unprecedentedly attacking the content of a novel, British policymakers chose to legitimize the complaints of the Saudi-backed Islamists in Britain as well as the mullahs in Tehran – and so portrayed these extremists as representative voices of Britain's South Asian Muslim community.

Today, some of the key Islamist figures behind the Rushdie demonstrations are involved with taxpayer-funded interfaith dialogue work. Manazir Ahsan, for example, was a key figure within the United Kingdom Action Committee on Islamic Affairs. During the crisis, Ahsan approved of Ayatollah Khomeini's support for the murder of Salman Rushdie. He stated that Khomeini "has expressed the Islamic legal point of view ... We hope other Islamic governments will confirm this."[11] Today, Ahsan, is on the executive committee of the Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom (which he co-chaired from 2011-2012) – an organization that has received 80% of its funding from the taxpayer.

British Interfaith Dialogue is a natural product of multiculturalist policies: the division of citizens into pre-approved identities. The Inter Faith Network, in fact, rejects some religious groups, such as the minority Muslim Ahmadiyya community, as unsuitable partners for dialogue, apparently for fear of upsetting the Islamist-led organizations that make up its member bodies. Just as multiculturalism offered supremacy to particular individuals and groups, so too, today, taxpayer-funded interfaith dialogue has damaged relations between different religious communities and has falsely legitimized Islamist groups as representative of all British Muslims.

Of course, Western governments are not morally responsible for the hateful ideas and murderous actions of the Islamist networks. That wickedness lies with the Islamist groups themselves. But by continuing to promote pernicious policies of multiculturalism while failing to protect the individual liberties on which the West was built, government policy does serve to provide ammunition and willing recruits to the Islamist cause.

Against the onslaught of Islamist patronage from the East and the government complicity in the West, the vitality of South Asian music, dress, books, poetry and ideas risks disappearing completely. Multiculturalism has not just failed to bring about a more harmonious society; it has allowed Islamist mobs to purge communities of the very cultural ideas multiculturalism promised to preserve.

[1] James Toth, Sayyid Qutb: The Life and Legacy of a Radical Islamic Intellectual
[2] Ibid.
[3] Kenan Malik, From Fatwa to Jihad, page 105
[4] Lorenzo Vidino, The New Muslim Brotherhood, page 136
[5] Malik, page 104
[6] Lorenzo Vidino, The New Muslim Brotherhood, page 135
[7] Ibid.
[8] Malik, page 18
[9] Malik, page 32
[10] Malik, page 33
[11] 'Britain: Dilemma Over Rushdie Book Escalates', John Clements, Inter Press Service, 15 February 1989

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Comment on this item

24 Reader Comments

Ahad Miah • Sep 1, 2014 at 12:25

I mostly agree with the comment made Samuel on this topic.

However, I think he missed couple of important points. As a South Asian Muslim living in London from the 80s, I have noticed the alarming rise of fundamental Islam within our community and change of dress code and practices adopted, thereby challenging the rich and vibrant South Asian culture.

From the 1990s, several Islamist groups all from the Middle East, like Al-Mujahiroun, Salafi, Hizb ut-Tahrir had established bases in Asian Muslim neighbourhoods and began to promote and became quite active in recruiting new members.

These foreign Islamist groups have had brainwashed Asian Muslims and changed their dress code. Women had changed from Asian Shalwar Kameez or Western clothes to Arabian dress Abaya overnight. Hijab exploded, which was an alien concept with Asian Muslim women, but gradually almost all girls and women begun to wear it. Niqab also became prominent with younger British born, which was strange as they would have been more Westernised than their mothers, who never wore one when arriving or living in the UK in the 70s or 80s.

All these Islamist groups were funded by the Gulf states to promote their version of Islam to largely Asian Muslims in Western countries.
Muslims in South Asian, especially Bangladesh, have not adopted the Arab dress code as the South Asian Muslim communities have, in Western countries, due to the 'Indian' culture withstanding and the promotion of Islamist groups are not as strong as in Western Multi-cultural nations.

Even Arabic words have crept in Asian Muslim conversations, which were not there before.

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Dr Saradindu Mukherji • Apr 22, 2014 at 03:59

Convincing explanation of a serious problem. So called multi culturalism is a failed socio-political problem. The local law and ethos must prevail on the British soil, while conceding what is due to the religious/ethnic minorities. We in India have lived with this problem for centuries and paid the price with the partition of the country and unending terrorist attacks even now.

Extraneous considerations-like pull of petro dollar,desire to play a role in the "Great Game" and community-wise electoral support in Birmingham or East London should not determine how UK must tackle this serious threat to its civilizational values.

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Iftikhar Ahmad

Dr Saradindu Mukherji • May 12, 2014 at 07:49

Multiculturalism means different cultures living side by side, separately. We live in a multicultural world of mono-cultural countries. If only England becomes multicultural and other countries don't, then the result will be a less multicultural world. Right next to the Over ground Station, a peek inside the Railway Tavern pub will reveal white locals in the front, black locals in the back room. This segregation is self-enforced; both parties seem to prefer it that way. The sight of such retailed segregation is uncomfortable, and off-putting. It inevitably reminded me of the "separate but equal" facilities of late-Jim Crow 60's America.

Many comments claim that the immigrants don't integrate. Aside from the little interactions mentioned, how can integration occur? Doesn't it need to be 2-way? How many of us are pleased to accept hospitality and gifts of exotic dishes offered by the 'immigrants' and yet don't reciprocate? Difficult to have a truly 'multicultural' society when the core belief of many of those who inhabit one of those cultures is that all the others should be eradicated.

Multiculturalism is not about integration, but about cultural plurality. It is not about separation but about respect and the deepening awareness of Unity in Diversity. Each culture will maintain its own intrinsic value and at the same time would be expected to contribute to the benefit of the whole society. Multiculturalism can accommodate diversity of all kinds – cultural, philosophical and religious – so that we can create a world without conflict and strife. Britain can assume the role of accommodation and concern for all peoples, for our planet and indeed for our survival. Multi-culturalism is even more important and crucial after 9/11 and 7/7. Muslim youths are also likely to feel alienated by a focus on shared Britishness, rather than multicultural diversity. Rather than promoting a single British "us" teaching, we should acknowledge that "us" can be diverse and plural. Children should be encouraged to explore differences in appearance, history and religion to reduce social and educational fears. Multiculturalism is not about separation, ghettoization or balkanisation. It is, instead, a recognition of both diversity and the need for common ground, mutual respect, and cultural engagement

A civilisation is measured not by the rights it grants its majority, but the privileges it allows its minorities. Muslim families are as entitled as any other religious group to schools that nurture their children's faith. Muslim pupils should be educated in Muslim schools because the current system is marginalising them. Teaching Muslim children in a Muslim school would remove the "problem of them being exposed" to values that conflict with Islamic faith. Muslim pupils are disadvantaged and marginalised in the city's state schools because the cultural heritage of the curriculum is "European and Christian". Muslim schools provide an education in accordance with the Muslim beliefs and values, such as providing single-sex schooling after puberty. They are thus a response to the danger of absorption into the dominant culture. State schools with non-Muslim monolingual teachers are slaughter houses for the Muslim children.

God has created diverse human beings to live in this tiny global village of one family. Creation by its very nature is diverse with different species, different communities, different cultures and languages. These differences represent the beauty and wonder but diversity is sometimes not fully appreciated, resulting in all sorts of clashes. The British society and Establishment must learn to respect and accommodate others, as if in a family.

During colonial days, the British did not follow local customs or culture. They didn't exactly "go native". They even forced the native Americans and native Australians to adopt all the evils of their culture and customs. They are still the underdogs of American and Australian societies. At least the Australian Prime Minister apologised to the natives for their evil deeds. Brits living in Spain and France don't even bother learning the language of the newly adopted country. Frankly suggesting that people don't want to become "British" they should move elsewhere is extremely irritating. Immigrants are in the UK because they are needed. It was never an act of charity. Without migration, the British economy and society will bleed to death. British culture and customs will undoubtedly change as it has for millennium due to immigration. I am not quite sure why Brits would be worried about that.

Living together requires quite simply, an acceptance of the others, of the way in which (the other) is dressed. It is absurd to believe that Muslim schools, Imams and Masajid teach Muslim children anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-Western views. It is dangerously deceptive and misleading to address text books and discuss them out of their historical, cultural and linguistic context. It is not wrong to teach children that anti-social behaviour, drinking, drugs, homosexuality, sex before marriage, teenage pregnancies and abortions are western values and Islam is against all such sins. This does not mean that Muslim schools teach children to hate westerners, Jews and homosexuals.

As a British Asian myself, and a Muslim, I am deeply proud of my heritage and language. At home I speak my own languages, Punjabi and Urdu. When out and about with family, I speak in Urdu, etc. I will speak in whatever language I like. Nobody, absolutely nobody, will tell us what language to speak. Obviously I appreciate everyone living here should be able to speak a bit of English. But it's not a must, especially for elders. After all, look at how many Brits move to other nations yet refuse to learn the languages? No, they expect others to learn or speak English, and the Brits just don't want to integrate. If you Brits don't do it when you move to other nations, don't expect or demand other others, Asians, Africans, etc. to have to learn English to fit in. Me, I'm Asian, I'm proud of my languages and if it riles others when they can't understand our conversations, well get over it.

Extremism, homophobia and anti-Semitism are nothing to do with Islamic teachings and beliefs. Islam does not teach that Jews and Christians are pigs and monkeys. The Policy Exchange Think-tank should concentrate on institutionally racist British schooling with chicken racist teachers. Muslim parents do not want their children with behaviour problems that include unprovoked aggression, promiscuity, violence, eating disorder, bullying and alcohol. According to ATL, teachers believe behaviour is worse than it was five years ago, with even five year olds being disrespectful, intimidating and violent. This is the true picture of British broken society and the Muslim community does not want to be integrated.

I'm not sure how learning English will help stop extremism either, many of those who have carried out/plotted atrocities have been highly educated. Speaking English does not promote integration into British society, and broaden opportunities. English speaking Muslims still face discrimination in jobs, education and housing. English speaking Muslim youths are angry, frustrated and extremist, thanks to the English language. The English language is not only a lingua franca but also lingua frankensteinia. Human rights also covers linguistic rights. Cultural and linguistic genocide are very common. British schooling is murdering community languages like Arabic, Urdu, and others. English is today the world killer language. Linguistic genocide is a crime against humanity and British schooling is guilty of committing this crime.

Islam is a peaceful religion. Terrorism arose in response to the massive killings done by the West in Muslim lands, starting with Afghanistan, and now the Arab world where the West is interfering now. As a Muslim I'm taught that I have 2 kinds of brother, brothers in Islam, and brothers in humanity, that's why I love everyone unconditionally. I believe in the truth and the truth is that Islam does not allow the deaths of innocents and you're cherry-picking and misinterpreting and taking out of context. According to Islam, as a Muslim who studied it for more than a decade, is against the killings of innocents. Don't judge a faith from the misguidance of others. It is a sin in Islam to kill innocent people including children, women and elderly. You are fooled by your media and anti-Islamists misinterpreting the sources of Islam.
IA
London School of Islamics Trust

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Ephesian

Iftikhar Ahmad • May 27, 2014 at 15:51

Well get this, I don't want to be exposed to values that contradict my Christian faith, and that is my right to do so. No, we do not have to throw our Christian faith out in order to accommodate yours.The minority do not pull rank on the majority....ever heard of democracy? Go ask Tower Hamlets, they're still counting the ballot papers, and have had several varying counts as we speak. You ask to be treated with tolerance and respect, and this from the least tolerant and respectful religion of all. If you want respect it has to be earned, not demanded. We don't have to give in to your silly demands. You say you speak in whatever language you like and nobody will tell you what language to speak, although "everybody living here should be able to speak a bit of English". Your arrogance is breathtaking. What sort of occasion would you say when being able "to speak a bit of English" would come in handy? Name one.....name one. Well I'm English and if you don't like that, get over it. You make it abundantly clear where your loyalties lie, and if you aren't for us, then you must be against us and we do not need such people living here. You talk about homophobia....what is your stance on this from a religious point of view? Don't feed me taqiyya. What does your holy book say? What do you say? Stop playing the victim card, it doesn't work anymore. There are two types of brother. I am a brother in humanity, but I am also a Christian, so what say you to that? Does your humanity stretch to a brother who is also Christian or Jew? Our schools do not need to hear Arabic or Urdu in their schools. Get this - this is England, not Saudi. Islam is not a peaceful religion at all and if so, where are all the "moderate" Muslims out on the streets protesting that they are being mis-represented by a few? Where are they? Islam is as Islam does, a backward 7th century ideology that has filled its followers with hatred. If followers are not so, why do they constantly contradict the actions of their mouths with their actions towards non-Muslims? Taqiyya, taqiyya, taqiyya....or in plain English, liar.

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Balaach Baloch Azad • Apr 20, 2014 at 10:36

South Asian racial and cultural inferiority complex towards the Middle East is hundreds of years old. It stems from the fact that most Muslim conquerors from the Middle East and Central Asia that invaded and ruled parts of Pakistan and India had no respect or regard for the peoples and cultures of those that they ruled. South Asian peoples and cultures were mocked and ridiculed by their foreign Islamic rulers, even those that had converted early to Islam. They were never treated as equals to those foreigners that ruled them. Instead, they were insulted, humiliated and forced to serve.

The humiliation and degradation that South Asians suffered lasted hundreds of years and resulted in the slave being broken, becoming a self-hater and trying to become like his master. First they tried to copy Persian culture when they were being ruled by the Mughals, even though the Mughal court chroniclers mocked and rejected the peoples of South Asia in their literature and poetry. Then they were Anglicized by the British empire and aspired to be like the British, and now after the World War 2 period when Pakistan was carved out of India they have been trying to Arabize themselves and pretend that they are Arabs!

South Asians, particularly the lower social groups that converted to Islam, but even the higher social groups that didnt, have historically been easily psychologically dominated and seduced by foreigners. This all stems from the massive South Asian inferiority complex which also has its roots in the Hindu caste system. Most Pakistanis, (i.e., Punjabis, Sindhis and Kashmiris) are low caste Hindu converts to Islam who converted only within the past couple of centuries according to British census figures taken during the 'Raj'.

Pakistanis, particularly Punjabis and so-called Mirpuris, who mostly converted from being low caste Hindus to Muslims, are most zealous in trying to project loyalty and adherence to their new religion. But because of the stigma, inferiority complex and perceived humiliation of having being descended from the downtrodden, poor and oppressed castes of lower Hindu society, they are even more anxious to deny and reject this cultural and ancestral heritage of theirs in favour of trying to link and relate themselves to the foreign Muslim conquerors that invaded and ruled much of India for over 1000 years.

For them, it is not just about being Islamic fanatics, but equally, if not more so, about being non-Indian, and especially non-Hindu. Hence, why they have the desperate desire to Arabize themselves today, in the past they had tried (but failed) to Persianize themselves. They think that this fabricated construction of a new identity will magically erase their low caste Hindu heritage and culture, and make them 'true' and 'good Muslims', who for them are only the Arabs!

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Iftikhar Ahmad

Balaach Baloch Azad • May 7, 2014 at 17:48

Britons should celebrate the fact that their country is a "multi-cultural nation", senior Conservatives have said. The comments have emerged after new research said that the Tories had to do more to attract black and ethnic minority voters if they wanted to win next year's general election.

The description multi-cultural is often used by right-wing critics to criticise community groups who do not mix with their neighbours. However, Michael Gove, the Education secretary and a Tory moderniser, issued the call for the Conservatives to reclaim the term at the Asian Business Awards dinner earlier this month. He told attendees at the 500-strong black tie dinner at a hotel in central London earlier this month that Britain was a "stronger country" because of its history of immigration. He said: "The answer to our problems is not to denigrate success, but to celebrate it; the answer to our problems is not to chip away at wealth creators with new taxes and new burdens, but to do everything possible to liberate them to create more jobs and opportunities for all. And the answer to how we make our country strong in the future is that we welcome talent from whenever it comes and we celebrate the fact that we are stronger together as a United Kingdom, as a multi-cultural nation than we could ever be if we looked back to the past."

The comments from Mr. Gove, who is close to Prime Minister David Cameron, were backed by other senior Tories. Alok Sharma MP, the Conservatives' vice chairman for black and minority ethnic issues told The Daily Telegraph that people would regard to Mr. Gove's remarks "positively". He said: "Britain is a multi-cultural nation and many will regard Michael Gove's comments positively. The vast majority of people from ethnic minorities regard a multi-cultural nation as one in which communities are integrated into the mainstream of British society and adhere to British values."

Research from Demos last week suggested that a number of middle–class ethnic minority voters could help tip the election in favour of David Cameron. The report by Trevor Phillips, a former head of the equalities watchdog, and Richard Webber, a university professor of geography, concluded that "upwardly mobile" ethnic minority voters were more likely to turn Conservative. The study said that Labour risked losing some of its traditional support from black and Asian voters as many move to the suburbs. It suggested that second or third generation immigrants could lose their "reflex" support for Labour, and those moving to traditionally white middle–class areas would be less likely to vote Labour.

David Green, from the right of centre think tank Civitas, said Mr. Gove had confused "multi-ethnicity" with "multi-culturalism". He said: "Michael Gove has confused a multi-cultural society with a multi-ethnic society. We have become a multi-ethnic society, but we been successful because our dominant culture of freedom and democracy allows space for different lifestyles. The vital point is that alternative lifestyles must be compatible with a free, democratic and tolerant society. Multiculturalism is the name for the condition in which antagonistic cultures co-exist in the same country. Mr. Gove should have known from his experience of dealing with alleged sectarianism in Birmingham's schools that not all cultures are compatible with a free society. Muslims who are opposed to extreme interpretations of Islam will not thank him for confusing the issue."

"There is good diversity and bad diversity, as the people of Ukraine can testify. Sectarianism is diversity that threatens freedom, democracy and toleration."

IA
London School of Islamics Trust

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Terence Curry • Apr 19, 2014 at 05:08

"Many Muslims want to live apart from British mainstream society." That says it all really, and in that one sentence explains the rationale behind them coming to the West in such numbers. They are not coming to integrate. They are here to subjugate.

A recent article on the schools in Britain (and every other Western country) made the statement that as moderate as they all sound to begin with, once they have achieved a position of power and authority, they invariably turn out to be not so moderate after all.

It is incumbent on all Muslims to strive to do whatever they can to Islamify the host country. That is encapsulated in their belief. They intend to take over, ably assisted by idiotic Western governments forcing some sort of multiculturalism on us. A goal not shared by the Muslim population.

Islam is to the best of my knowledge the only religion where its adherents are allowed, even encouraged, to lie as long as it advances the cause of Islam. How can any of them be trusted? The answer is they can't. If Western governments continue to ram multiculturalism down our throats without the option, and we see more and more of our cities and infrastructure like our schools taken over while alleged British youths go to Syria to join in the general mayhem, it can only have one eventual ending.

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Ephesian

Terence Curry • Apr 22, 2014 at 02:32

Excellent and very true comment indeed. If more people were made aware of this situation and educated themselves then we would not even have to discuss this topic......but the times they are a changing, and more and more people I speak to are getting more aware of the Muslim problem. Take heed government, or at your peril you will reap what you have sown as regards the British electorate.

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Terence Curry

Ephesian • Apr 24, 2014 at 02:16

As you say, more and more people are waking up to the true menace of Islam. Whether they are doing it in time to avert the coming disaster is another story.

The recent exposing of Islam being foisted on schools. The so called British men fighting in Syria (they are no more British than the man in the moon) all show the true nature of what they intend to unleash on the world, and once Iran has a nuclear weapon, it will be much more dangerous to curb them, let alone stop them. These idiots welcome death.

While from time immemorial people have rallied to a banner for what they think is right. Look at the Americans who came over here before the US of A officially came in. These so called jihadis are simply joining in the mayhem, and killing anyone who disagrees with them, notably Christians who Assad didn't have a problem with, but these "British Jihadis" most certainly do.

It boils down to a race against time, and at the moment, with government policy throughout the world being deliberately and wilfully blind, following a multicultural dream, it's a race we are losing

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Terence Curry

Ephesian • Apr 26, 2014 at 07:51

Our governments in the West have been for some time determined to push multiculturalism, and integration, together with political correctness, down our throats. Blindly pushing on even in the face of obvious failure. Even that stalwart against racism Phillips was forced to admit some time ago that integration had failed, but multiculturalism was still the aim. A perfect example of doublespeak if ever there was one.

All interested parties have taken full and complete advantage of our governments' idiocy, from asylum seekers being able to pick the most profitable country for them to flee to, to the longer term aims of other groups.

High on that list comes the Muslim threat. They are here to take over, not to integrate in any way. They no longer trouble to deny it, while undermining everything from our education system to our legal system, all the while demanding more and more rights for Muslims. All this in a bare 50 years. Jews have been in Britain and Europe for almost 2,000 years. Persecuted most of the time, they have integrated into society, religion and all.

Our governments have indeed sown the wind, but it may be us who have had no say in any of it who will reap the whirlwind. They are even now in Syria, learning how to fight a civil war.

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Ephesian

Terence Curry • Apr 28, 2014 at 02:15

Yes, it is exactly as you say, and I agree with your comment. Just because you live in Britain doesn't make you British. Their loyalties do not lie with Britain at all, nor is it to any country, as Muslims see the whole world as belonging to them, and just there to be conquered. It worries me greatly what will happen if the government fails to tackle this problem because if they fail to listen to the people then there will be no other answer but civil war.

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Bart Benschop • Apr 19, 2014 at 04:06

Dear Sir,

The Muslim doctrine is by Arabs and for Arabs. Every non Arab Muslim pays tribute to the Arabic element of this doctrine. Muslims are forbidden under Al Shari'iah The Law of Allah, His Name be praised, to integrate or make friends with non Muslims. It took many centuries for the Muslim doctrine to destroy the cultures of North Africa and the Middle East. In South East Asia this is a work in progress. For example in Indonesia there have been Arab teachers causing waves of Arabic influences throughout history. Non Muslim countries are ignorant enough to take the side of the Arab Sunni Wahabi movement. The Alawite Shia movement in Syria should be encouraged against the Sunni rebels. Under Alawite Shia rule Christians and other non Muslim and differing Muslim doctrines have been tolerated.

Kind regards,

Bart Benschop

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Ephesian • Apr 19, 2014 at 03:36

When will Britain (and any other non-Muslim country for that matter) begin to realise that Muslims do not want to integrate with the British or any other non-Muslim? In fact, they are told not to in the Quran, and the Jews and Christians are particularly to be avoided. So, for instance, in Britain, which is a Christian country and has large numbers of Muslims, can you not see how this is a major disaster waiting to happen? What is laughable is the quote from Hassan Butt that he felt isolated in Britain because he was treated as a Muslim first and British second! That's what Muslims want - to be British when it suits and Muslim when it suits! Typical, always whining about "their rights" and yet this comes from the most intolerant of peoples. Stop pandering to Muslims, with their imagined grievances, so called "Islamophobia" and "everybody hates me" attitude. Can I accuse them of "Christianophobia"? Walking through many towns and cities in England is now like a stroll through a Middle Eastern country and it is not acceptable.

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Terence Curry

Ephesian • Apr 30, 2014 at 08:37

Ephesian is correct. A stroll through many of our cities and even town centres shows how the immigrant population, especially Muslims, have expanded in only the last few years, as restrictions on immigration are all but dismantled.

The latest revelations about sharia compliant loans and sharia law taking precedence over British law, are the latest example of how Muslims intend to take over. They no longer even trouble to deny it.

They used to deny it, when their numbers were still relatively low, but now the murder is out. They admit they intend to bring all the joys of Islam to the world, and by force if need be. Remember they don't mind killing us, and welcome death themselves as leading straight to paradise.

How can anyone deal with a mentality like that? Certainly our and other Western governments have shown themselves to be wilfully blind, and weak. They of course will not pay the price of that weakness - we will.

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Himagain • Apr 18, 2014 at 19:05

This has been the best example of the muddied swamp of "Islam" to date. Thank you.
I, having spent years of my early life in S.E.Asia, as a business negotiator, became familiar with the misunderstandings of people not only in the West, but in Asia as well.

The vast sums of money (made possible earlier by Western Companies in the Oil Business) and today, incredibly also by Western Governments, do have incredible impact on normal Muslims.

Most Muslims that I know personally have great difficulty in understanding the whole scenario and are often enlightened by the simple explanation that "Islam" is a political invention - there is no such thing in the Muslim world itself, except for the monetary power of these few fabulously rich Arabs imposing even their dress customs on other Muslims.

So this one page here today is the most concise explanation of the situation I've read to date and will certainly be referring my own readers to it.

As usual, what I find most telling in the extracts above, is the lack of understanding in the Western "converts", who will even die for a simple lie.

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Ek Chakkar • Apr 18, 2014 at 19:04

Thinkers of the Subcontinent would have told you this decades back. These policies, supposedly based on social science, join a long list of failures from Britain and the West, more generally. A sampling:
- the now-disproved Aryan invasion theory
- Hutu-Tutsi divide based on skin colour
- defining Muslims as minorities in the Sucontinent
- viewing Dharmic philosophies as religions

The fact is that Britain is paying for supporting the two-nation theory. It has to go down as one of the stupidest political fabrications. Pakistan is the only other country ever created on the basis of religion. It has no basis in history or culture. What is happening in Britain to South Asian culture has been going on in Pakistan for six decades: the utter and complete annihilation of anything 'Hindu'. And the West has just stood by; or maybe it just served its Cold-War interest while Islam slowly pushed its foot through the throat of ancient cultures in Pakistan.

Enjoy your plush jobs in ivory towers, dissecting the corpse of a vibrant culture.

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James Edwards • Apr 18, 2014 at 18:46

It's a shame that a traditionally Christian nation - born of God, Christ, and English Kings and Queens - should be overcome with Muslim immigrants that wish to change the culture and society of the English people.

This has come about with the help of a liberal government focused on money and trade - without any consideration for what will happen in the future to the English people. Why should the rich care? They can always move? Why should the Crown care? The Royal Family can always escape to Australia!

In the meantime, the English people see their society eroded and challenged to the point where, in time, one of two things will happen. They will rebel, and throw out the government that is betraying them, or, they will simply be overwhelmed.

As in the Crusades of long ago, the enemy then was Islam! Nothing has changed. The enemy still wants to conquer Western civilization, install a Sharia-run government, and eradicate every vestige of Christian or Jewish, or Judeo-Christian influence in England.

Wake up, England! Pick up the sword and shield once more, and drive the Islamics from the sacred islands God chose for his Christian subjects centuries ago! Start, with installing a new government!

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Suzy • Apr 18, 2014 at 18:43

"the vitality of South Asian music, dress, books, poetry and ideas risks disappearing completely"

No! They are kept alive by British Indians, Hindus and Sikh.

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Suzy • Apr 18, 2014 at 18:36

It's really simple. Pakistani Islam is rooted in the experience of the Two Nation Theory that led to the partition of India - that Muslims cannot live with Hindus and Sikhs. Therefore it was susceptible as an identity in Britain to reject 'Asian' identity because 'Asian' was associated with Hindus and Sikhs, who are 'kaffir'. Asian culture is kept alive in Britain by British Indians. Muslim Pakistanis are raised to reject their ethnic heritage because it is 'impure' and rooted in 'kuffar' cultures and religions. British Pakistanis who become 'Arabised' are not just hating on British society, they are hating on Hindus and Sikhs too.

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Dima Qarqash • Apr 18, 2014 at 18:32

Whoever wrote this article has contributed to the eventual lancing of the festering boil which is Islamism in the UK.

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Lance Silver • Apr 18, 2014 at 13:20

How do you explain the 1,400 years of Islamic Imperialism throughout the world; it's all due to the Arabs influence? Of course it is because Islam is from the Arabian Peninsula and like Latin was the lexicon of the church, Arabic is the lexicon of Islam and Islamists. It's systemic Islamic dogma and doctrine that creates Islam and influences Muslims behavior as Muslims are compelled by the Qur'an, aHadith, Sunna and Shari'ah law to behave as they do towards all non-Muslims and each other; it's not by Arabs.
Wahhabism is a tremendous influence upon Islam, but Islam has always been Islam.
Lance Silver

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Dominic Hendron • Apr 18, 2014 at 13:15

Informative.

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Julian • Apr 18, 2014 at 13:02

I saw a video made by an American convert and, in addition to his adopting of desert robes, he had even changed his pattern of speech. The few Arabic words he spoke he spoke like he was an Arab native whose English was struggling and heavily accented. I kept thinking why don't you speak normally like you used to? The truth is he now so identified with Mohammedism that he thought he needed to speak in the accent of those from whom he learned this nonsense in the first place. Sad really, and an indictment of his own weak persona. Though, perhaps I would have respected him a little bit more if he took to always riding about on a camel.

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Jason • Apr 18, 2014 at 06:51

What a truly excellent article, great research. Wahabism is indeed an excellent social engineering feat.

Generally, if there's anything that history has taught us in the last couple of hundred years, it's that post-enlightenment reactionary Abrahamism is **always** strongly political. The Wahabis, who are parsed by many scholars as a new religious movement, and were formed not least in disgust at the nature of Sufism, are no different from the American conservative evangelicals or indeed the haredim in this respect.

And it's always a sad moment when one realises that conservative religious enemies have been cleverer than oneself. The Wahabis appear to have worked both sides very effectively, convincing both UK Muslims and UK general population and authorities that their Islam is "true Islam". There's rarely any argument against that idea, from right or left. They've played us all for suckers, and they've succeeded so far.

If there's any common sense left in the situation, articles like this will be the beginning of **everyone** asking serious questions, as communities, about whether they want these forms of religion in anything like authority. There are no social success stories in hardline fundamentalist religion.

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