Islam, the West: Coexistence and change in attitudes

A ground-breaking guide to Islam for the modern world is to be published as a book during 2008. A 'thorough review' of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh - the Hadith - will be according to interpretations of the modernist vein of Islam and in a language the people of today can understand. 'This Hadith guide will make it much more difficult to justify extreme, mysogynistic and violent interpretations of Islam' according to a spokesman for the highest religious authority in Turkey. One aim of the project is to 'separate the religion from the cultural elements that have long hampered a true vision of Islam'. Another is to 'bring out the positive side of Islam - that promotes personal honour, human rights, justice, morality, women's rights and respect from the other.' However, 'this is an academic study and publication, and so one thing you will not see is an attempt to make Islam look cute for the Western world'.

(excerpt, conflation, news report, UK national newspaper, February, 2008)

‘Scholars and thinkers have been suggesting for well over a century that Muslims must make a serious attempt at ijtihad, reasoned struggle and thinking, to reform Islam. Ossified and frozen historic interpretations constantly drag Muslims back to medieval times, worse, to perceived and romanticized texts that never existed in history. So the very ideas and concepts supposed to take Muslim societies towards humane values take them in the opposite direction’.
(excerpt, with thanks, ‘Beyond the Impasse’, No-Nonsense Guide to Islam, 2004, 2007)

FOUR PROBLEM AREAS TO REFORM
He, a Muslim, writes to open the eyes of the (pan-Islamic) Umma to its own inbred intellectual and sociological complacency. His words are a tribute to scholarly attainment, they speak to lettered intellectuals and (have value for) the masses. Yet there are four great problems. His words (for real impact, to be widely influential) should be printed (prominently) in al-Jazeera, the Arab News website, the Cairo Times, and many more outlets. Secondly, the tone of his (insightful and brave) message is academic, and is the voice of a scholar with a theory, not a leader with a plan; it offers no concrete plan, offers no inspiration of a path (laid out), and is without criteria for judging forward progress. To me an American Muslim (with Muslim friends) it seems destined to be acknowledged then ignored. Thirdly, inertia, which in my experience, underpins (Muslim) inaction. One billion Muslims carry in their minds and hearts some maddeningly docile modes of the complacent. My friends, when I discuss issues with them, have a hundred conflicting reasons not to take action. Resolve is the fourth great problem. How does one inspire resolution in the impressionable class? A revolution in Islamic education for youngsters? A revolution in the sermonizing / leadership of Muslim holy men? Our example could be the radical changes engineered (and still on-going) within Catholic Church and Christian thinking through Vatican 1 and 2 doctrines.
(excerpt, conflation, email comment re academic article on U.S. weblog, May 2007)

(The ‘unintended consequences’ forecast in this article excerpt affect and will increasingly affect Britain’s indigenous citizens, Muslims and other recent immigrants). A UK tribunal decided that an Italian passport holder, who murdered a UK head teacher, cannot be deported to his country of birth on completing his prison sentence. It is hard to see how the tribunal could have reached another view. It based its judgment on European Union law dated 2004, introduced into UK law last year, 2006, by this (New Labour) government. The case provides an excellent example of the unintended consequences for British governments of European legislation. Home Office ministers have repeatedly cursed the day that Labour incorporated the Convention on Human Rights into UK law. The point is broader. European laws have crept and are creeping into Britain’s constitutional fabric
(excerpt, conflation, article by former politician, UK Sunday national newspaper, September 2007)

EQUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
(Equality and social justice impinges on everyone, Muslim and other immigrants into Britain particularly) In those days, my media liberalism (anti- most realities and actualities which most saw as helping to make the world a free, safer, more stable and prosperous place) was not a political philosophy at all, even less a political programme. It was an ideology, a ‘secular religion’, based not on observation and deduction but on (un-delineated) faith and doctrine. It was weak on facts and figures, on causes and consequences, and away from (balanced) arguments particularly on practicalities. We retreated if apparently defeated, but did not change our viewpoints. (Later) the security, prosperity and even the survival of the Nation could not (be allowed to) take precedence over equality and social justice.
(excerpt, conflation, public paper, UK journalist/pamphleteer, July 2007).

‘North America was not founded on Muslim principles, or else we would not be the strong Continent we are today. We would be a backward civilisation like many Muslim nations in the Middle East’. The vice president of a Canadian political party was attacked by CAIR for his attack on their political stances. His party, under pressure from CAIR refused to intervene then disowned his remarks as ‘private’. An Anti-CAIR body was then set up and it described CAIR as an Islamic fundamentalist organisation.
(excerpts, conflation, Canadian world daily blog, 2003)

A ‘REALITY’ TOO FAR FOR THIS DRAMA
The BBC UK likes to boast of its ‘gritty reality’ dramas. But it ‘canned’ an episode of its hospital series Casualty (in July/August 2007) because it started with a young Muslim blowing himself up in a crowded UK bus station. If its boast were true, it would have stuck with the original script. But its ‘editorial and ethical standards’ executives worried that the original script would have stereotyped young Muslims as terrorists. Instead, the rewrite showed the bombing carried out by ‘animal rights extremists’. Muslims have (thus far, IRA put to one side - author) committed the extreme terrorist atrocities in Britain. That fact does not say all Muslims are terrorists, far from it. But to pretend the ‘Bunny Liberation Brigade’ are bombing us (airport, bus stations, underground lines - author) is preposterous. The animal rights movement contains its fair share of violent lunatics. But do they lay down their lives for the cause? There is an institutionalised bias, cowardice and cultural cringe which runs through the BBC like the lettering within a stick of rock. My only surprise is that the bombing in Casualty was not carried out by militants linked to UKIP, demanding an immediate Referendum on the new European Lisbon (Constitutional) Treaty. There is much good about the BBC, but it cravenly appeases Muslims every turn.
(excerpts, conflation, article by columnist, UK national newspaper, August 2007)

Under the title Reconciliation (published February 2008), her book is frank about sectarian splits between Sunnis and Shias. She noted the unwillingness within the Muslim world to ‘look inwards and identify where we may be going wrong ourselves’. Using verses from the Koran, she sees the ideology of al-Qaeda as ‘a profound distortion of original Islam’ and presents alternative argument for believing in a reformist, pluralistic and modern Islamic society, ‘closer to the real wishes of most of the world’s Muslims’.
(excerpt, conflation, Review, book, Benazir Bhutto, Reconciliation, researcher Mark Siegel, Simon and Schuster 2008)

(These insights by a former UK MP affect the future of the indigenous population, recent Muslims and other immigrants). Immigration into Britain (or any Western country) may now never be stopped, or even controlled, because UK politicians, the only people who can pass laws on the subject, have lost too much power and influence. He maintains that Britain is now in a old Soviet-type grip of professional egalitarians whose power base lies in commerce, culture and the media. ‘They can now control virtually all of public life. Behind their anti-elitist rhetoric lies the old urge to dominate which is as powerful as that of their aristocratic forebears’. And today, journalists write emotively and unthinkingly, and seem fearful and confused. ‘Multi-culturalism’ means that the inhabitants of one country have a knowledge of, and respect for, the other cultures they see around them. There is nothing like this in Britain today, or any country (invaded by mass-immigration recently). If local people cannot even recognise the foreign languages spoken in their street or on the bus, let alone understand them, then Britain cannot be a ‘multi-cultural society’. Each street, borough and town in Britain was built by the British. Each, with just a tiny few exceptions, is named after local history, a history of the British. Realistically, you can’t expect diasporas to have pride in someone else’s culture or history.
(excerpts, conflations, agency article, Canada, November 2007)

One Islamic independent school in the UK refuses to allow its Muslim children to read newspapers, listen to radio, or watch TV programmes. It raised the question: can a traditional Islamic education equip Muslim children to develop into free-thinking, balanced British adults? But at another Islamic independent primary school, in London, pupils study world news every day. They tune in to a bi-weekly digital newspaper written for nine to 16 year olds which is used widely in schools of many ‘types’. Each ‘digital newspaper’ - not produced by Muslims, but seen by their children - contains about 20 specially written news articles from around the world, ‘news briefs’, two reviews of film and book. Even disputes between Islam’s Sunni and Shia are covered, with emphasis on balanced viewpoints. UK Law now requires independent schools to ‘promote tolerance, harmony and an appreciation and respect for others cultures and traditions’.
(excerpt, conflation, education article, UK national newspaper, July 2007)

In a Canadian court case raised by CAIR (The Council on Islamic American Relations, described as an Islamic civil rights group) the ‘defendants’ were said to have accused CAIR (in the words of the notice served on them ) of being ‘an unscrupulous, Islamist, extremist sympathetic group in Canada supporting terrorism.’ Over the past year (2004), CAIR’s Canadian and USA branches have served similar libel notices on other individuals and organizations in the United States and Canada. Any reporting or commentary that cast doubt on CAIR’s ‘cultivated image’ would deeply threaten the group’s mission. CAIR’s founding chairman (1994) is said to have declared at a public event in California in July, 1998: ‘Islam is not in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.’ He had since disputed the accuracy of the quote – mainly five years after it was (allegedly) reported by a California newspaper. An American contributor said that the USA’s Justice Department should use RICO to go after Islam, for clearly it is the ‘Racketeering and Corrupt Organization’, par excellence.
(excerpts, conflations, reports by Canadian and USA newspaper groups and reader responses, November 2004)

(A world Conference was organised by Cambridge University, England, in June 2007, Islam, Muslims and the World, and the great and the good attended and spoke, even Tony Blair. Something about the Conference is found elsewhere on this website. The subject raised a flurry of email correspondents giving their views. Here are excerpts of viewpoints, conflated for brevity and presentation by the author into one text) ‘The dialogue that they talk about is one way only. It is not about us (the West, Christians, Jews) and them (Muslims, Islam, Islamists) understanding each other. They are not interested in understanding us. All the meetings they are so keen to support, the ‘Open Houses’ at the mosques, are designed to educate us about them, to get us to understand their point of view, to be understanding of their wants, their needs, their problems – and to get us to give in. One way is to get us to admit they are our ‘betters’, institute Sharia law and obey Muslims. These Interfaith meetings fail because us kafirs have not learned and converted already. Many ‘Western’ speakers hide true thinking behind soft words and hope for impact. I like the way that Muslim converts change back to using their original names when they wish to appear more palatable, such as Cat Stevens, David Hicks and in this case Timothy Winter (as speaker at the conference), who is also known as Adbul Hakim Murad. The Conference knew him as his ‘Western’ name. He appeared in Channel 4’s 'Undercover Mosques’ documentary as Abdul Hakim Murad. ‘The (Muslim) immigrants into England have no obligation to adapt or fit in with mainstream ancient indigenous British culture’ was one inflammatory comment. Muslims want to distance themselves from the British way of life and anything remotely patriotic. But when (inevitably) they are referred to as ‘not being British’, they assert themselves as ‘British born and bred’, but of course, their idea of being British is (almost completely) Pakistani. Pakistan is allowed to have a culture, whereas Britain must be a ‘collage’ because we unfortunately have 1.5 million (huge numbers hostile) Muslims within our land, and their only ‘credential’ for being ‘British’ is a passport, which the ‘evil’ West grants them. In Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and others, Pakistanis are never given passports of those nations. The only way of judging Muslims is to observe their actions and react accordingly - to ‘negotiate’ is simply to be ensnared in their web. Its adherents weasel their way out of tight situations by saying what they think we want to hear or what they can get away with.’

Canada had about four million non-Whites in a country comprised of 86 per cent White citizens, according to statistics on Canada published in 2001 (revised figures are expected in the Spring, 2008). For two decades, some 85 to 90 per cent of all new immigrants arriving in Canada every year had been non-White. In plain numbers, that amounted to about 5,000 newly-arrived immigrants entered the country week after week after week. In addition, Canadian taxpayers had to accommodate new arrivals of 800 un-invited ‘refugees (who used the ‘back-door’ approach) also every week throughout the year. A decade ago, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman admonished the Wall Street journal for its idée fixe on open-border immigration policy. It was just obvious that you can’t have Free immigration AND a Welfare State, he warned.
(excerpt, article in Toronot News, October 2007)

Most Muslims simply accept what they have been taught and very few of them study the Qur’an with a view to questioning or challenging the religious authorities. Any enlightened, educated Muslim who would dare to openly challenge the ‘sacred myths’ would face the ultimate ‘persuasion’ habitual in Islam – force in any of its forms. Islam has never been able willingly, historically, to engage in any honest debate. It is forbidden territory. So when speaking or writing about Islam, people have to be ‘politically correct’.
(excerpts, conflation, reader email comment, following article on website, March 2007)

The UK’s Channel 4 TV announced a two-part ‘balanced’ drama production (for October 31 and November 1, 2007) about two second-generation Muslim young people in Britain – one who was seeking to assimilate and become British ‘to the core’ and his sister who became ‘the first British female suicide bomber’. The British Muslim Forum called for the filmed drama to be cancelled: ‘They should be working with us to defeat terrorism and extremism, not sowing hate and division in our communities’. Channel 4 replied: ‘Her journey (to suicide bombing) is depicted as a desperate, traumatising and no way enviable path’. The broadcasts went ahead. A New York USA citizen, writing into the letter page,UK national newspaper, co-incidentally published when the Muslim protest was announced said: ‘Suppression of discordant views is not a respectable way to challenge them intellectually and has a dubious history. Are our ears now so sensitive, our minds so closed, that we must cast out those who are out of step with the reigning shibboleths*. Contact with a clear-thinking, inspiring figure can make an enormous difference’.
(excerpts, conflation, viewpoints expressed in UK national newspapers, October 2007; * shibboleth is a commonplace saying or idea, or a custom or practice that betrays one as an outsider).

(In the ‘non-glorious’, disruptive histories of Colonial-isation) the categorisation and separation of native peoples was a common tactic for maintaining colonial control over territories, whose national boundaries had been arbitrarily drawn, with little consideration for the ethnic, cultural or religious make-up of the local inhabitants. No wonder then, when the colonialists were finally expelled (they mostly would say ‘withdrew’) from these manufactured States, they left behind not only economic and political turmoil, but deeply divided populations with little common ground on which to construct a national identity.
(excerpts, conflation, book, Reza Aslan, 2005)

We hear comments these days about the courage of ‘brave’ artists, cartoonists, writers and comedians – they criticize Bush and the U.S., they produce work they call ‘art’ which mocks Christianity and makes fun, satirically, they claim, of the Pope and the Chief Rabbi. ‘There is, however, one thing they will not do: they will not mock, criticize or attack Islam even when it has turned into Islamism and terrorism; nor will they mock, criticize or attack Islamism when it manifests itself in judgements as the recent Saudi one, of imprisonment and 200 lashes for the female victim of a gang rape; nor will they produce angry artistic works in response to the news that two young men are hanged from cranes, because they supposedly indulged in homosexual behaviour. Why will they not do any of these things, despite their enormous ‘courage’? Simple really: they are terrified of possible reprisals, which might come in response to the slightest criticism.
(excerpt, conflation EU Referendum blog, November 2007)

TRUE VIEW OF THE TERM RACISM
Cultural racism is the new club to beat on those who mention, criticise, comment on or openly oppose Muslims: “In the modern era the underlying assumption of ‘racism’ is a belief that differences in the culture, values, and/or practices of some ethnic/religious groups are ‘too different’ and are likely to threaten ‘community values’ and ‘social cohesion’. Note the evolution: as belief in racial differences and racial superiority wanes in polite society, some parties expand the meaning of racism to condemn political decisions such as worrying about too much immigration (even of poor whites), preferring one's own culture, fearing radical Islam, and implementing effective counter-terrorist measures. This attempt to de-legitimise political differences must be rejected. Racism refers only to racial issues, not to views on Immigration, Culture, Religion, Ideology, Law enforcement, or Military Strategy.
(excerpts, conflation, website article, Dr Daniel Pipes, USA, November 2005)

Have jihadist terrorist pressures induced paranoia in the West? No. The threat lies within itself in the West. Capitalist democracy has not been found wanting, but ‘national interest’ in the West results in farcical investigations. There is no consensus on pollution or global warming (or other subjects). The Islamic world’s venom is directed not at Christianity but at the West’s double standards.
(excerpt, USA website, October 2006)

His passion, he says is to integrate Muslim and British cultures. Britain ‘ would benefit from a little more morality, and religion has principles that can help society.’ ‘Children are like plants, if you do not look after them, they will grow wild, and weeds can come in. The same is true of Britain (today) - ‘there is plenty of freedom in Western society, but boundaries are sometimes hard to see.’ A Muslim science and special needs teacher, he has a gentle manner and a quiet voice, and describes himself as a ‘community spokesman’ not a religious leader. His comment that ‘Britain must beware of becoming like Nazi Germany’ caused uproar. Leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, he sees ‘a disproportionate amount of discussion surrounding us, the air is thick with suspicion and unease, not good for the Muslim community, not good for society.’ (His comments arose after a warning by the head of MI5 that there were 2,000 people (potentially) involved in terrorist activity in Britain, that children as young as 15 were being ‘groomed’ to be suicide bombers.
(excerpts, conflation, news interview, Dr Bari, UK national media, November 2007)

America was interested in only one book, the Bible. If you were incapable of taking an oath on that book, do not serve in Congress. So advised one outspoken critic before the USA’s first Muslim Congressman was sworn in, taking the ceremonial oath with a two-volume Qu’ran once owned by Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third President. The action had its critics, and those who broadened the discussion. ‘Islamofascists’ were extremists who sought to force people to conform to their Islamic faith, but in this age of hyphenated fascism, what might we call devout Jews or Christians who want to force non-believers to swear to the Bible? Judeo-Christofascists? Others noted that ‘Under Article 3 of the Iranian Constitution, members representing minority religious groups will take the oath mentioning their own holy books’. While the Iranian government denied the Holocaust and called for the eradication of Israel, it viewed some Americans ‘requiring people to swear to someone else's faith to be ... well ... extreme’.
(excerpts, conflation, two news reports in USA newspapers, January 2007)

JEDI KNIGHTS SPEAK FOR THE REAL BRITAIN
In the 2001 census in Britain, staged by the EU, some 390,000 responded to the ‘religion’ question by declaring they were Jedi Knights, a classic response to a census survey that many Brits thought went too far. But there is nothing so bad that Brussels bureaucrats can't make worse, and that certainly applies to the forthcoming 2011 census. If they have their way, it will be the first ‘harmonised’ EU census, all 27 member states will ask the same questions. It will have even more questions, asking about education/ occupation/ hours worked/ marital status/ housing/ population/ ethnicity/ literacy/ size and type of family/ family religion/ computer literacy/ number of cars owned/ cooking facilities/ ‘durable consumer goods possessed by the household.’ The reason for this enlarged ‘Euro-census’ is that the EU commission says it needs this information to formulate policies (to further integration and control over 491 m people is the true direction! author).
(excerpts, conflations, EU Referendum blog, December 1007)

(exploring Britain Today, this can effect indigenous, Muslim, other immigrants). Since 2002 the number of foreigners working in Britain has climbed by nearly a million, while UK-born employment has dropped by almost half a million. It is now believed that more than 80 percent of the jobs created in the past 10 years have gone to foreigners.
One national newspaper’s Leader column that the willingness of employers to take on foreign labour is a reflection of our dire education system. This has produced an ‘underclass’, where a conservatively estimated 10 percent of young people are "Neets": not in education, employment or training. ‘Faced with the choice between an unreliable, unskilled and unqualified British 17-year-old and an enthusiastic and (often) skilled eastern European, probably speaking better English, whom would you employ?’ the paper asks. We had created a ‘lost generation’ of young people, it said.
The question is: how the hell did we get into this mess?
(EU Referendum blog, November 2007)

There is rampant confusion in the media that equates fundamentalism with terrorism. Even Muslims, through brainwashing by the media and a lack of dexterity with the English language, refer to terrorists as fundamentalists. They also often do so before those who see all Muslims as terrorists. It must be corrected so let’s into the difference. Fundamental is by definition Primary, Basic, Essential, Radical or Principal. The same dictionary says fundamentalism is a Protestant religious movement emphasizing the literal infallibility of the Scriptures. The word terrorist on the other hand takes its root from the word terror - a state of intense fear or fright, and terrorism is defined as the systematic use of terror especially as coercion. So the two terms are radically different. One can be a fundamentalist and a pacifist. So are Muslims fundamentalists? Why not? Muslims believe in the infallibility of their divine book the Holy Qur’an. Accordingly, they follow the commandments of that book and the example set by Muhammad (pbuh). The Qur’an and the prophet’s Sunnah (Way of life) are fundamental to the beliefs of Islam. In following their religious beliefs to the letter of the law, they are engaging in fundamentalism. That is the dilemma Muslims face regarding the accusations over the terms. It is unjustified stereotyping and Muslims must keep explaining it – it is far more important a position for our community and religious leaders to take than some of the petty bickering they engage in.
(excerpt, conflation, Munawar Merchant, Canadian website, August, 2006)

GOVERNANCE WITHOUT GOVERNMENT
(This concerns Britain Today – indigenous population, Muslim and other new immigrants; we indigenous in Europe, Britain, fear a ‘slow take-over’ by the religio-political Islamic factions, but consider this which follows; it is even more fearsome - author ). Where we are heading is a rather new type of structure, “Governance without government”. In traditional systems, from monarchies to dictatorships to democracies, the citizen-subjects have an idea of who is governing, where the laws which rule or dominate are coming from. The people know who to blame, even if they can do nothing about it. In “governance without government”, the laws today ooze from a kind of bureaucratic sponge, simply appearing within society as from nowhere, out of nothing. There is no clear provenance of where regulation xxx / xxx came from. It just arrives, emerging from a cloud of special interest groups, via ‘the bureaucracy’. There may be some commissar involved, but the commissar did not create the law. There may be some sort of ‘Parliament’ involved but the ‘parliament’ did not create the law. What is to become of us? Who knows, perhaps this will lead to a grand revolution and glorious restoration of ‘parliament’, a return to the Enlightenment, to national and personal sovereignty and a new Golden Age, as the spongers above are cast into the gutters of history? Or am I merely dreaming.
(excerpts, conflation, abbreviated version, website response to article on ‘Brussels dictatorship’, UK national newspaper, October 2007)

(A well-known UK Columnist wrote this year, 2008:) I respond to the rise of Islam in Britain with mixed feelings. (Against our) moral decadence, we need allies, but I do not want establishment of Islam as an equal (or somehow in parallel. author) of Christianity. I have never met a Muslim I did not like. It is refreshing to find people who have a strong, unembarrassed religious belief. I have had many arguments and we have managed to remain friendly while disagreeing deeply. On a visit to the great Islamic university at Deoband, home of the version of Islam out of which emerged Taleban, I engaged in debate with teachers and students about their principles and mine, and found them not upset when I challenged them. They found it refreshing to come up verbally against a Western who did not suck up to them. In a Muslim country during Ramadan, I have been impressed by the self-discipline and human solidarity created by a fast (which Muslims copied from the early-Christian Lent). In Sunni and Shia-led countries, I have felt a strong dislike for many attitudes I regard as wrong or backward. Their good aspects are strong family feeling, civility, a sense of fellowship and respect for the old. The power and unity of Islamic worship are undeniable. The faults are the absence of free thought (as we in the West might understand it. author), absence of scientific enquiry, oppression and worse of women, the Judo-phobic ravings of some Muslim clerics, fanatical politics, refusal to seek a genuine compromise with Israel. Churchill said, perceptive and prescient, a long time ago, ‘Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith’. (And how wrong now. author) Hilaire Beloc’s jaunty comment, ‘Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun and they have not’.
(excerpts, conflation, Hitchens column online, January 2008)

(A prominent UK Columnist said:) Muslims from India were until recently rather more relaxed in their Islam. The gentle Barelwi school of thought and worship was common, and the far more militant Deobandi sort rare. Now the Deobandi is much stronger, with the suspicion that Saudi money has financed the spread of the fiercest and least tolerant forms of the Muslim faith. This I suspect is worrying Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, UK, who has talked of ‘No-Go’ areas (dominated by Muslim enclaves). ‘There is a world resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. It further alienates the young from the Nation in which they are growing up. It turns already separate areas into ‘No-Go’ areas. There is hostility to those of a different faith living and working here, in Britain; there is far-Right intimidation’. He then spoke of amplification of the call to prayer, Adhan, as a problem to some non-Muslims, and the pressure to relate aspects of Sharia law to civil law in Britain’. Multiculturalism refuses to insist on the integration of immigrants. Muslim and Asian parts of towns live separate lives (from the indigenous population). There is a peaceful but cold separation. It could turn unpleasant. Islam used as a pretext to dethrone Christianity in British public life? ‘Multifaith provision ignores the distinctive Christian character of the Nation’s (long established) laws, values, customs and culture’. Integration can be brought about. So many cultural, aesthetic, ethical and other directions of this country are the result of centuries of (the influences) of Christianity. If we became ‘Islam’ that would change. If we chose this course, so be it. It would be preferable to ‘total Godlessness’. This ideology is not one that will be defeated by power and arms, nor as regarding it as a ‘pet pussycat’ which we (in the West) can but toy with.
(excerpts, conflations, from website article, UK national newspaper, January 2008)

IMMIGRATION, POLLS AND COMMENT
(How the public reacts to poll results affects indigenous citizens, Muslims and other recent immigrants into the UK) Mixing headline-grabbing populism with serial administrative incompetence made it impossible to promote the merits of a fair and effective immigration system, was one UK journalist’s response to a late 2007 poll. The public had at last seen through the smoke and mirrors that had been New Labour government’s policy on this issue for a decade, was another comment, by the chairman of Migrationwatch UK (which commissioned a different poll). ‘They are very angry that they have not been consulted about such a fundamental change taking place in our society’. More than four-fifths of the public believed immigration in Britain should be cut substantially. And 85 per cent of people thought immigration was putting too much pressure on public services, and 54 per cent disputed the Government's assertion that those coming into the country had ‘helped the economy’, some 22 per cent denied it ‘strongly’. What drives economic migration into the UK? (asked an article in a UK national newspaper). A leading UK-based Blog said a central feature of our lack of control over immigration was our membership of the European Union.
(EU Referendum October , 2007)

The core problem is the Islam religion itself, its dogmas, its patriarchal nature and its mandates to Sharia law. The communications and transport revolutions, however, are making many Muslims in many lands feel they are under attack by ideas that emanate from other cultures. They are reacting like the Luddites did to the Industrial Revolution, which upset the agricultural societies of 200 years ago. But while this problem works itself out, we in the West - and our political leaders - are all absolute fools to let it continue to work at all from within our borders.
(excerpt, conflation, email response to article on Canadian terrorist attempt, 2006)

WEST’S INFLUENCE? OR MUSLIM VANITY?
Islamabad’s wealthier urban males - these last five years - are embracing cosmetic treatments that were once regarded as effeminate and even un-Islamic. Social dinner chatter, some amused, some appalled, in the Pakistan capital have commented on the appearance of black hair implants on the previous bald head of former prime minister Sharif, returned but soon deported. Facials, manicures, back waxes, eyebrow and chest hair trimming, spas, salons, beauty parlours and clinics now cater for an enlarging male market serving a potential 25 million males. As the conservative Taliban, along the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, force men to grow beards and reject western ‘fashions’, the big cities - Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar - men are influenced by output from dozens of television channels and becoming even more conscious about complexions, clothes and coiffures. Politicians, executives and professionals ‘want to look smart’ said a leading cosmetic surgeon. Are parts of Pakistan going through a metro-sexual revolution? asked a new English-language television channel? A clincher might be that results from a survey of 25,000 Pakistanis found that ‘just over half’ the country’s women ‘preferred men with a metro-sexual appearance, similar to David Beckham, rather than those with a rugged appearance’. But only one in 50 men surveyed admitted such ‘tendencies or traits’.
(excerpts, conflated, several news reports, ‘gossip’ columns, UK national newspapers, autumn 2007)

DIFFERENT VIEW OF ‘ISLAMIC FINANCE’
Most instances of Islamic banking are shams, designed to steer customers away from non-Muslim businesses, with the result today that Western banks (are forced to) offer similar services to remain competitive. Zakat, as one of the Five Pillars, is also a sham because most of the 21st century’s big sources of income - like manufacturing, oil production, and banking - are excluded from the ‘tax’, leaving only agriculture, minerals, and precious metals to provide aid. Only in Islam today are there such oxymorons as ‘Islamic’ banking, ‘Islamic’ human rights, and ‘Islamic’ science.
(excerpt, conflation, email response, USA website article on Islamic finance, November 2007)

The rash of anti-terror legislation (in the UK) over seven years has been a panic measure. It has been bad law. The threat from Fascism and Communism was real. It was war, hot and cold. Their ideologies could have defeated Britain. No person can seriously imagine a Britain conquered and ruled by fundamentalist Islam. Any fanatic can set off bombs (or nerve gas? or nuclear device fall-out? author). More assiduous policing (and intelligence) is required. The few bombs which get through are the price we pay for a free society, democracy is never a free lunch. Government claims that militant Islamism constitutes a threat to British values let alone Western civilisation is defeatist nonsense; such claims are counter-productive. I have no problem is getting tough (with terrorists or religious trouble-makers). (However) the spread of faith multi-culturalism in schools is an accident waiting to happen. And the values of justice and fairness in British law must be maintained.
(excerpt, conflation, article, Columnist, UK Sunday national newspaper, February 2008)

The current situation in the Middle East parallels circumstances (which occurred) during the Western Renaissance with the Catholic Church. A mythic form of Islam pervades the mainstream, preventing anything that looks like a rational Islam from emerging. On the other (Christian) side, the present situation presents brand new challenges (to both). Unlike evolving forms of Christianity in the 1500s that could rebel against the Catholic Church, there is not a single governing body within the Islamic faith against which (in the ‘east’) more advanced intellectuals can rebel. This exacerbates the problem (again, for both ‘sides’). Instead of focusing a rebellion on a (Muslim) institution (as did the rational Christians), Islamic rationalists appear, from the perspective of those at mythic stages, to be rebelling against the Qur'an or worse, against Allah. Our (western) awareness (would say that) that in actuality, rational adherents are rebelling against only mythic forms of the religion and not the faith itself. In extreme cases, those in the Middle East interested in a more rational expression of Islam are often forced to move to the West, or retreat to small, more liberal pockets within neighbouring countries, who are both under the radar and more tolerant in their beliefs.
(excerpts, conflation, The Muslim Ladder, part of book The Infinite Ladder, 2008, and academic tutorial modules by Dustin DiPerna and colleagues, USA, January 2008, plus asides by this author)

‘As a languages/print consultant, I was invited to a pre-Christmas dinner, a party of ten from one department in a large company. One of the employees I’ve dealt with in the department is a Muslim and I asked why he was not in the group? The boss, quizzical and mildly amused, said ‘He refused because there would be wine on the table’. The others were not so tolerant. What do you think?’ (email question from friend to author, early December 2007) Reply: ‘Now that’s most interesting, because I prepared an item on Coexistence last week, a balanced Muslim view that advised Muslim company and office workers that they had to try and work their way through these situations. Refusing to go at all is of course the right of a strict Muslim . But we ‘indigenous’ know we can go and not partake of alcohol and no-one will comment. But the employee may well lose out. Here my views and that of the article author conflate… refusal ignores an opportunity to impress others on integration and assimilation; and that his action might be construed as rigidity which might spread into other areas, thus maybe affecting promotion (such is informal – and very human - office considerations. Should a boss ‘do his duty for social and community cohesions?’ and have a few words with the employee? Such as pointing out he is a respected member of the department, that his seeming inflexibility went down ‘like a lead balloon’ with colleagues and that refusal to attend, because alcohol is present, is to many Muslims today NOT a justifiable interpretation of Islam’s requirements for living and working in the wider society?’ (author’s email reply, a few days later). My friend sent another email to me (author) saying the boss had since divulged that the Muslim in question had often raised rather ‘radical’ views in recent months and that he (the boss) had just been advised by ‘Human Resources Department’ not to decorate the offices with Christmas tinsel and cards…. for fear of upsetting the Muslim. The boss was ignoring the advice and was ready for any reactions
(second email from friend to author, December 2007)

Muslims (scholars) today are living in a ‘status-quo environment’. They ruminate on the thoughts of other men, who had exerted efforts to set concepts that suited their time (ie 7-11th centuries). Averroes, for example, was as important as Aristotle, but current Muslim scholars read only (all too often. author) in Arabic. They are not truly aware of modern sciences. They are in ‘social environments’ that do not allow them to be open, open to the innovations of humanity, in ‘social and humanity’ sciences.
(excerpt, conflation, website article, Exploring modernity, May 2007)

(Some parts of ) the Muslim population is simply trying to see how far they can go, without being rebutted. Here in Holland, Muslim cab drivers that tried the old 'we won't drive people who have alcohol' routine. The answer, from the Amsterdam Cab Drivers Union, was that if you want to pick and choose, do it someplace else - unemployed. The result is that they pick up everyone now from the airport. All too often, here in Holland, they simply go on the welfare and collect the social benefits, and we all end paying for it. (Another Dutch respondent said) We in Holland are not deporting anyone, it is wishful thinking to believe we do, it is not the reality. Many believe that Muslims (pressure groups) hold this country hostage by fear, fear of violent death and threats of bombings. This country is intolerably Politically Correct now, and pretty soon we are going to be a virtual annex of these immigrant-countries. Our parliament, believe many, will not stand up and refuse to tolerate this oppression. Our rights of freedom of speech are being lost every day as a silent concession to them.
(excerpts, two website reader responses, to reports about USA Muslim religious refusals, handling alcohol and pork, January 2007)

Unless the British government changed direction, over the question of Muslims in the UK, less attention should be paid to self-styled Muslim ‘leaders’ and more to the grassroots. That was the counsel, on a UK blogsite article by a Muslim apostate scholar in February 2006. He went on that Britain should say ‘No’ to faith schools, and emphasise clearly and completely that UK law and not Sharia law was and would remain the basis of British society. The website author forecast that the Muslim percentage of the UK general population would double (it is 2 m at present) within 15 years (from 2006). Growing and increasingly influential communities of un-integrated Muslims could be expected in more towns and cities in the UK.
(excerpts, conflation, Muslim scholar and UK website, February 2006)

CALLS FOR NEW CALIPHATE
Leader al-Qadhafi at Easter 2007 called for ‘the establishment of a second Shi’ite Fatimid state in North Africa.’ Another call was made by the real leader of Iran, Ayatollah Sayyid ‘Ali Khamanah’i, for a ‘charter of Islamic unity’. These are two proclamations which may prove supremely portentous (ominous) for the West’s ‘global war on terror’. The Fatimids was a Shi’ite group that controlled much of the Maghrib ( the region of northwest Africa comprising the Atlas Mountains and the coastlands of Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia) during the 10th century CE, until they conquered Egypt and transferred their headquarters there, ruling it from 969-1171 CE. The name of the dynasty comes from their claim of descent from ‘Ali, cousin of Muhammad. Two notable aspects of the Fatimid state were that some of its Caliphs in the early years were considered to be Mahdis, or divinely, rightly-guided ones, and that it was a militantly-expansionist state, especially re. the Sunni empire of the Abbasids centered in Baghdad. At its height the Fatimid state ruled Egypt, much of what is now Israel, Palestine and Syria, as well as Arabia’s western region encompassing Mecca and Medina. It had designs on the entirety of the Muslim world. The Fatimids proclaimed aloud that universal sovereignty was given to them by divine decree and that they were called to displace the Umayyads of Spain as well as the Abbasids of Baghdad and the Byzantine emperors.http://hnn.us/articles/38164.html - _ftn4 So, al-Qadhafi’s wish to resurrect the Fatimid polity may be dismissed as just another of his hare-brained merger schemes (as no North African country, at least by official tally, has more than three per cent Shi’i population, so concerns about a Tripoli-Tehran axis would seem to be much ado about very little); but it could also just as plausibly be seen as a legitimate Islamic appeal for bridging the Sunni-Shi’i divide and, thus, as a renewal of the pan-Islamic ideal. A similar call for pan-Islamic unity came out of Tehran where Islamic unity has been a major emphasis of the state since 1979. Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrine centered around two main points: belief in the West as Muslims’ common enemy, and the three core trans-Islamic beliefs of divine unity, prophethood of Muhammad and resurrection and Judgment). Most see it as the Iranian bid to be the arbiter of Islamic unity. Perhaps the most striking, and potentially powerful, commonality to both the Libyan’s neo-Fatimism and the Iranian’s pan-Islam is, ominously, belief in the Mahdi (al-Mahdi is "the rightly-guided one" who, according to Islamic Hadiths (traditions), will come before the end of time to make the entire world Muslim.)
(excerpts, conflation, thanks to a paper, academic author Timothy Furnish, Georgia, USA, 2007)

From the broadest viewpoint, Islam today is backward in medicine, engineering, information technology and space research. Even weapons used by jihadi groups are made by others who work productively, at a time we in Islam are insipid. Our new generation of men of religion will need to combine the zenith of Islamic sciences, and modern sciences, at the same time. Without them, the isolation of Muslims from the progress of humanity will increase. Campaigns of criticism will escalate against us.
(excerpt, conflation, book, Muslim author, July 2007)

The reason for Islam being prone to fragmentation and internal warring is obvious. Islam has no theoretical provision for establishing liberal democracy, which is the only peaceful arbitration method in the struggle for political power. To hold a polity without liberal democracy needs extremely concentrated power, which eventually strangles society. Islam like all other non-liberal democratic belief systems, lacks the political culture to allow a system, which situation fails to offer a culture of peaceful arbitration in power struggles.
(excerpt from book, Political theory: Knowledge Processing, Creativity and Politics, 2006)

I observed something revealing, at the World economic forum’s Session exploring the USA’s religious ‘right’. A cartoonist satirized one of America’s influential Christian ministers, a hard-line conservative. In the audience, chuckling with the rest of us, was a prominent British Muslim. But his smile disappeared the moment we were shown a carton that ridiculed Muslim clerics.
(excerpt, comment by journalist, February 2006)

The old, ancient tyrannies of the Middle East will not ‘go gentle into that good night’. (Dylan Thomas, Welsh great poet). Faced by those who will not submit, they will fight and kill, until they win, or until retaliation from whatever source breaks their power (and very probably them). That is the whole point and message of terrorism itself, after all – or until somehow it does surprisingly ‘go un-gently, into the night’, that is, dissolve, melt away). The Islamists turn to violence as a result of their internal weakness, not their strength. We must not pity them for that - indeed, it must make us more determined to press, hard, on their weaknesses and give not an inch before their bluster. There is room on both sides of the political spectrum for this task. Can we win this one? Absolutely. Their internal contradictions and failures are far, far greater than ours (in the democratic, too-liberal, self-centres and indulgent West. this website author).
(excerpt, conflation, website article, and email responses, Muslims and the West, 2006)

Islam is present and thriving in Oxford University and in Oxford city. It is clearly one of the most enlightened cities in the world, with its 30 or so very old and very distinguished colleges, and boasting of some of the finest minds in nearly every field. Add to this the spectacular domes and tall minarets of the two big mosques in Oxford and the picture of a virtuous city is complete. Oxford, in spite of its quintessentially English character, is a very un-English place. A lot of its inhabitants besides the students appear to be immigrants, from either South Asia or Eastern Europe. It is a small college town (150,000 in 2008), but it has nearly 7000 Muslims, the majority of whom are of South Asian origin. It has five Muslims in the city council, dozens of Muslim scholars in the various colleges of Oxford and four mosques (new one being completed 2008). Oxford’s Muslims are primarily engaged in small businesses with cab driving, real estate and restaurants as the main areas of employment. Their challenges too are so much like those we face everywhere, how to combat Islamophobia, how to reach out to neighbours and local leaders, how to engage the youth and keep them away from radicalism, how to raise funds, how to bridge the gap between the older immigrant and the younger native generations, how to open more opportunities for women, without angering the traditionalists or dividing the community, and how to find more Imams who can speak in English.
(excerpts, conflations, article by Prof. Muqtedar Khan, Muslim website, October 2006)

I kept reflecting about Edward Gibbon who was an alumnus of Magdalene College, Oxford, UK, and authored The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the mid eighteenth century. In that magnum opus, Gibbon wrote that if the Franks had not won the battle of Portiers in 733, ‘perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet’. Gibbon, today, would have been surprised to learn the lesson that military defeats do not stop the advance of civilisations, and the globalisation of Islam is unimpeded by the material and military weaknesses of the Muslim world.
(excerpt, conflation, article, Prof. Muqtedar Khan, Muslim website, October 2006)

Oxford is the home of many Muslims, but it is not a Muslim city. One of the joys of being in a Muslim city anywhere is hearing the morning call to prayer. There is something moving about this haunting, age-old invocation to worship. These calls to prayer are often amplified on a loudspeaker and can be heard at a great distance. So what? If the indigenous inhabitants have no problems with the noise levels, an outsider is hardly in a position to object. A large new mosque is being built in Oxford, UK and when completed by the end of 2008 may well have its call to prayer - three times a day for two minutes each – amplified by loudspeaker. Many local people feel the mosque should not be permitted amplification. Are these liberal objectors in fact closet fascists? Many Muslims (among the ‘guestimated’ 5,000 in Oxford) are British citizens who pay their taxes like everyone else. Bells ring out from colleges and churches, how can we object to six minutes a day from this splendid new mosque? Most people next to the (East Oxford) mosque will not be Muslim. The majority of Muslims live at least a mile away. It is not as though mosques in this country normally feel required to broadcast call to prayer. The call invariably comprises assertions about the greatness of God, the fact that there is only one God, and the role of Mohammad as His Messenger. Some people argue that as it is illegal to build a church in more extreme countries such as Saudi Arabia, we should not allow construction of mosques here. Which reasonable (or sensible! author) Christian would expect church bells to ring out in a Muslim city? But in a free society, as here, refusal is nonsense. Yet this new mosque is in danger of abusing the freedom it enjoys (in being allowed to be built) – if the call to prayer serves no obvious practical purpose; it could be seen as assertion, provocative, insensitive. There are unfortunately some extremist mosques in Britain and it would be depressing if this Oxford mosque turned out to be one of their number. The Bishop of Oxford says opposers should relax and enjoy community diversity. Others say insistence, by the imam and trustees, would suggest it is the Oxford mosque rather than its critics that is no great respecter of community feelings.
(excerpts, conflation, article in UK national newspaper, January 2008).

A retired Anglican priest and interfaith worker in Oxford supports the broadcast as ‘Many calls to prayer are heard from bell-ringing towers, all Christian’. A neighbour to the mosque said ‘It would add to the cosmopolitan ambience to the area’. BNP locally asked ‘ What’s wrong with making do with the human voice from the minaret? When it has been granted it will only be a matter of time before both the number of calls to prayer a day increases - as will the volume of the broadcast calls themselves’.

SOME PREFER SAFER BROMIDES
Conspiracy theories pertain among Muslims to larger topics. Asked ‘What is most responsible for Muslim nations' lack of prosperity?’ between 14% (in Pakistan) and 43% (in Jordan) blame the policies of America and other Western states, as opposed to indigenous problems, such as a lack of democracy or education, or the presence of corruption or radical Islam. This conspiracy-ism points to a widespread unwillingness (in the world Muslim population) to deal with realities, preferring the safer bromides of plots, schemes, and intrigues. It also exposes major problems adjusting to modernity.
(excerpt, conflation, poll result and article, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, USA, June 2006)

Muslims who think the West must be fought and defeated, on behalf of their religion and politics, are not going to be bombed into changing their minds. And they're probably not going to be talked into changing their minds by outsiders. In your view, what particular responsibility now falls on moderate Muslims? (The Islamic modernist, a practicing Muslim, now holding an education seat in America, but with a history as a political dissident in Sudan, replied) The only legitimate and sustainable discourse that will change attitudes is an internal discourse. It's a mission that has to be done by Muslims. There are Muslim voices, human rights activists, democracy activists, intellectuals and so on, who need space and protection to convey their message from the inside. The question is: What is the rest of the world doing to make that possible, to facilitate that process? I don't think there's a lack of voices or ideas or energy, but there is a lack of political space, a lack of resources and a constant struggle to maintain credibility in a region that feels besieged by global cultural and economic forces.
(excerpts, conflations, from Muslim speaker’s replies, Winter 2002)

PORK AS THE HATE CRIME
Jews believe pork is unclean, but there never has been effort by the USA public school system to remove pork in order to honour their religious beliefs. But now in a Maine school the placing of pork in the mere presence of Muslims is currently being called a hate crime. A 14 year old placed his ham sandwich wrapped in a baggie on the table where Somali Muslims were sitting. They reported him. The “offending” student has been suspended. The local police were called in to investigate the incident. The Portland Center for Prevention of Hate Violence (no kidding!) commented that “It is extraordinary hurtful and degrading to Muslims, whose religion prohibits them from being around ham. It is important to respond swiftly!” Huh? Respond swiftly to an evil ham sandwich? The spokesman added, “It’s part of a process of escalation.” The warning is – today it’s a ham sandwich, tomorrow it’s the world. What has happened to the alleged minds of our supposedly educated adults, when a non-threatening childish prank is raised to the level of a hate crime? Oh, I forgot: to Muslims everything is potentially threatening. However, real threats from real Islamic terrorists are increasingly discounted by our PC society.
(Michigan News, April, 2007; NB the story was parodied after an agency report, and there were a few made-up quotes reported, such as here)

The return of long-denied religious freedoms in Russia has seen Islam flourish. As a result, many ethnic Russians fear their country might lose its national identity. Ethnic Russians are terrified at the prospect of becoming a minority in their own country. Low domestic birth rates and rising immigration from the former Soviet republics have produced an explosive growth in Russia's Muslim community. There are around 25 million Muslims in Russia today, a rise of 40 per cent since 1989. Russia's overall population is in crisis. Short life spans and low birth rates among ethnic Russians mean the population is declining by 700,000 people a year. The Orthodox Church, restored since the Soviet collapse, remains dominant in Russia. But with the rise of Islam, coupled with the negative growth in Russia's ethnic Slav population, dramatic change is under way. If the trend continues, the Muslim population could outnumber ethnic Russians within 30 years. The country’s Movement Against Illegal Immigration commented ‘History is a fight between races and religions. It's the law of nature. People are used to being with people like themselves, speaking the language their mothers taught them’.
(excerpts, conflation, M.E. broadcast, January 2007)

A RANGE OF VIEWPOINTS
(Website viewpoints, in response to articles and others’ views make fascinating reading – some sensible, some facetious, some humorous, some horrid; the following are excerpts, run together for brevity, from sites during autumn 2007). Religion/Politics/Islam is all one, there cannot be any separation. That is what makes it difficult for the West to have serious dialogue with Muslim Nations. They see the world different from secular Nations. It is not acceptable if their world view is (allowed, appeased) transported to the mainly secular West. If I feel that I and my way of life are under attack, for my identity, as a Christian, as a Scot, as a Muslim or whatever, then I shall be on edge all the time. It would be helpful if they put some day clothes on when they get out of bed. Going around all day with your pyjamas on is not normal in Europe. They go around in their pyjamas like it is the year 1467. About pyjamas, we will remember that ‘they’ (Nazi Germany) put millions - Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, political prisoners - into striped pyjamas and tattooed numbers on their arms. The real problem isn't with pyjamas, or kilts, or cassocks, or miniskirts, beards, burkas, balaclavas, not even with hoodies; after all we’ve had Teddy-boys, Mods, hippie, punk, skinhead, rapper disguises, jeans with crotches at knee length or torn full of holes, all here, in Europe - who are WE to talk about dress conventions? The problem isn't with people's attire, their sense of belonging or how they show it, but with how they behave. Radical Islam is linked to politics and tight religious behaviour, and their so-called ‘better person’ sees him/herself as better than me, which of course they are not. (Seeing into) human nature and human history has taught us that to feel better (than others), it is a short step to feeling superior.
(excerpts/conflations from three websites during autumn 2007. author)

Islamists argue that Sharia is a complete set of laws - and that no ‘man-made laws’ have a place in the Muslim State. Some predominantly Muslim countries apply Sharia at least in part in matters of criminal law. Many Muslims who live in Western countries attempt to live by Sharia rules as possible. This has created a niche for lawyers experienced in Islamic dispute resolution, and able to offer trusts and other arrangements that follow Sharia rules of succession. Financial organizations have developed Islamic financial packages to substitute equity for interest.
(excerpt, website article by leading Muslim scholar, now law academic, Atlanta; Ford Foundation, November 2002)

Large parts of the Islamic world have declared war on the West. Because Muslim countries, to date, have lacked the military and economic capability to wage conventional warfare against us, they have engaged in vicious acts of terrorism designed to intimidate and undermine Western society. They may soon be in position, through developments in Iran and, perhaps, Pakistan, to commit acts of nuclear blackmail or actual nuclear warfare. (And just imagine if, many decades from now true, Muslim extreme fundamentalists took control of France or England’s nuclear arsenal, with the capability to destroy large parts of the United States.) (This author) gives a ten-point plan of action internationally which to some lays itself open to rebuttal and denial. Unless the Muslim world suddenly reforms itself, an unlikely prospect given the nature of Islam, ‘I am afraid that civilisational war is where we are headed as the Muslim world gains even greater strength and confidence. If the West decides to fight this war, rather than accept Islamic domination as the price of peace (an open question), the bombing and killing are going to be on a scale that makes the current war on terror look like a preliminary skirmish. (
(excerpts, conflations, from a reviewer’s interpretations and comments on a book, published in USA, November 2006)

IMMIGRATION RESULTS, A BULLY TO BE FACED
The biggest single change in post-war Britain is the transformation in who the British are. Many people will applaud the transformation for the diversity and enrichment that it has brought. But if the alteration of Britain can be presented in such positive terms, then it is all the more remarkable that it has occurred without the British people’s consent being sought. More often the choice will be only between one party that has just about got its act together and one that has totally lost the plot, which for me describes all the elections since 1970. Radical switches in economic policy did not transform Britain the way that immigration has. Nationalisation, Thatcherism and Blairism can be reversed (maybe the incompetence of Brown not so). But immigration cannot be reversed. Most politicians loftily ignore the fact that for many voters it is a top, maybe the top, priority. Cameron has now said, 2007, ‘There has been too much immigration over the past 10 years.’ The constraints on the immigration debate today are objectively absurd. Anyone, it seems, is free to advocate immigration, but to advocate ending it, which is no less arguable, could terminate your career. If one quarter of the UK’s new babies now have a foreign parent, is it fine to argue that it would be preferable if it were one in two, but disgraceful to suggest that one in eight would be better? Britain’s middle-class and otherworldly chattering-class types can afford to be liberal because they never encounter an immigrant other than their nanny, cleaner or plumber. Future politicians will find that it (immigration and its results) will grow up to be a bullying thug of terrifying power.
(excerpt, conflation, article by former politician, UK Sunday national newspaper, September 2007)

This ‘understanding, a mutal meeting place’ is a two-sided cooperative effort yet the world would be a better place if we called spade a spade. It is monotheism itself that poses the threat to 21st century civilization. It is true that any enlightened Muslim who dares to openly challenge the sacred myths will face the ultimate ‘persuasion’ in Islam, and that is force - whether it be exile, forcible divorce, or imprisonment, torture, and death. Islam has never been willing, historically, to engage in any honest debate which would challenge the authority of the Qur'an or the Prophet (pbuh). This is forbidden territory, and so, yes, one must be ‘politically correct’ when speaking or writing about Islam. One would never question the Uthmanic text, for instance, although anyone who studies how this text came to be the ‘eternal text’ inscribed on the ‘lawh mahfuz'" in Heaven, finds this preposterous. It is a fact that most Muslims know little or nothing about how this text came to be in its present form. Assuming that no westerner can write critically about Islam without a bias, (according to E. Said), then we will go straight to the main Islamic sources in Arabic to get the facts, and this is exactly what many educated Arab Muslims have been doing recently and it is very revealing. They are challenging the autocratic structure that has been imposed on all Muslims for centuries, along with ‘sacred interpretations’ of the text, and thousands of ‘Hadiths’ that are contradictory, fanciful, and belong more to the literature of fairy-tales than objective reporting of history.
(excerpts, conflations of several respondents’ views, website paper on ‘Dangerous Knowledge’, March 2007)

In the UK General Election of 2005, Candidates of all parties were ‘advised’ by the Muslim Council of Britain (the MCB) to sign up to a range of Islamic issues – seeking changes in British foreign policy and the need for public-funding of Muslim schools were two. The MCB, it is alleged, told Muslims to vote against candidates refusing. The organisation claimed it could swing a vote in at least 20 Constituencies where the total Muslim vote was greater than the last winner’s majority. The leadership of the MCB, again allegedly, was ‘largely taken over by Islamists’ when it was formed in 1997 as ‘an umbrella body drawing support from hundreds of UK Muslim affiliates’. The Labour government’s record of appeasement should not surprise anyone over this issue of the influential Muslim ‘Vote Card’ agenda. The government’s relationship, since 2001 and July 2005, with Islamic organisations (including the Islamic Foundation, the UK’s largest overtly Islamist group) is similar to that it had with Trade Unions in the Nineties. ‘It does not agree with all of their agendas, but it wants their votes, so APPEASES them by giving them some of what they want’. The speaker, a PhD in Islam and Christian Relations and a former aid worker who negotiated with the Taliban, goes on, ‘The latest is the 2008 proposal to introduce Islamic sukkuk bonds that are compliant with Sharia. If we do that, we effectively create a whole area of (influence over) British government and economics; there will be governance by Islamic (religious-based) lawyers and Sharia courts. Note that Sharia forbids any non-Muslim from sitting as a judge in a Sharia court. With the new acceptance by the UK government of extra benefits payable to a ‘valid’ polygamous’family, we see continuance of the gradual movement (non-violent, but this lying in the wings?) towards an Islamic state in Britain; it is all a step-by-step alignment of British law with Sharia. Perhaps the government now intends the legalisation of the UK bigamy law as Sharia-compliant?’
(excerpts, conflations, website article by Dr Martin Parsons, Conservative candidate, February 2008)

THIS CHANGING, UNPLEASANT ? COUNTRY
(This situation affects all immigrants into Britain, including Muslims, in these last few decades to 2007) More Britons are leaving Britain, should we say fleeing? than at any time since the great exodus to Australia in the 1960s. A UK visa agency reports that enquiries to it, about emigration, are rising. No-one can say that the fear a great many Britons experience and live in today ‘is without reason’. The horror stories arise regularly in the media. Despite what politicians say, the silent majority believe that there is ‘a soaring crime rate’, and from a variety of indices feel a tangible sense that British culture is ‘on the verge of extinction’. We indigenous have lost or deliberately discarded so many of the qualities (nationally) which once made us unique in positive ways. There were the ancient British qualities of self-control, politeness and kindness, still largely intact in the Eighties (but not now). Now the threat of mindless violence hangs over anyone who deals with ‘the public’ whatever their ages: shop-keepers (many of them Pakistani Muslims), NHS A&E staff, taxi-drivers, railway employees, many others. The ‘better Britain’ is still there. But, there are no-go areas ‘owned’ by youths with guns, once-tranquil country towns disrupted by rampaging drunken hordes, people especially the elderly afraid to go out because of gangs of teenage ‘yobs’ occupying streets. The sheer nastiness of a growing percentage of ‘Britons’ today is as bewildering as it is unpleasant. I do not write off the British en masse. For every ignorant, self-obsessed, foul-mouthed, sexually-incontinent, imbecilic, immature and pig-ignorant young person we face, there are many times their numbers of young people as kind and courteous as any ancestor, fine young people we venerate.
(excerpt, conflation, two letters in UK national newspaper, October 2007)

The American scene is different from the European scene. For instance, CAIR in the USA is a dangerous organisation working within the democratic ‘rule-book’. Again, American Muslims ARE far more prosperous than anywhere, and therefore toe the line well. IF they expand twice as fast, with children as indigenous Americans, then inside about five decades (from say 2000), they will be as large as the Mex-Hispano-Latino-Americans are becoming now. They the Muslims will be a force in two generations which will change 'America' quite fast from what was known some 20-40 years ago ie the view from old Films of beautiful post-WWII America.... burgeoning, beautiful, clean-cut and apple-pie.... about to be gone forever. Just a mite slower than in ‘Europe’, unfortunately.
(excerpt, conflation, USA website, September 2006)

SELF EXCLUSION VEILS IN BRADFORD, UK
As part of my adult re-training induction, in full-time employment at senior care level, I am undergoing a few days of training in Bradford. Whereas only a few months ago the sight of a Muslim woman in an all-encompassing veil was an extremely rare event (once in a matter of many months), it has now become ‘the latest Islamic fashion item’ of ‘self-exclusion’. I saw four Muslim women ( I think they were) with black flannels barnacled to their faces yesterday and I have seen a further three today. How many more specimens of ‘alien obscenity’ will I have to gaze upon over the next two weeks of training? My mate told me a story – “Glancing over my right shoulder I could see the man at the steering wheel (heaven forbid that an Islamic male might actually entrust his vehicle to a lowly woman), and a veiled exemplar of ridicule sat in the passenger seat. I pulled my baseball cap (and what does that make me?) down the side of my head to avoid this ‘mockery’ to my right. Then I heard his window coming down. Suddenly a voice said: ‘Hey, you, do you have a problem?' I looked towards the husband (he was obviously in a fit of pique) as the female ‘Grim Reaper’ continued to stare fixedly ahead. I replied: ‘Me? no way! Your woman is making it quite clear she finds the prospect of other men gazing upon her as totally repulsive - I am making equally clear I would find the prospect of gazing upon her equally unacceptable, so I cover my face too. Why, do YOU have a problem, PAL? He drove away.”
(excerpt, conflation, UK website and a Bradford email respondent, Oct 2006)

Prejudices, racism and Islamophobia are tangible expressions of the hard realities of Western societies, and Muslims in the West must not naively think that these will simply disappear. Suspicion is so widespread that times of mutual trust seem still to be far away. Rather than complaining sadly, Muslims should have only one response – to hold to one’s convictions, express one’s principles and hopes, make clear comments and criticisms, keep to one open way of speaking with Muslims and fellow-citizens, participate in society partnership with all who reject a world without conscience, reject dualism, keep one’s head, and cultivate patience and long-suffering. The priority is for effort in the spiritual that leads our hearts toward the Transcendent, for this is the best provision for our journey.
(excerpts, conflation, with thanks, book, Tariq Ramadan 2004)

Britain is being flooded with immigrants, of many races and religions, the headlines tell us (2005-2008). Why? You consider the economic state of many ‘Eastern European nations’ and you are not surprised that Britain has become known as the ‘benefits soft touch’. We give money away, they believe. Poland is not one of the post-WWII cripples, it is a nation of pride and honour, and ‘Polish plumbers’ in Britain has become a by-word of honest work, honest money, and trustworthiness, as has its labourers in Britain. The minimum wage in Britain is an attraction and an incentive. However, the huge brain and labour drain is the down-factor for any nation today, and Poland is one such nation affected. Some 90 per cent of Poland’s (large) families exist below the poverty line determined in 1999. Some 50 per cent are below the social minimum. Some 12 per cent are below economic survival. Why Britain? The answer speaks loud.
(excerpts, conflated, two UK articles, UK national newspapers, October 2007)

THIS SITE WISHES ALL COMMITTED STUDENTS WELL
She (a young, white, beautiful, glowing student. this author) went through a 22-day span of exams after signing up for 12 subjects at school, taking extra classes at lunchtime and after school. This 16 year old British-born (English) girl (living in Stockton-on-Tees, north-East England) gained A* in all her GCSE subjects, ranging from maths to science to English to drama to religious studies. And she won the Student of the Year award, from more than 113,000 recommended entries judged by the UK Exam Board. Her mother says ‘She is so committed and strong-minded, once she sets herself a target, she strives for it.’ The 16 year old herself said (so modest and normal? author): ‘ I found it interesting doing so many subjects. I was still able to do things like ice-skating with my friends’. She is continuing her studies at the Teesside school and ‘hopes to read law at Oxford or Cambridge’.
(This website author wishes all committed, strong-minded students the best of luck – British, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Sikh and all other. This has been an excerpt, conflation, news reports, UK, October 2007)

For the most part, ‘chipping away’ at British religious and civic culture has not come from direct demands by the main parts of ethnic minorities. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s bizarre ideas (Sharia law to be allowed in UK in parts) at least reflect what ‘People of Apparent Influence or those in High Places’ are mulling over. And suggesting, without any mandate or common sense. ‘Mandatory multi-lingualism, cancelling Christmas in schools, Media too fearful of publishing ‘that’ Cartoon or any other thing or comment ‘insulting to Muslims’, retail food Chains allowing Muslims to dictate what they will or will not serve customers’. Loony Lefties are behind these things, such as people like the Archbishop. We should not be tolerant of cultural engineering. This is soft and effeminate Christianity and lofty and ethereal theology.
(excerpts, conflations - with author interjections - reports, Columnists, letter, UK national newspapers, February 2008)

Before the 9/11 outrage of 2001, few Westerners had heard of Wahhabism. Today, it is more of a household word and frequently mentioned in association with Osama bin Laden. It is portrayed by the Western media and government departments as ‘an intolerant, puritanical, militant interpretation of Islam that calls for wholesale destruction of the West in a jihad of global proportions’. Yet a book on the writings of Wahhabism’s founder, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1702-1791), a USA academic author is claimed to ‘shatter these stereotypes and misconceptions’. Her reading of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s works produces a revisionist thesis that Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was not the godfather of contemporary terrorist movements, rather, he was a voice of reform, reflecting mainstream eighteenth-century Islamic thought. His vision of Islamic society was based upon a monotheism in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews were to enjoy peaceful co-existence and cooperative commercial and treaty relations. Eschewing medieval interpretation of the Qur’an and Hadith (sayings and deeds of the prophet Muhammad), he called for direct, historically contextualized interpretation of scripture by both women and men.
(excerpt, publishing company’s publicity of Wahhabi Islam: From revival and Reform to Global jihad, 2004)