This one may be a wee bit sensitive! I have been astounded at events in the week in the past week – events which demonstrate just how confused the Establishment in the UK have become about Islam and Islamism. So I wrote this two-part piece on Islamism in Britain for Christian Today – while I could. If the Labour Party (and Lib Dems and SNP) get their way it will soon be illegal to write something like this. Part two comes out tomorrow…
Islamism in Britain Part 1: Is there a problem?
The former Home Secretary Suella Braverman is in trouble. She recently wrote that Britain was “sleepwalking into a ghettoised society where free expression and British values are diluted. Where Sharia law, the Islamist mob and anti-Semites take over communities…Islamists are bullying Britain into submission.” Cue outrage.
A few days later Conservative MP Lee Anderson told GB News that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, had given “our capital city away to his mates”, before adding, “I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan, and they’ve got control of London.” The uproar and cries of racism and Islamophobia have been so loud that Anderson has been suspended by the Conservative Party and the hunt is on for Braverman.
Once again, the noise on both sides is overwhelming, but is it possible to have a more balanced, Christian perspective?
Firstly, let’s begin with some basics.
To critique Islam or Islamism is not racism
Islam is not a race. As most Muslims will tell you, there are Muslims from all different races. I have asked numerous commentators and politicians if they would regard Christophobia as racist and not one of them would. So why does one religion get this privileged status? When politicians such as Sadiq Khan, Anna Soubry and David Lammy claim that being critical of Islam is racist, they are playing a very dangerous game.
Islam and Islamism are not the same
All Muslims are not Islamists, although all Islamists are Muslim. What, then, is Islamism? Wikipedia defines it as “a political ideology which seeks to enforce Islamic precepts and norms as generally applicable rules for people’s conduct; and whose adherents seek a state based on Islamic values and laws (sharia) and rejecting Western guiding principles, such as freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, artistic freedom and freedom of religion”.
I have known Muslims in the UK who came to this country precisely because they wanted to escape Islamist regimes, although most would be too scared to say that such is the reach of Islamism in the UK.
This distinction is vital. In a pluralist society we welcome Muslims to the country and support their right to freedom of worship. That is why I wrote this article on Christian Today in defence of Muslims being permitted to build a mosque in Stornoway.
But there is an enormous caveat to that. Muslims who come to this country must realise that this is a country built on Christian principles which include the very freedoms they may exploit, and which do not exist for most Christians in Islamic countries. If we do not wish to live under Sharia law, or have an apartheid society where Muslims have separate laws from the rest of us, then we should be free to say so – without being silenced by the cry of ‘Islamophobia”.
Lee Anderson was foolish in his remarks not because he warned about Islamism, but rather because he accused Sadiq Khan and London of being controlled by Islamists. That is a serious charge which without evidence is both harmful and stupid – playing right into the hands of the real Islamists.
But was Braverman correct in her analysis that Islamism is a clear and present danger in the UK? I believe she was.
Firstly, it’s important to note that this whole situation arose out of an astonishing week in Parliament. The SNP, seeking to put forward a motion in Parliament calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, put forward one that was so extreme that many Labour MPs could not have supported it. The trouble was that those same Labour MPs were coming under such pressure from Islamists and left-wing supporters (Hamas and the Socialist Workers make strange bedfellows!) – a pressure which included physical threats to themselves, their families and their staff – that the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, changed parliamentary procedures, in order to allow a Labour amendment instead. Cue uproar. If you want to read more on this, Konstantin Kisin summarises the situation well.
But the key point is that such was the Islamist threat to MPs that our parliamentary procedures had to be changed. As the journalist Stephen Daisley tweeted: “The Islamist threat to MPs is so severe the Speaker had to upend parliamentary procedure to appease it, but also the Islamist threat is being overblown by the right, but also MPs need more protection. From Islamists. Whose threat is overblown. Gotcha.”
Was Sir Lindsay right to be concerned? Absolutely. Private security firms are being deployed to protect MPs after the Hamas attack on Israel – and they are not being deployed to protect them from Jewish extremists!
The Islamist movement has already killed one MP, launched a deadly car and knife attack on Westminster, forced the Jewish MP Mike Freer to resign and killed 94 people in Britain in the past couple of decades. The Far Right are cited (rightly) as a threat, but there is not an equivalence. The Far Right have killed three people. Ironically the Far-Right flourish when mainstream society refuses to take the threat of Islamism seriously.
It’s incredible how the threat of being accused of racism or Islamophobia silences people. Take for example this article on the BBC from Laura Kuenssberg. It has no difficulty in mentioning the Far Right, Brexit etc, but not a word about Islamism. Why? Could it be fear of being accused of blasphemy?
We always hear about ‘extremists’ but unlike others, Islamic ones are rarely named. Singer Morrissey summed it up with a biting remark after the Manchester Arena bombing (where 22 people, including children, were murdered by Islamist Salman Abedi): “Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says the attack is the work of an ‘extremist’. An extreme what? An extreme rabbit?'”
The doctrine of equivalence is such a dangerous one. The organisation Hope Not Hate made a great fuss this week about having access to the private tweets of Paul Marshall, one of the owners of GB News. They seemed greatly excited about a few tweets (not written by Marshall) which he passed on, warning about the dangers of Islamism. This was proof of being ‘Far Right’ and ‘racist’.
Hope Not Hate is a hopeless and hate-filled organisation that once issued a report claiming that writers such as Douglas Murray, Rod Liddle and Melanie Phillips were far-right extremists. Meanwhile they give a free pass to the hatred regularly being expressed in some (thankfully not most) mosques in the UK and on our streets.
Personal Examples
What concerns me the most is not these bigger issues but how they are played out in our society. I could give you many examples that I have experienced but here are just a few – and for obvious reasons I won’t name names. I think of the gay activist in Scotland who told me he was leaving the country because of the hatred. When I asked if it was homophobia, he said, “Oh no, I am a Jew, and for the first time in Scotland we now have serious antisemitism.” The fact that this has come with the arrival of more Muslims is not a coincidence.
Or another gay couple in a Yorkshire town who had bought their own house and were living together. As the neighbourhood became more and more Muslim, they got ‘offers’ encouraging them to sell their house. When they refused, they faced a campaign of harassment – excrement through the door etc. They complained to the local council and an official came round, who was himself a Muslim, and in effect told them they should sell, because the area was now Muslim and they were offensive to Muslims.
Or the female Asian Islamic teenager who came to see me because she had become a Christian and had a white boyfriend. She was facing considerable harassment from her family and the local council and police had told her to go to her local Asian community group for help. She couldn’t because some of her extended family were officials in that particular organisation. She ended up having to go into a protection programme of sorts where the police removed her to another area of the UK, anonymously for her own safety.
What astounded me about that incident several years ago was that there already existed a special unit in the police for protecting Muslims who converted. I thought then, as I do today: why are we not prosecuting those who threaten, abuse and harm in the name of their religion, rather than just removing the victims out of harm’s way? Why not deal with those who would cause the harm? Is this because the authorities have already lost control?
In Sydney after the Hamas attacks last October, the New South Wales government decided to project the Israeli flag onto the Sydney Opera House. A demonstration was arranged by Islamists, and unbelievably Jews were ordered to stay away from the city centre. Anyone who waved an Israeli flag was in danger of being arrested while witnesses reported hearing chants of ‘F*** the Jews, where are the Jews, gas the Jews”. The waving of Palestinian flags was permitted, but fly an Israeli flag and you would be arrested – for your own protection! That is a situation that could and is being repeated in many UK cities and towns.
The situation is clear. Islamism is a real danger in Britain and it is the number one danger in terms of social cohesion, terrorism, and religious and political freedom.
And where is the Church in all this? Pathetically silent – except to join in the general warnings about Islamophobia. Has the Church of England or the Church of Scotland, or any denomination, warned about the dangers of Islamism? A taxi driver in a northern English town told me that in his area which was now largely Muslim, two churches had been burnt down and nothing could be done about it. Maybe he was lying or wrong, but the fact is that many who live in areas where Islamism is a problem share those fears, while those who live in areas where it doesn’t exist, decry from the safety of their gated communities anyone who complains about it as racist and Islamophobic.
If the Church does not speak up for freedom and democracy in this once Christian country, who will? The politicians? The media? Or the far right? When people become desperate, as they see their neighbourhoods and their country going down this direction, it is little wonder that they turn to real extremes.
We should speak out now – while we still can. Because once the strange alliance of Islamists and progressives get their way, a new hate crime bill will be passed and any criticism of Islam or any Muslim will be considered Islamophobic and racist.
Is there a solution to all this? Yes – and in part two we will see what it is.
David Robertson is the minister of Scots Kirk Presbyterian Church in Newcastle, New South Wales. He blogs at The Wee Flea.
I honestly can’t fathom why the left-wing parties don’t see the danger of constantly giving ground to Islamists. Is it just staggeringly naive short-term tactics to make a grab for power? Do they have a plan for keeping them in check, because the Islamists’ numbers and confidence are only going to grow? Is it a case of “feed the other chickens to the fox so he eats us last”? Or is it a subtle form of racism that assumes brown people are not capable of taking over a secular Western nation?
As you say, many (perhaps most) Muslims in the UK are not Islamists. But if push came to shove, whose side would they be on? Do supposedly moderate Muslims condemn the extremists or do they quietly approve of the advance of their faith?
Thank you again for speaking truth so clearly!
Britain was warned that by not controling and being selective with immigration it was going to create future unrest and division. Without naming names it was predicted way back in the 1960s. In more recent times countries like Germany and Sweden opened their borders to large numbers of immigrants who had no intention to intergrate with a different culture. From what I’ve read Sweden now has one of the highest crime rates in northern Europe. As they say you reap what you sow ……
Bit like Australia in the 1700s?
I don’t think that you will find Islamism was a problem in Australia in the 1700’s!
But what about the “large numbers of immigrants who had no intention to intergrate with a different culture” (sic.) [Rodney]?
So you are saying that Muslims in the UK are imperialist invaders who want to take over the country?! You and Farage should get together!
It’s nice to finally see the Wee Flea so concerned about the well-being of gay couples! It seems like only yesterday that he was arguing that everyone should only form and understand marriage as he and his church does despite the free and pluralistic society he now espouses. A wonderful evolution!
George – I am concerned about the well being of every one – which is why I am opposed to so called ‘gay marriage’. You seem a little confused…Every society has rules about marriage….our society was based upon Christian rules (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox – not just my church)…A pluralistic society does not mean that everything goes….I assume that even you would be opposed to incestous marriage, or polygamy or paedophile marriage….or maybe not?
I agree with a lot of what you say – otherwise I would not be commenting. The problem that I have with the concept of Islamism is that it seems to me that a serious examination of Mohammed’s life and writings – bearing in mind the fact that the Islamic principle of abrogation involves prioritising the less tolerant later material over the early attempts at rapprochement – would have to conclude that Mohammed himself was an Islamist. This raises the question of whether it is possible to be an observant Muslim without being Islamist. As a Briton who values our tradition of tolerance, I’d like to say that it is – but I wonder if the division isn’t between Islamists and “good” Muslims but between observant Muslims and Muslims who are in denial about their heritage, and find themselves on the horns of a painful dilemma, because they cannot wholeheartedly espouse their own tradition, but the appeal of other philosophies does not suffice to risk apostasy sanctions. That isn’t to say that this group is not “good”, i.e. well-meaning (because of course they are not sinless) by most standards; they are likely to be hard-working, courteous, considerate, and contributors to a positive and caring vision of modern Britain. It is just that, if Mohammed were alive now he would disown them. Incidentally, the imam you mentioned who counselled that God would be sovereign probably is observant – he is just assuming that God will come down on the side of Islam. And this raises another key question – who is Allah? Jesus said “By their fruits will you know them” – are we to conclude that doctrines like taqiyya, or the claim the God has no son, indicate a genuine Abrahamic provenance? My own conclusion would be that we are looking at a spiritual entity other than the God of the Bible – that Islam is not somehow in a different category from the faiths whose sacrifices Paul warned about in 1 Cor 10, 20-21, just because the Qur’an cites Biblical material. That doesn’t mean that Mohammed was not sincere – but one of the hadiths describes the being who dictated the Qur’an (and that’s another point, dictation vs. the inspiration of the Scriptures) crushed Mohammed’s chest. This is a typical indicator of trance mediumship – and it is not a phenomenon that occurs in Biblical theophany. Which brings me to my final point, that we are in fact looking at prayer as our primary response. And that, when we do pray, God will make things clearer. Some years back, I did an evangelism course at a theological college. One of the modules was on Understanding Islam, and we were required to visit a mosque as part of it. Having been told that this was a house of prayer, and that the one worshipped in it was held to be identical with my own God, I prayed under my breath in tongues whilst I was there. That night I had appalling nightmares. There was a feedback session the next day at which the convener, a missionary on furlough, asked what we had experienced. I was the only person to say anything (NB most of those present were ordinands), and, after I had finished, the convener said that he had been very perturbed about the visit; that, having been drafted in at short notice to lead the course, he had not been able to stop it from happening, but that he had prayer walked around the outside of the mosque on the morning before the visit took place. I have to confess that I did not want to formulate what now seems to me to be obvious, and I chickened out of submitting an essay for that module (which meant that, for the purposes of my diploma, I was recorded as having audited it). Some years after this, I was commenting on a message board run by an evangelical news agency, and I acknowledged in my comment that, by taking off my shoes before entering the mosque, I had committed idolatry. I stupidly did not repent this or ask forgiveness, and then had horrible nightmares that night. That was 5 years ago – I believe that God has led me on since that time, but this post is long enough, so I will save that for another time. The one thing I would say is that spiritual warfare in this context is an expression of love, not hate, towards Muslims, as it silences rival voices so that the real God can be heard.
@Alethea
In short, whereas toxic Christianity consists of the religion practised by those who nominally proclaim Christ as Lord, but who seem not to take seriously, to teach, or to practise what Christ and his appointed apostles taught, toxic Islam or Islamism, is the religion of Muslims who are fundamentalist as well as nominal Muslims, who not only proclaim Mohammed as Allah’s prophet, but also take seriously, teach, and practice what Mohammed taught. Is observing that asymmetry the gist of the earlier part of what you are saying?
It amuses me that you write about a case of Islamic homophobia. It is an awful story, and I am sad to hear it. But that you would hold it up as an example of how the Islamic community is prejudiced and un neighbourly is a new height for hypocrisy.
You need to stop and think. Christians do not threaten or seek to remove homosexuals. Your inability to see the difference is just an example of the blindness caused by your prejudice and ignorance