Probing Islam - Authors Viewpoint

<body> <table border="0" cellpadding="30" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="table4"> <tr> <td> <h1>‘Religious’ change is being imposed inexorably on stable Western nations</h1> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="table5"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"><span class="bold">Since long before 9/11, and increasingly so after that shatteringly deluded barbarity, many complained of ‘people of alien cultures’ migrating and permeating ominously, in larger numbers than ever before, into long established stable Western nations and cultures. </span> <p>The perceived threat now is that (Muslim) ‘feet in the past’ politically-religiosity is determinedly being expanded and is inexorably impingingly, infusingly, changing the nature, ethos, democratic traditions and identity of Christian (albeit spiritually religiously-weakening) Western nations. </p> <p>The flood of immigrants (Muslim and other, but more problematically mostly Muslim) into mature, developed countries is still small in overall numbers. But the Muslim birth-rate is guesstimated as higher, the highest. In any of these countries.</p> <p>Ergo ‘by 2025…by 2050… within a hundred years…’ The threat is that they WILL change us, Islam will change the West, irrevocably. And the bitter recrimination is that ‘no-one asked us, the majority indigenous populations, we were never consulted’. </p> <p>Our own political masters decided for us, in their (now obviously) short-sighted ‘wisdom’. So judge ‘racism, religious bigotry, refusal to change’ attitudes more moderately? What if we had been consulted? </p> <p>Both Britain and France sleep-walked into this unique modern situation - antagonistic, racial, PC-correct, need for immigrant workers, what of the nation’s demands regarding infrastructure capacities? </p> </td> <td align="left" valign="top"> <img border="0" src="images/author.jpg" width="200" height="315" hspace="10"></td> </tr> </table> <p>Politically, ideologically, incompetently, Britain’s New Labour has surely already CHANGED the face this country (please excuse this author’s obvious bias). In one decade. They did not need Islam to do it. Muslims first arrived in Britain in the 1850s, seamen who settled (I was born in Cardiff – they contributed, author). They assimilated. As did Jews and Hindus and Sikhs. Muslims then started arriving in considerable numbers from 35 years ago, and are today just 1.7 m to 2 m in Britain’s 61 m total population. </p> <p>(Surely, not a threat to Britain’s chequered 1,000 year history, its many civilising contributions to world culture? ‘Unintended consequences’ (our open-borders immigration?) loom large. The latest invasion of Iraq, with its disastrous, horrifying ‘unintended consequences’, did not arise because Sunni-Shia were threatening civil war and change. The West’s post-regime change released localised factions from absolute-threat control to war among themselves. Iran was drawn in to support Shia. Saudia Arabi was drawn in to support Sunni. Politics is engagement with the possible (‘bringing democracy to the Middle East’?) and when political leaders ‘get it wrong’ the unintended consequences encompass enormous suffering. As in Iraq. Though we must not forget the Islamists’ propensity to stir up and resort to violence, anywhere). </p> <p>Returning to the UK situation, assimilation seems far off. Britain 2007 now has city ‘Muslim ghettoes’ and increasing ‘White flight’. And even talk of Shari’ah-isation in British law. Islam is a religion with strong religious and driving political undertones. Western commentators say it cannot but seek dominance. Its vociferous leaderships increasingly today, as for decades past, do not proselytise benignly but demand. In the West are millions of devout, peaceful, honest and sincere Muslims and families.</p> <p>But in the West also are imams, large numbers born and educated in Middle East preaching questionable messages, the more inflammatory in Urdu, the message different, more cautious in English. There are also young malcontents, who benefit increasingly from Western education but are deluded into religious-political activism, even violence.</p> <p>Middle and far East face waves of religious suicide bombers acting in the name of Islam. No (Western) nation with backbone will accept negotiation with that deluded egoism and blackmail. But this chaotic melting pot requires modern politicians to have (either themselves or advisers) a wise blend of historical feel and expert knowledge and insight as well as the stomach for the ‘fight’. The word ‘appeasement’ is distasteful but observers see many instances in the West over Islam pressure. We (vox populi) trust that our hard-earned Western heritage in democracy, albeit quite imperfect democracy, will prevail in today’s climate of political pygmies. Are our Western communities’ laws, crime punishments (in relative chaos at the moment in Britain!), the best of Human Rights intentions (ignoring the EU’s undemocratic involvement) to continue? Or will Islam’s political activists achieve subversion with Shari’ah laws, called alien in the West, within a mere few decades (to 2020 onwards?) </p> <p>No other ‘religion’ - with its millions of immigrants into the West - has the audacity, fundamentalism, to even suggest its oft-described ‘medieval laws’ should be ‘included’, less still become ‘norms’. Its moderates pin hopes that Islamic shura (‘democratic’ rationality, and the consulting and involvement of the people) will modify even overcome the fundamentalism, as will befit a new co-operative age and prosperity for Islam, both in the Islam states to come and in its expandinf communities in the West. </p> <p>As Christianity and Judaism have long held their mysticism in some veneration even esteem, so Islam has its softer, mysterious underbelly, peaceful Sufism. With its emphasis on seeking the spiritual not (habitual) obedience to ‘religiosity’, it is beginning to play a moderating role in Western communities. The difficulty is that Sufis are traditionally ‘in the world’ yet not ‘of the world’. To make impact, you determinedly ‘raise your head above the parapet’ (Isaiah) to ACT in the world. May their ‘beginnings’ flourish in strong movements. Such moderating help is so needed.</p> <p align="right"><i><span class="titchy"><a href="#" onclick="window.print();return false;">print page</a> | <a target="_top" href="authors-viewpoint.htm">reload page</a> | <a target="_top" href="index.htm">reload site</a></span></i></p> </td> </tr> </table> </body>