A Friendly Warning / Melanie Phillips on London's identity crisis.
- From: "Americano" <cheechdog@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 22 May 2006 08:54:03 -0700
"Britain is in denial. Having allowed the country to turn into a
global hub of the Islamic jihad without apparently giving it a second
thought, the British establishment is still failing even now-despite
the wake-up calls of both 9/11 and the London bomb attacks of 2005-to
acknowledge what it is actually facing and take the appropriate
action." So writes Melanie Phillips, columnist for London's Daily
Mail, in her new book, Londonistan, released today.
Phillips talked to National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez about
her hometown and the problems of America's principal ally in the war
on terror.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: So "Jews, don't consider London a top vacation
spot" is what you're saying?
Melanie Phillips: Britain certainly isn't a very comfortable place
for Jews right now. It's not that there's a serious physical risk;
even though there's a relatively high level of attacks on Jewish
cemeteries and synagogues, it's still overwhelmingly likely that
Jewish visitors to London or elsewhere in Britain would encounter no
violence. It's more on the intellectual and social level that you
feel it. If you read the mainstream media, watch or listen to the BBC,
go onto campus, or attend dinner parties, you come up against the
demonization and delegitimization of Israel, along with breathtaking
assertions about how the international Jewish conspiracy has hijacked
U.S. foreign policy, which would have been simply unthinkable a few
years ago.
Lopez: Zacarias Moussaoui's mother has said that "Life in London made
my boy a terrorist." Does she have a point?
Phillips: Absolutely. Leave aside the self-serving nature of her
remarks-it seems that Moussaoui's family background was hardly
stable and loving-I expect she's right that it was his experience
as a student in London that radicalized him. What's so astounding is
that from the 1990s onwards, the British political and security
establishment simply turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the
substantial network of radical Islamists who were preaching hatred of
the West and recruiting for the jihad. As long as they
believed-erroneously-that these people posed no threat to Britain
itself, the authorities ignored them. But all the time they were
steadily radicalizing impressionable young Muslims.
Lopez: Is there any sense of British nationalism/culture being taught
in British schools? I remember spending an entire year on British
literature in a New York City high school. Is that kinda thing a
multiculturalism no-no in London today? How prohibitive is tolerance in
the classroom?
Phillips: For three decades and more, the British education system has
stopped transmitting the story and values of the nation on the grounds
that national identity is racist, xenophobic, inhospitable, and so on.
So English literature and, even more so, British political history are
only minimally taught. If anything is racist, of course, it's that
attitude itself because it means that recent immigrants are excluded
from equal participation in British society because they are left in
ignorance of it. Britain used to do integration; now it does
disintegration. In every sense.
Lopez: This was no quick thing for London. When did the conversion, so
to speak start?
Phillips: Well, it depends how far you want to go back! Certainly this
process of multiculturalism, minority "rights" that beat up the
majority through "victim culture" and the loss of faith in the
nation and its values that these and other examples of cultural
breakdown represent, got going in a serious way directly after the
Second World War and the winding up of the British Empire. But I think
you can trace it all much further back, to the loss of religious faith
in the 19th century and the rise of romantic hyper-individualism which
had an impact in the U.S. too-Britain's education meltdown, after
all, derived from the "child-centered" theories of the American
educationist John Dewey-and which you can trace back to Jean-Jacques
Rousseau in the 18th century.
Lopez: How bad are the imams in London?
Phillips: The problem is not just in London; "Londonistan" is a
phenomenon which has taken root in other parts of Britain too. I
don't think anyone knows how many imams are preaching extremism,
which in itself is alarming. Some are; others aren't. But it's not
just the imams; a lot of the radicalization is being perpetrated by
people like youth workers or community activists working on campus and
elsewhere below the official radar.
Lopez: Where are the moderate Muslims in London and what do they think
of the situation there?
Phillips: There's an increasing number of truly moderate Muslims who
are deeply aghast not only at the extremists within their own religion
but at the British establishment's strategy of appeasing them which
is cutting the ground from underneath the reformers' feet.
Lopez: After the London bombings last summer, St. Paul's Cathedral
almost invited the families of the bombers to a memorial services? Are
you kidding?
Phillips: Afraid not; all too true.
Lopez: How much are Christian leaders to blame for Londonistan? How
much the government?
Phillips: The government is very much to blame because it denied the
significance of what was going on and allowed it to grow under its
nose. Amazingly, even since the London bombings last July the
government and the security establishment still refuse to acknowledge
the religious nature of Islamist terrorism. The thinking goes: Al Qaeda
bad, Muslim Brotherhood not so bad; indeed, we can use the Brotherhood
to divert young Muslims away from terrorism! This is called British
sophistication.
The Church of England, in line with its principled position over the
past several decades in supinely going along with moral and cultural
collapse, is on its knees before terror. It regularly demonises Israel
for defending itself, while uttering not so much as a peep of protest
at the persecution of Christians by Muslims that is going on across the
world. This all encourages the morally inverted thinking which holds
that "Islamophobia" is the real problem rather than Islamist
extremism, and turns the roles of victim and victimizer on their heads.
Lopez: How is Londonistan a threat to Americans? More Richard Reids in
waiting there?
Phillips: Maybe; who knows? But I think the danger is more subtle. Some
of the things that are going wrong in the U.K. are true for the U.S.
too-the obsession with minority rights, for example, or the excessive
reluctance to interfere with religion. If Britain sleepwalks into
cultural oblivion, this may strengthen these tendencies in the U.S.
too. After all, Britain was the originator of the concepts of liberty,
democracy, and the rule of law. If Britain now unravels the values that
underpin them, the consequences will be incalculable throughout the
free world.
Lopez: Britain, of course, has been a key ally of the U.S. in the war
on terror. That make us delusional?
Phillips: No, because under Tony Blair it has indeed been such an ally.
The question, however, is whether-given the kind of things I've
been talking about, and the associated widespread animosity in towards
the US and the war in Iraq-it will remain as staunch as it has been
when Mr Blair steps down as Prime Minister.
Lopez: How does Tony Blair rate in contributing to Londonistan? His
wife hasn't been a great help, has she?
Phillips: Cherie has certainly said some, er, unfortunate things about
her sympathies for suicide bombers. I think Tony Blair personally does
now understand the nature and extent of the threat of radical Islamism,
and yet he has been unable to get the British establishment to take the
same view.
Lopez: As Americans debate immigration, what would you highlight from
London by way of lessons?
Phillips: Well U.S. immigration, despite all the controversy over it at
present, is different in that Hispanic culture is not so very different
from that of the host society. However, I think the general lesson is
that, where people need to be integrated, this becomes very much more
difficult if the numbers are too large.
Lopez: What's your candidate for an American version? New York is too
much of a melting pot, isn't it? Windy Citystan?
Phillips: Doesn't have quite the same resonance, does it?
Lopez: Is there a plausible turnaround option for London?
Phillips: Yes, if Britain (like the U.S.) grasps some time soon that
it's not enough to tackle terrorist cells producing bomb belts and
poison laboratories, but we have to tackle also the lies and hatred
that are inside people's heads.
Lopez: When are you moving?
Phillips: What, and desert the battlefield?
Lopez: Does the post-election shakeup last week help any?
Phillips: Jack Straw's removal as foreign secretary was a relief to
all who are not over-keen on appeasing the Iranian regime; John
Reid's arrival at the Home Office offers the best chance that the
political correctness that has that ministry by the throat might at
last be prised off its windpipe. On the other hand, this was a shake-up
of a government that is in turmoil, so maybe any hope of an outbreak of
common-sense is premature.
.
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