“Western intellectuals without any sort of Middle Eastern background would naturally have manifested an ardent solidarity with their Middle Eastern and Muslim counterparts who stand in the liberal vein — the Muslim free spirits of our own time, who argue in favor of human rights, rational thought (as opposed to dogma), tolerance and an open society.

[…] In today’s Middle East, the various radical Islamists, basking in their success, paint their liberal rivals and opponents as traitors to Muslim civilization, stooges of crusader or Zionist aggression. And, weirdly enough, all too many intellectuals in the Western countries have lately assented to those preposterous accusations, in a sanitized version suitable for Western consumption.”

One of the most significant effects of the emergence of radical Islam in the West is that liberals will not only defend (Islamic) religious extremists, but are increasingly abandoning their own supposed values to conservatives, who now seem to be the main defenders of democracy, freedom of speech, and even human rights for women and homosexuals. Liberals, as Paul Berman seems to imply, are also happy to embrace, or at least overlook, anti-Semitism, which emanates, more often than not, from radical Islam. Conversely, again, conservatives in both Europe and the U.S. tend to oppose anti-Semitism, and may also take a pro-Israel stance.

In 2007 the popular entertainment magazine Time Out (London), published an article entitled, Is London’s Future Islamic?,  but which, rather tellingly, argued at the beginning, “that an Islamic would be a better place”. It rejected what it termed, “a hysterical, right-wing, nightmare” in which London is transformed through Islam into “a society where women are second-class citizens, same sex relationships a crime and Sharia law enforces terrible public disfigurement and death.” This would, of course, have been a Left-wing nightmare only a few years ago, but now, apparently, the rights of women and homosexuals are for conservatives to worry about. Rather than telling the reader why women and homosexuals would not be turned into second-class citizens at best, or why Sharia law would not become a part of British society, the author attempts to convince us that Islam would bring better health, better education, and even better cuisine – hardly a fair trade. Again, its defense of Islam as a religion of non-racism was this:

“Under Islam all ethnicities are equal. Once you have submitted to Allah you are a Muslim – it doesn’t matter what color you are. End of story.”

Cold comfort to Afro-Caribbean Christians, Hindus, etc., who have no intention of submitting, I would imagine.

The growing excusing and even cultivation of extremism by professedly liberal governments is not hard to understand. A desire to win votes from Muslims, cowardliness, and a general ignorance of, and antipathy toward, the nation’s own culture, has meant some very unwise decisions have been made by politicians who have recently dabbled in culture (i.e., multiculturalism). Perhaps they have failed to notice that modern history is littered with political ideologies that have embraced culture (religion, art, etc.) only to break it, or to be broken by it – the ideology of multiculturalism is proving no exception.

Despite sounding inclusive and open-minded, multiculturalism tends very quickly to extremism. Make a virtue of celebrating the “differences” of cultures and you render yourself powerless to criticize them. The politician that praises moderates and condemns extremists appears to be against multiculturalism, wanting everyone to be different within narrow, Western confines. He is – as recent history shows – quickly denounced as a “fascist”. Praise the extremist and condemn the moderate, on the other hand, and the politician is considered a true proponent of diversity and multiculturalism. He is also free to criticize anyone – including people of different races and ethnicities who do not share his opinions – and when he spews the occasional bigoted or racist remark it is quickly forgotten. None of this would be possible without “multiculturalism”. 

Not surprisingly, in this topsy-turvy atmosphere, daring to criticize multiculturalism or suggest that the indigenous British have valid concerns means that an M.P. will be immediately branded an extremist. Conservative M.P., and moderate Muslim, Lady Warsi has been denounced for suggesting that the main political parties tackle the issue of immigration.  Likewise, Trevor Phillips – head of Britain’s major race relations body, and a Black Briton himself – was condemned by Mayor of London Ken Livingstone for his criticism of multiculturalism. Indeed, Livingstone went as far as to suggest that Phillips would soon join the British National Party (B.N.P.), which does not accept Black people as members.

Yet Livingstone has endorsed Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, despite Qaradawi’s belief that women should be beaten by their husbands if they upset him, despite his support of execution for homosexuality, his proclamation that pregnant Israeli women and their unborn babies can be legitimately killed, and his support for suicide bombings inside Israel. Livingstone has also compared a reporter, whom he knew to be Jewish, to a Nazi concentration camp guard,  has remarked that two prominent Jewish businessmen should “go back to Iran and try their luck with ayatollahs”,  and, more recently, cracked a joke to a reporter that compared Shi’ite Muslims to human waste.  We should not be surprised to learn, then, that Livingstone is often regarded as the preeminent proponent of multiculturalism. We would have to acknowledge, of course, that Livingstone does promote the rights of Jews, women, and homosexuals, but these sins are forgotten by extremist Muslims so long as he is championing one of their own, and no doubt the other groups use the same reasoning to convince themselves that he is really on their side.

Livingstone is not alone in this kind of behavior. With free speech no longer a principle of liberalism, the government has attempted to mediate speech, deeming some acceptable and some not. But without a definition of what speech is acceptable, and lacking a constitution that gives the British certain inalienable rights, the result is a perplexing and contradictory mix of half-thought out laws and rulings. Thus the government has attempted to make inciting hatred of homosexuals (with the aim of extending it to disabled people) a crime, as the courts have deemed downloading and possessing the Al-Qaeda and other terrorist training manuals “free speech”. 

Moreover, as prominent gay rights campaigner Peter Tachell has observed, the police will not arrest Muslim clerics who incite their followers to murder homosexuals, even though they are already breaking British law. Tatchell has also complained about the proposed law, saying that we need free speech, and that to legislate against “inciting hatred” is too vague, and might apply to almost any speech. The government is also apt not to prosecute on the grounds of what is said but, rather, who has spoken. 

After the bombings of 7/07 the Home Office established several “working groups” to tackle the growing phenomenon of Muslim extremism, yet it employed (as advisors to the government within these groups) Professor Tariq Ramadan – grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood – and Ahmad Thomson, a Muslim who has denied the holocaust in one of his books (available even through Amazon.com) and who believes that Hitler was financed by Zionists. Remarkably, aside from Conservative M.P. Michael Gove, who raised the issue in the House of Commons and in an op-ed piece for the Times, the employment of Islamic extremists and at least one holocaust denier by the British government has attracted almost no attention, and even less condemnation.

Robert S. Wistrich in his article ‘Cruel Britannia’ for the journal Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation, has suggested that anti-Semitism is much more entrenched in mainstream intellectual thought in Britain than elsewhere, and observes:

“The mainstreaming of anti-Semitism and demonization of Israel is felt most acutely, however, in the public culture of the capital city of London. In the past decade, the United Kingdom’s undisputed political, economic, and cultural center has also become a major world center of political Islam and anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American activism. Through its Arabic-language newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses, not to mention its flourishing network of bookshops, mosques, and community centers, radical Islam has taken full advantage of what British democracy has to offer for its anti-Western goals, reaping the benefits of London’s significance as a hub of global finance, electronic media, and mass communications technology. The effect of this with regard to anti-Semitism and virulent anti-Zionism has therefore been quite different from that found elsewhere in Europe: Although Britain’s Muslim population of about 1.5 million is only a quarter of that of France, the growing influence of London’s Muslims has given the most inflammatory of ideas a greater legitimacy in the capital’s political and cultural discourse than they enjoy virtually anywhere else.”

An already-existent anti-Semitism within British liberalism may have made its advocates more open to its expression by Muslims, especially as, in both cases, it is generally twined to anti-Americanism, and a support for Palestine over Israel.

Clearly liberals failed to see the danger inherent in the ideology of multiculturalism, even from their own strategic perspective. They are amazed, for example, that British and even English nationalism has gained much ground over the last decade, with the B.N.P. rapidly becoming a popular political party, but this reveals only a lack of understanding at what liberals claim to espouse. Multiculturalism is, simply put, the endorsement of ethnic nationalism by the nation’s various communities, cultures, peoples, etc. Thus, while patriotism and nationalism may be on the rise among the “indigenous British”, the familial homelands of other, non-indigenous British cultures, are also increasingly regarded as their actual and spiritual homeland, embodying their culture and even legal and moral codes.  Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service 's national leader on so-called honor crime, has said, for example, that many honor killings in Britain originate with orders or threats from militant (Islamic and nationalist) groups in such countries as Egypt:

"You have a second generation youth [in Britain] who have an exaggerated concept of what home is like […] They get their identity and their ethnicity from these traditions".

Afzal uses the example of Abdalla Yones who had links with a Kurdish nationalist group, and who murdered his daughter Heshu (by cutting her throat open) because he felt she had become too Westernized. Yet, the Labour government has encouraged British Muslims to link up with Muslims abroad, and, indeed, to effect change in Britain. Consider, for example, Jack Straw’s comments at the Muslim News Awards:

 “[Muslims] are giving so much to Britain. And they have much to offer the rest of the world. I would like to see more interaction between British Muslims and Muslim communities in other countries. British Muslims can lead the debate on how we can overcome challenges which matter to all of us – Muslims and non-Muslims. They can use their skills and thinking to help the economic and political development of others.”

We, of course, being the others.

The British government has created a dangerous situation. It has empowered extremists and silenced moderate Muslims. It has facilitated the rise of anti-Semitism, particularly within Islamic circles. It has eroded free speech. It has downtrodden legitimate complaints of British citizens while failing to even criticize extremists who have forged for themselves a non-British identity, and it has used ethnic minorities as a cover for its own dislike of British tradition. As Conservative Party leader David Cameron has said in regard to Livingstone, it views them as “potential agents of revolutionary change”.  And it has potentially set Britain on a historic collision course with radical Islam. As Gove has said:

“In Islamist circles a complementary message is absorbed. The British State does not have the courage to face down the advocates of political Islam. Islamists in Britain scent weakness. Just as Islamists abroad believe the West does not have the stamina to resist for long, so Islamists within the UK believe the momentum is with them. Islam’s Leninists have drawn the bayonet, probed, and found mush.”

While there is undoubtedly a growing sense of fear at the rise of militant Islam, it will be worth noting, though, that the White British are not the only ones that feel threatened, and that Muslims and Jews are beginning to voice serious concerns. The growing sense of nervousness among the different communities of Britain can only contribute to the potential for a revolutionary-like explosion of violence and anger somewhere down the road. Take for example, Neil Berry in the Arab News:

“[…] Britain is in the throes of headlong social change, with the issue of what its minorities are meant to be fitting into increasingly problematic […] Faced with much hostility, British Muslims have reason to feel that they are being subjected to systematic persecution — persecution which is part of the more general Western attack on the Islamic world led by US President George W. Bush. In many ways they are, and it is not hard to understand why some fear that they could yet suffer the sort of horrific victimization visited on the Muslims of Bosnia in the 1990s.”

Or Wistrich in Azure:

“Today the United Kingdom stands at a crossroads. […] when nations are so deeply unsure of the stability of their values and the security of their future, anti-Semitic sentiment often bubbles to the surface, as people deflect blame for a nation’s problems instead of addressing them head-on. For this reason, it is often said that the way a nation treats its Jews is a litmus test for its true character. As Britain’s subjects ponder their future among the community of nations, they would do well to keep these lessons of the past in mind.”

It would be incorrect, then, to infer that conservative politicians and Right-wing intellectuals are the only ones to sense the danger. Nor are they the only ones to take offense at the government’s politics. Just as Britain’s preeminent gay rights campaigner has complained about the proposed legislation against inciting hatred against homosexuals, so other groups have protested the liberal zeitgeist and a number of laws that the government has attempted to introduce ostensibly for their benefit. As noted, Lady Warsi has spoken up for the British people in an environment hostile to such sense. Moderate Muslim Saira Khan, in The Daily Mail, has condemned for example the “virginity restoration” procedures for Muslim girls, stating that it is “condoning an increasingly fundamentalist Islamic culture that is patriarchal, regressive and increasingly demeaning to women.”   More broadly, moderate Muslims have defended Christian culture, stating that contrary to the persistent claim of liberals, Christmas is not offensive to them, and that it should be celebrated.   Yet, these and similar voices have been heard in spite of the British government, who have patronized those who would separate Muslims from the rest of society, and who, in some, cases represent an extremist ideology. As Gove notes:

“For moderate Muslims the picture is dispiriting. They see the most religiously conservative and politically provocative groupings enjoy the lion’s share of attention and they wonder how serious the British State is about countering extremism. How can they convince young men within their community that the path of moderation brings respect and a voice in the nation’s deliberations when the most influential voices are seen to belong to those with radical agendas?

[…] Their [moderate Muslims] faith is an important, integral, part of their identity but they do not wish it to be the exclusive route through which they relate to the rest of Britain.”

All of this reveals the extent of the extraordinary failings of Labour’s so-called multicultural ideology, but this is not surprising. Labour seems to be composed of utterly cultureless individuals, who have largely emerged from a socialist background, and are antagonistic to the very idea of tradition. They are also people who neither practice nor understand religion, and as such they have very little in common with moderates. Their closest allies can thus only be extremists, who peddle a perverted view of religion, and with whom they share at least anti-British, anti-Western, and, to varying degrees, anti-democratic sentiments. A point in case is surely a petition signed by 2,500 Islamic intellectuals and sent to the United Nations in 2004 calling for a ban on the use of religion to incite hatred. Among a number of so-called “sheikhs of death”  indicted in the petition was Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who has been called a “moderate” and a “reformer” by Ken Livingstone. The moderate Muslim and liberal, then, could hardly be further apart. 

In contradistinction to Britain’s Left, those on the Right have been forthright in highlighting the growing menace of Islamic extremism, and the horrors that have been, and are still being, perpetrated under the banner of Islam. This appears increasingly necessary in the liberal political environment. Yet, there is a clear danger in portraying the authentic Muslim as a terrorist, especially at this time, when groups such as Al-Qaeda as well as extremist imams in backroom mosques in Britain are also doing so. Liberals are increasingly at odds with moderate Muslims, and will eventually be seen as outdated and irrelevant in a Western Europe that is at once becoming increasingly Islamic and rediscovering its Christian identity, if only as a symbolic gesture of resistance to Islamification. The successes or failings of moderate Muslims – largely Westernized, and who believe in democracy and religious freedom – will ultimately be decisive in defining the shape of Islam in Europe. At the moment, with liberal backing the extremists have the upper hand. It would be prudent for conservatives to reverse the situation, reminding Europe’s Muslim communities not only of atrocities carried out by Muslim extremists but of the efforts of moderates to reveal such extremists for what they are. Conservatives should continue to expose liberal-extremists for what they are also.