Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, addressed the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) on September 15. Although his topic was "The Breakdown of Social Integration – The Challenge of Our Age," some crucial components of that challenge were notably absent from his presentation.
Even though Mayor Khan said he believes that, "London is the powerhouse" for his country and is "proud that London was the only region in England to vote to remain in the European Union" (some boroughs voted 80% "Remain"), when it came to the United Kingdom as a whole, he said that "my side" lost the referendum.
That strikes one as an odd way for the mayor of any city to talk. Isn't he the Mayor of all of London? Aren't the Londoners who voted for Brexit included on his "side"?
Brexit Voters Want Self-Determination
Mayor Khan claimed that for "Leave" voters, "immigration was the number one issue." However, Lord Ashcroft's mega-poll says otherwise. According to it, the number one issue for "Leave" (pro-Brexit) voters across Britain was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK."
In other words, the number one reason they backed Brexit was self-determination. "Leave" voters did not like European Union officials --people they did not elect -- making laws that could overrule laws passed by British Parliament. Immigration and trade concerns were apparently less important.
Mayor Khan Appears to Prefer "Social Integration" to "Assimilation"
Mayor Khan also observed that Britain's "levels of social integration are not keeping pace with our changing population and growing diversity." That is hardly surprising: according to Khan, "One of three Londoners were born outside the UK," and "the number of immigrants arriving in Britain every year has doubled between 1997 and 2015."
Mayor Khan also said that he advocates "building bridges rather than walls" -- a remark that was heard by many as a gratuitous sideswipe at the U.S. presidential candidate, Donald Trump, who is against illegal immigration and for vigorous vetting of legal immigrants. Mayor Khan later added: "Nobody mentioned Donald Trump here, which is very good." But of course he just had.
Mayor Khan added that he would like more "asylum seekers" and "refugees," and advocated "social integration." "I don't mean assimilation," he stressed; "I mean social integration." He loosely defines social integration as "a level playing field" with a clear set of values and laws, but he left the difference between social integration and assimilation -- perhaps intentionally -- unclear. Doesn't Britain already have clear values and laws?
What Mayor Khan seemed to be saying by advocating "social integration" rather than "assimilation" is that he not eager for Muslims to become more like the British ("assimilation") but that he would be comfortable with the British adapting to the Muslim way of life. The presence of more Muslims might accelerate this process of the British having to adapt to the way of life of a Muslim majority ("social integration"). What that would be followed by is anyone's guess. The historical pattern has been to invite the non-Muslims to convert, and those who do not are relegated to the status of second-class citizens or dhimmis, who willingly live under different laws for those of a lower status, who pay a yearly tax (jizya) to subsidize Muslims, and who accept being dominated rather than face up the threats of violence that would come from not accepting it.
The Mayor never explained why assimilation -- along the lines of the common culture melting pot of the United States -- would not provide a level playing field and an even more harmonious society.
Every time a social problem arises, one can randomly assign blame to a host country for not providing enough social support to newcomers. That benchmark, however, creates a shifting goalpost: how much is "enough"? This lack of clarity leaves the door open for perpetual unrest. No matter how much support a welcoming society provides for newcomers, it can always be accused of not doing "enough." Khan focused only on what Britain should provide to newcomers, not on what newcomers should initiate on their own to fit into a country they entered willingly.
Mayor Says Muslim, Mufti Says Apostate
In the same speech, Mayor Khan claimed that being a Muslim is compatible with Western culture. That would only be true if "Muslim" meant one who ordered Islam à la carte. Islam means submission, and Muslims seem to disagree on how much submission is "enough." Also, at present, for non-Muslims in the West, zero submission to Islam is their right. Fundamentalist Muslim leaders such as Mufti Muhammed Aslam Naqshbandi Bandhalevi disagree with Mayor Khan's views that Muslims can accept laws in the West and still be called Muslim. Islam has never gone through a reinterpretation of its laws, or Reformation.
What many people may not realize is that the "Caliph" of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has a PhD in Islam from the University of Baghdad, and that every single thing he does, even those that horrify us in the West, has a totally legitimate precedent in the official Islam of the Koran and the Hadith, the two texts, considered of equal importance, on which Islam is based.
Contrary to what our leaders in the West have been telling us -- that the murders and other atrocities we have been witnessing have "nothing to do with Islam" -- they are, unfortunately, not only permitted in Islam but commended. This is what we have been seeing in Israel the past century, long before there was a dispute over territory. The fundamental dispute is over a people who have since the rise of Mohammad in the seventh century, refused to submit to Islam and who are therefore regarded as infidels.
Mayor Khan himself has encountered this problem. He mentioned that there was a fatwa against him, but he did not mention who issued it; one wonders why.
What occurred was that Mufti Muhammed Aslam Naqshbandi Bandhalevi, head imam of a mosque in Bradford, issued the fatwa declaring Khan an "apostate," one who has renounced Islam, because Khan supported same-sex marriage.
Quite simply, traditional Islam seems incompatible with Western values.
"What," asked the biologist Richard Dawkins "is the penalty for apostasy?"
Mohamad Mukadam, Chairman of the Association of Muslim Schools, replied: "If it is an Islamic country, the sharia is very clear. Apostasy is dealt with the death penalty."
When a mufti in Britain issues a fatwa, it is from the same Islam as that practiced in Muslim countries. In 2004, film director Theo van Gogh and Dutch Member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a movie critical of Islam. Mr. van Gogh was later murdered, shot and stabbed in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is in the Netherlands, not a Muslim country. Somali-born former-Muslim Hirsi Ali, now a naturalized U.S. citizen in the United States, still lives in the shadow of a death fatwa.
How many "asylum seekers" and "refugees" practice fundamentalist Islam and believe that sharia law should supersede laws passed by British Parliament?
Mayor Khan touts a fatwa as if it validates his liberal credentials, but he is far too coy about enumerating the dangers of flinging open one's borders to people who issue fatwas, much less to their followers who may fulfill them. Mayor Khan says being a Muslim is compatible with Western culture, but either he does not know Islam, a probability that is questionable, or he is misleading the British.
Khan also never once mentioned the social crisis of the rape of children in British cities, widely publicized in the British press. It is so shocking, with so many disturbing implications, that the Mayor's omission again seems to mislead Westerners about what immigration problems can occur.
Political Correctness Has Been Enabling Child Sex Abuse Gangs in Britain
The title of Khan's presentation was "The Breakdown of Social Integration – The Challenge of Our Age." However, isn't the epidemic rape of thousands of white children in Rotherham and other communities in England, and the official policy of ignoring the crisis for over a decade, the very definition of "breakdown of social integration"?
Officials were so unwilling to "rock the multicultural boat," that children were exploited, raped, and brutalized for more than a decade.
For several years, Sue Reid, a reporter for the Daily Mail, tried to expose these crimes. She was falsely accused of being a "liar and a racist."
In 2014, Home Secretary Theresa May blamed "institutionalized political correctness" for police and council agencies' failure in their duty to protect at least 1,400 chiefly white Rotherham children from chiefly Muslim Pakistani-heritage rape gangs from 1997-2013.
Similar crimes have occurred in other parts of the United Kingdom: Rochdale, Derby, Oxford, Bristol, Peterborough, and Keighley. In August, a fresh crisis was exposed in Telford, now dubbed the "child sex abuse capital."
Taken as a whole, Mayor Khan's presentation seemed to ignore unpleasant facts which suggest that there is more incompatibility of values than he is willing to admit -- in the interest of pushing an immigration agenda favored by his "side."
Mayor Khan's presentation seemed designed to pacify Westerners and enable the spread of the rule of Islam.
Janet Tavakoli is the president of Tavakoli Structured Finance.
