Wide awake, illiberal, unapologetic, and monocultural

Submitted by Shaun Williamson (United Kingdom), Jul 26, 2005 at 23:38

If Britain's problems are that it is tired, liberal, apologetic and multicultural then all we have to do is to become the opposite.
What is more interesting than the survey itself are the predictable comments which display an underlying hatred of anything different or foreign combined with the usual massive ignorance of history. British Muslims aren't really British, they are all Pakistanis etc.
Christianity is all sweetness and light while Islam is all force and terror. Read your history books again people and this time pay attention.

There have been many terrorist campaigns in Europe over the last 50 years. None of them were forseen by the politicians and many of them attracted sympathy from wider numbers of people than you might expect. They included left and right wing bombers in Italy, Red Brigades in Germany, the IRA in Britain, the Basque separatists in Spain etc..

Muslims may well think that Britain and the USA are morally degenerate societies, so do many committed Christians. However the idea that most Muslims in these countries think they can turn them into Islamic states is ludicrous. Most young Muslims in Britain feel that they are part of a despised minority and it is this fact that leads them to express some understanding of the bombers motivations. And of course the truth is that they are part of a despised minority. So it is hardly surprising that they don't feel integrated into British society.

We certainly need more sensible laws against incitement to commit terrorist acts and we need our intelligence services to identify extremist groups more effectively. However we also need stronger laws against people who try to stir up religious hatred.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".