Saturday 25 May 2024

"Islamism & the 'Far Right’: a False Equivalence” | Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the brave woman who jointly produced the film “Submission" with Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gough. The film was all about women and Islam. This is something Hirsi Ali knew all about, being born Muslim in Somalia, having had FGM -- “female genital mutilation” -- done on her at a young age, being married off to a much older man on the orders of her father, but managing to escape her father and husband, to make her way to Holland. 

But she didn’t quite escape. Her film partner Theo Van Gough was murdered by an Islamist fanatic, upset that the film told the truth. He stabbed a knife into Theo’s heart, appending a note to the knife: “Ayaan, you are next”. 

The Dutch authorities refused to protect her, so she fled to the United Kingdom, where she met her now husband, the famous historian Niall Ferguson

In the end she felt vulnerable in the England as well so she and Niall moved to the U.S., where the Islamist problem, is, for the moment, a little less severe than in Europe and the U.K.:

Sometimes when I get tired of the terrible news from the United States I like to take a look across the Atlantic. Sometimes it’s better! Sometimes it makes me grateful to be in America.
Because:

Every year the nation [U.K.] gets more Muslim, and every year the nation gets more terrified of talking about Islam...

And instead of talking about Islam, people bang on about “the Far Right”:

Instead of pledging to fight back against Islamist intimidation of MPs or talking about how Galloway’s Gaza-centric campaign reflected the balkanization wrought by excessive immigration, Sunak instead feebly triangulated between Islamism on the one hand and the supposed rise of the Far Right ...

I know that many (perhaps most) of my old mates, and even my Occasional Readers may say that wanting to talking about Islam and Islamism is alarmist, that it’s Islamophobic, or xenophobic, or Muslim-baiting, or bigoted. 

What can I say to that, other than “no, it’s not”. 

I’ve seen the U.K. with my own eyes. Lived in London in the 1970s; our son was five years at school in Kent in the 90s; I’ve visited many times since. I’ve driven it Land’s End to John o’Groats many times. 

There are vast swathes of major cities that are unrecognisable. 

And not for the better. 

Unless you think that having all the pubs in an area closed down is for the better. Or all the front lawns turned over to concrete is for the better. Or five times a day calls to prayer on the loudspeakers is for the better. Or having to walk around men (it’s always men) kowtowing down right on the street to pray, is for the better. Or women not being able to walk in these areas without a man, or without hijab is for the better

Or having only one type of food is for the better: Kebabs and Curries. I mean, yum and yummy, but that’s all?

I mean, after all, I thought one of the big benefits of multiculturalism was supposed to be a widening of food choices, not a narrowing! And no bacon. And no sangers! No pork scratchings! Not to mention no beer! And no wine. And Sharia patrols to make sure women are covered. And women being forced into FGM, which is what Ayaan fled from. 

We’re not talking Chinatown-type things here. We’re talking wholesale takeover of some cities in the U.K., by  linguistically, culturally, clothedly and religiously very different people with no intention of trying to fit in with the host country, but bent on changing it to its own ways. (For example, forcing workmates to follow their Ramadan fasting period). 

If you think all that is better, adding to the rich mosaic of life, then you’ve lost me. I most assuredly do not think these are an improvement on the traditional life of the U.K.  And most of my mates and O.R.s wouldn’t  either if they actually went there, and saw for themselves and were honest. I liked Islamabad and Kabul and Istanbul. But in their place. They don’t have to be in Birmingham or Rotherham, or Tower Hamlets. 

For me, for many folks who are leaving the U.K. because of it, it’s a crying shame. And it was brought on England by itself. It was brought on by policy (the Blair government). 

This did not need to happen. Or it might have happened at a rate where there could have been more integration. But no, our betters knew better. And it’s not better, it’s worse. 

"Islamism & the 'Far Right’: a False Equivalence” | Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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Note: I am absolutely NOT saying Britain should try to get back to being a White Britain. No, no, no. Not at all. I’ve spent most of my life here in Asia, after all, where we whities are very much a minority. And I’d have no issue if the migration was East Asian, India Hindus, Nigerian Christian. The issue is with the ideology of Islam which is supremacist, misogynistic, homophobic, and aggressively against adopting the values of the host country. Rather to make the host country Islamic. That’s not me saying that, but Islamic leaders and influencers who say it in stop. That’s what we’re concerned about. 

(A). Don’t keep bowing down to Muslim practices. Cambridge University held an ancient annual knees-up this year, happened to done during Ramadan, so they decided to do it “in respect to Ramadan” and go alcohol-free. Imagine the normal boozy fun fest, this time according to participants very subdued. No. Don’t do it. Gains no respect and only makes the studes feel they really, really need a drink.

In some workplaces non-Muslims are being pressured to fast during Ramadan because their Muslim colleagues are. Again, hard no. Push back. You do yours, we do ours.

(B). Push back against disrespectful Muslim practices. Like public praying in front of cathedrals. Imagine the shoe in the other foot, Christians singing carols in front of a. Osque. Disrespectful? Of course. So the other way around is too. Move them on, when the gather for their heads down bums up. 

(C). Deport any Muslims non-citizens who preach aggressive Islam, Jihad, killing of we infidels. Or criminals. Like in the many Muslim gangs.

(D). Don’t put up with enforced “blasphemy”. When a teacher shows his class pictures of Muhammad, and is forced into hiding by angry Muslims, say no. Instead, like the desegregation battles of the sixties in an America, have law enforcement accompany the teacher to school. You do not get to institute blasphemy laws on our country. 

(E). Shut down the Sharia courts. There should be one law for all. Will Muslims be angry? Of course. But why should they be permitted a whole parallel legal system? Where’s the logic for that, other than a wish to be “tolerant” decades ago when people were under the delusion that being nice to Muslims would get them being nice back. No… there is no golden rule in Islam.