“Peace” is apparently the word on the lips of British politicians whenever the omens point, in stiff armed salute, to catastrophe. In 1938, Neville Chamberlain gave his now infamous speech, ‘Peace in our Time,’ in which he announced that Germany would be allowed to annex Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. This, the so-called Munich agreement, was meant of course to placate the Third Reich, but instead it is now seen as the first step to the occupation of Poland and to the onset of the Second World War. With utter lack of foresight Chamberlain had announced, “They [the various governments in the dispute] rejoiced with us that peace was preserved, and with us they look forward to further efforts to consolidate what has been done.” The British people, “were at one with those of Germany, of France and of Italy […] their intense desire for peace.”
There was a certain unintended dimension to junior Labour minister David Cairns’ recent statement, that Gordon Brown is the most unpopular British prime minister, “since Neville Chamberlain after Hitler invaded Norway,” as the same sort of language and mentality of appeasement that facilitated the rise of Nazi Germany is routinely employed by Brown and his government in regard to radical Islam. Its most literal outpouring came in July, when Brown spoke to the Knesset, and urged that Israel should share Jerusalem with the Palestinians. Like Chamberlain, Brown spoke of his belief that, “[…] this historic, hard-won and lasting peace is within your [Israel’s] reach, I urge you to take it by the hand.”
Neither Brown, nor Blair, nor the Labour Party, has acted mindful of the lessons that history has furnished us with. Indeed, the Party as a whole – and even British politicians more broadly – seems intent on repeating the most egregious mistakes of some other regimes now disappeared. Though perhaps the best known, the signing of the Munich agreement was far from the last time that government appeasement facilitated the rise of tyrannical organizations and regimes. In Algeria, as Walter Laquer has observed, “[…] the Islamists turned against the authorities who had done so much to support their activities. (Fascism: Past, Present, Future, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 164), and there is every reason to believe that the same will occur in Britain.
The government, authorities, and some sections of the media, believe they are supportive of Muslims. They are not. They are supportive of the most radical Islamists imaginable. Consider, for example, the West Midland schoolteachers told to dress as Muslims to celebrate Eid. The passport application for a five year old girl rejected because of fears that her passport photograph, in which her shoulders were bare, might upset Muslims. The Christian political Party banned from saying that “moderate Muslims” opposed the building of London’s super-Mosque, as this implied the organization behind the mosque is not moderate (which it is not). This list goes on.
Much of the government’s behavior is motivated by fear, but many in the Labour Party also share with radical Islamists a hatred of British and Western tradition and culture, and a desire to teach the British a lesson for colonialism. In some cases Labour MPs would appear to share anti-Semitism with the Islamists. And both, of course, believe in an ”equality” enforced by undemocratic bodies and means.
As a political ideology, radical Islam has derived much from the Nazis of 1930s and 40s Germany and the proto-Nazism of the preceding decades. Radical Islam is, to use Laquer’s phrase, “clerical fascism.” Yet clerical fascists have been embraced by the highest echelons of the British government, just as they were by the Nazi government.
In 1941, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and fervent admirer the Nazi regime, Amin al-Husseini (1895 - 1974), met with Adolf Hitler, and discussed their shared hatred of the Jews. (You can watch a clip of al-Husseini meeting Hitler here).
In 2005, Ahmad Thomson, at once a radical Islamist, Holocaust denier, and advisor to 10 Downing Street, claimed that the war in Iraq had been ordered by Zionists, as part of a supposed plan to shape world events.
The provenance of this belief in a Zionist world conspiracy is not difficult to trace. It is asserted in the Hamas charter, and, earlier on, in Hitler’s autobiographical Mein Kampf, and earlier still in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery popular with the Nazis and now a part of Hamas’ pseudo intellectual foundation.
Likewise, as Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone openly embraced Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Muslim scholar, who declared his support of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. Al-Qaradawi has espoused the murder of Jews and homosexuals, of wife beating, has declared that Islam should conquer Rome by violence, and has called suicide bombings carried out by Muslim women, “one of the most praised acts of worship.”
Again, it emerged recently that Scottish Nationalist Party councilor Jahangir Hanif had taken his daughters to a training camp on the Pakistan-Kashmir border, where they were each taught to fire an AK47. They had apparently been escorted to the camp in a van with blacked-out windows. The SNP suspended, but declined to expel Hanif, even despite receiving a letter of complaint from his 17 year old daughter (who was 14 at the time of being taken to the camp), who described the experience as a frightening ordeal, and suspension as too lenient. Nevertheless, Glasgow East MP John Mason said that suspending him was a severe punishment, and claimed that criticism of Hanif was, “coming across as thinly disguised racism.” (I assume he did not include Hanif’s daughter in this accusation.)
Radical Islam is gaining ground among the Muslim youth in particular. According to the Centre for Social Cohesion’s report [pdf], Islam on Campus: A survey of UK student opinions, 32 percent of Muslim students polled agreed that, “killing in the name of religion can be justified,” and that, “(33%) of Muslim students polled supported the introduction of a worldwide Caliphate based on Sharia law.” Last week Hammaad Munshi (18), became Britain’s youngest convicted terrorist, after being found guilty of making records of material likely to be used in terrorist acts. These included a guide to making napalm. Munshi was also actively involved with a cell of “cyber groomers” indoctrinating Muslims to murder kaffir (non-believers).
A few days ago, the Evening Standard revealed that the Al-Muhajiroun organization – banned as a threat to national security – has reemerged under a new name. Governed by exiled cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, the militant organization is embarked upon a recruitment drive, again targeting young Muslims. Its first youth conference – “Muslim Youth: The Spark of the Fire” – was apparently addressed by clerical fascists Abu Waleed and Abu Uzair. The intentions of this group are clear. Uzair himself has stated in a BBC interview that, "We don't live in peace with you any more. The banner has been risen for jihad inside the UK, which means it's allowed for bombers to attack."
Similarly, many backstreet mosques routinely preach hate, and encourage violence and murder toward kaffir, while women preachers at the high profile Regent's Park Mosque were recently recorded advocating the most extreme forms of sharia punishments in a future Islamic Britain, when there will be a, “[…] Muslim leader, when the Muslim army becomes stronger, when Islam has grown enough.” Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Dr Barham Salih, reportedly proclaimed in January that mosques he visited in the city of Blackburn – at the invitation of then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw – were so extreme that they would be illegal in Iraq.
And there are also plans for a “super mosque” in London, with a prayer space for 70,000. The organization behind it is Tablighi Jamaat, who, according to the deputy chief of the FBI's international terrorism section, has recruited for al-Qaeda. It has also reportedly established terrorist training camps in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Algeria. (And we should note that 2,000 British nationals are believed to have trained in terrorist camps inside Pakistan prior to 1998.) And the super mosque is opposed by many moderate Muslims – a petition against its establishment, as a possible terrorist risk, received 2,500 Muslim signatures in a period of 10 days.
It is in this context that sharia has been established in Britain.
Some will no doubt feel that I have weakened my point by citing moderate Muslims. But, on the contrary, there is no greater illustration of how dangerous many British mosques have become than Dr. Salih’s purported comment that they were more extreme than those in Iraq. There is no more succinct proof that Muslims do not need sharia than the former president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, telling British Muslims, in 2006, to obey British law. Or, indeed, that research undertaken prior to the establishment of sharia law in Britain suggested that 2 thirds of Muslims did not want to live under it.
Nor could there be any clearer proof that the British government and authorities have chosen to collaborate with clerical fascists. What kind of government is it, after all, that employs a Holocaust denier? Or that publicly embraces one of the world’s most notorious clerical fascists? Or refuses the passport application of a five year old girl because her shoulders were bare in her passport photograph?
History is peppered with the same incidents that we are seeing now in only slight variations: the meeting of Hitler and al-Husseini; the same anti-Semitism; the same bullying of the opposition, the same thuggery, and denial of free speech. But more important is what these events appear to signify. What are we seeing emerge? We are seeing an old hybrid beast reawakening from its slumbering in history: The same transformation of socialists into fascist leaders. The same marriage of socialism and mysticism that gave birth to Nazism. The same union of Leftists and Islamists which fought against the shah in the Iranian Revolution. As Laquer wrote in 1996:
[…] opposition to the shah’s dictatorial regime fought under the banner of freedom rather than the rule of the ayatollahs. That is, the democrats and the revolutionaries of the Left paved the way for a regime they had not wanted and that quickly suppressed them far more effectively and brutally than the shah’s government had.” (p. 157)
Compare this to one commentary on violent opposition to those peacefully protesting the building of a “giant mosque” a few days ago at Cologne. And of the mayor’s call for the city to be “intolerant” to them:
Mayor Schramma is a dhimmi collaborator. His actions betray his city, his country and his civilization. This is a shameful act of cowardice and appeasement of the Nazis of our time. The true heirs of the Nazis, both in totalitarian mentality and in methods, were the Muslims and the Antifa left-wingers who were present this day, not those who demonstrated against the Islamization of their continent.
Jews who demonstrated against the mosque were beaten up by Leftists and Islamists. One Jewish man who was wearing the kippa (skullcap worn by Orthodox Jews), was beaten so badly that one of his ribs was broken. Yet, throughout the assault, the Leftist/Islamist thugs “were yelling and screaming ‘Nazi’” at the victim, who was clearly recognizable as a Jew. Recall, then, the accusation of “racism” used by Scottish MP John Mason, to silence criticism of a councilor who had gone to a training camp on the Pakistan border to learn to shoot an AK47.
As occurred in Iran, the liberals and Leftists in Britain, and in Europe as a whole, are not fighting for the greater freedoms; nor are they negotiating peace in our time; they are preparing the way for tyranny.