The situation in the UK is different than elsewhere

Submitted by Yoel Natan (United States), Jun 28, 2006 at 16:39

I was reading the NY Times piece "After Londonistan" by Christopher Caldwell, and I realized that there were historical factors that explain the Brits' rosy outlook toward Muslims and the jaundiced view UK Muslims have of the West. There are other factors than what Pipes suggests--
about over-accommodation.

Churchill approved money and a site for the London Mosque during WWII to thank them for fighting in WWII. France did similarly after WWII, I read. Most of the Muslim immigrants to the UK were Sufi, and they've only become radicalized in the last couple decades--not long enough to overcome all the goodwill that the Sufis built up over a century. The Times piece says that "the majority of Britain's 1,500 or so The Brits also have libel laws that favor the plaintiff, to the point that nearly any scoundrel can win. In the last few years they have ASBO (Anti-Social Behavior Order) even before more PC laws governing speech were discussed but voted down lately.

In other words, the bad news about radicalized Muslims in the UK first had to travel to the US before Brits could read about their Londonistan problem in books and on the Web! Of course, they've only awakened to the problem since 9/11, so most Brits still don't know about it.

Anyway, reading the Times article, one can see there are other factors explaining why Brits still think of Muslims more highly than do the French and Germans and Spanish.

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