Time to rethink our multicultural society

TONY BLAIR faces two enemies in his new war against British terrorism: the seed of jihad, and the fertile ground on which it is sown. The last mission of his premiership will be finding policies to neutralise both.

The response to the July 7 attacks was always going to be determined by the life story of the culprits. If they were foreigners, it would have been easy to restrict visas and tighten security. But the truth is grotesquely more complex.

Britain is incubating its own suicide bombers and has become the European headquarters for people seeking to indoctrinate them. It is not enough for Blair to "uproot this evil ideology"; he must also treat the soil from which it springs.

The solutions proposed so far say much about Britain's woeful progress in tackling jihadism: Gordon Brown seeks to freeze the assets of terrorist groups - as if the mission is to suspend their ISAs, not lock them away; it will, we learn, become an offence to provide or receive terrorism training. Such activities have, it seems, been allowed until now by British authorities. It is as if the attacks of 11 September 2001 never took place.

This is what French and American security forces despairingly call the "Londonistan" problem: that Britain's liberal tradition provides shelter for terrorists who are kept safe from extradition requests. Sheikh Omar Bakri, who leads the banned al-Muhajiroun group of jihadists, talks of an unspoken deal with UK security officials: Britain won't be hit if it looks after the bad guys.

Last August, Hassan Butt - another pro-terrorist Islamist - said they had better break this covenant in style: "Any attack will have to be massive. After one operation, everything will close down on us here in Britain."

The jihadists, it seems, believe they have spent the last few years protected by a non-aggression pact with British authorities. And as Butt predicted, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, is now promising to close everything down.

Up to a point. Ministers can pass new laws banning the "glorification" of terrorism - but it is up to individual police forces to implement them.

Many will be reluctant to sour race relations by starting a witch-hunt for mullahs. But even if every jihadist cleric in Britain was dealt with, there is nothing to stop young British Muslims with an appetite for murder travelling to Pakistan to learn the art of suicide attacks.

Hasib Hussein, the youngest bomber, was radicalised in Pakistan, where he was sent by his worried parents to put a bit of discipline in the life of this school dropout. He returned to Leeds devout - and suicidal.

So as well as tightening laws, ministers are ambitiously turning their minds to the society that bred such people - realising that the Islamic Britain they thought they knew has murkier corners than they dared imagine.

The poison has been fermenting in Britain for a long time, especially among Asians with Pakistani links. In May 2003, a British Muslim from Hounslow, west London, flew to Israel to blow himself up.

In March last year, Operation Crevice stopped an al-Qaeda UK lorry bomb, and made eight arrests. Investigators believe that Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest bomber, was in contact with one of those now in custody.

Sir John Stevens, the former head of the Metropolitan Police, estimates that 3,000 Britons have travelled to terrorist training camps in Pakistan. If he is even 10% right, this suggests there are more attacks to come.

Those close to Blair say it is now time to ask whether multiculturalism is to blame - and to accept that pockets of Muslim Britain have been allowed to become isolated and radicalised, thinking they live in an enemy state.

It is a sign of the paucity of debate in Britain that multiculturalism is used interchangeably with 'immigration'. It is, instead, a specific form of immigration where the foreigners are not encouraged to integrate.

This would be seen as cultural imperialism in Britain, where a mosaic-style of immigration has been preferred. The natural consequence has been segregated ghettos - and pockets of radicalism, left alone to seethe. Americans look on aghast at the Britain's immigration mismanagement. "You seem to shun these folks off to the side, and let them behave as if they never left Islamabad," says Deroy Murdock, fellow at the Atlas Foundation.

Even in Islamabad, the Pakistan Times had this to say last week: "The sad fact is that Muslims in the UK have turned their face from the obligation to integrate with British society at large." The penny is dropping, worldwide.

Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, warned last year that it was time to end multiculturalism, as the segregation it breeds had simply entrenched inequality. It is time to "assert a core of Britishness". But how?

Since France's 1995 terrorist attacks, it has started the agonising process of retrospective assimilation. It has banned Muslim headscarves (and Christian crucifixes) from schools, and given police powers to lock up troublemakers.

Britain now faces these tough decisions. Assimilation of immigrants is a bullet that Britain has never bitten - after all, it wasn't so long ago that entire streets in Glasgow spoke Gaelic or Italian. So, the argument goes, isn't it just a matter of time until incomers blend in? As of July 7, we no longer have the luxury of time. After a second or third wave of bombs goes off, race relations could rapidly worsen. The threat is that the multicultural divisions of old become battle lines.

The answer lies in the second- and third-generation British Asians who represent the future of British Islam - often in ways their parents deplore. The problem Blair now faces is to amplify the voices of such people.

Ministers also want Muslims themselves to take responsibility for expelling the radical clerics - and confronting those who hand out jihadist leaflets at mosques after prayers. British Islam, Blair argues, should put its own house in order.

Fine words, but - as Salman Rushdie found - challenging fundamentalist Islam is not without its dangers. There will be no clamour for the task of weeding such people out of British society.

Lack of social cohesion has been the curse of Blair's premiership. Britain has grown richer, but the underclass has remained down - as Labour tested the materialist theory that welfare and the tax system buy social cohesion.

This idea has never looked more naïve than it does now. After locking up the jihadists, ministers have little choice but to find ways of piecing society back together in northern English cities. And this will be the hardest task of all.

It is a terrible mistake to let Pakistanis into the country without civilizing them first. These people are cruel savages, that think that murder and lying in behalf of Islam will make them a martyt and that it is a great thing.

Multiculturalism really sucks.

The only thing that brings people together of differing cultures is the things they have in common.

multiculture = more than one culture

the multiculturist fringe wants western nations to surrender part or all of their cultures for that of other nations

esposure is one thing

emersion is another

Unassimilated Christians...

Unassimilated Muslim...

The alternative is the "melting pot" method of integrationism used by the United States, whose newcomers must learn English, salute the flag and sign up to a set of values. They must buy into a basic idea that they have to belong.

But even as the US is seeing, the "melting pot" is boiling over with undocumented illegal immigrants who are not melting into the system but who are costing the system exorbitantly. Isn't it time for the US to pass an amendment making American-English the National Language? That's the only way for the "melting pot" to work.

It is time to "assert a core of Britishness". But how?

Ask the common people. Don't toss them in jail when they voice their anger at immigration.

That's why liberals talk about appreciating DIFFERENCES. I remember going to college and hearing the 'salad bowl' explanation of American society.

Not certain if anyone has actually been thrown in jail but I know for one that when my father was in hospital that I felt I could not complain about some of the nursing staff because I would be classed as a racist and probably my complaint would not either be taken seriously or at worst I could end up getting reported to the race relations board or whoever it is these days.

Appreciating our differences means that we have to allow them to do exactly what they would do at home even if that clashes with our culture even to the extent of what is acceptable to the average English/British Christian.

Whatever happened to when in Rome do as the Romans do.

I'm thinking of the fabled Nick Griffin of the BNP, who faces seven years in jail for "inciting hatred" after speaking out against the UK's Muslim population while a BBC secret agent was recording his words. The BNP says, “If these bomb blasts are indeed the work of Islamic fundamentalists, the prosecution case is likely to collapse. No one is likely to be convinced that crying wolf is unlawful when the wolf has just run riot through the lambs’ pen.” --Muslim leaders fear revenge attacks by the extreme Right By Tom Baldwin (timesonline.co.uk, July 8, 2005)

The argument from some other FR Brits seems to be that he's too sleazy to protect. I think it's important to protect his right to speak, rather than thinking of it in terms of simply protecting his sleaze. The two are separate problems.

There is much truth in what the BNP say but as other British freepers say their and extremist views are dangerous.

Having said that the freedom to say what you think is fundamental but how and where you say it and to whom possibly needs to be monitored.

"If they were foreigners, it would have been easy to restrict visas and tighten security. But the truth is grotesquely more complex.

Britain is incubating its own suicide bombers".

The problem is they were and ARE foreigners and will always be foreigners, whether in Britain or the U.S. The solution is to halt (not restrict) immigration from Muslim countries and to begin deportations of those already on British and American soil, whether they are first, second, or third generation.

Forget the rubbish about "underclass", "social cohesion", and other such leftist claptrap. These people will never assimilate. Western notions of liberty, democracy, and civility mix with Muslims as does water and oil.

Having said that the freedom to say what you think is fundamental but how and where you say it and to whom possibly needs to be monitored.

I think this is counter to the notion that rights come from God, not the state. One argument in favor of the UK authorities is that Griffin's speech may be just as dangerous as that of your hook-fisted Imam's. If Griffin took action, or began to call for organized, timed attacks on specific targets, I would agree that UK authorities had a right to step in. But the secret monitoring of his communications through a BBC agent smacks of statism to me.

The hook-fisted guy is a whole different story.

Forget the rubbish about "underclass", "social cohesion", and other such leftist claptrap. These people will never assimilate. Western notions of liberty, democracy, and civility mix with Muslims as does water and oil.

I agree that poverty is not what "incubates the bome grown terrorist". What does it is weak mindedness. Not educating kids in the rules for life in a free society, and not controlling what brainwashing is being done in the name of Islam.

Society has always had their Jim Jones and David Korishes. When it comes in the form of religious brainwashing it is just as devistating. Britain and the US need infiltrators in these communities and skillful teachers in the school. (And if the kids are only in the Madrassas then we need our people there as well.

I agree with your comments and basically IMHO we are saying the same thing.

One should be allowed to say what we wish in private but there are certain times that caution is needed in order that a riot is not incited or as you say if certain targets are mentioned then authorities have the right to step in.

Having said that if one is suspected of terrorism then I am for our anti terrorism laws to be enacted including IMHO phone taping etc should be allowed. The hook and his cohorts should have been dealt with long ago IMHO. As an Arsenal soccer supporter every time I go to the ground I have to walk past his mosque in Findsbury Park which is still boarded up and locked. Every Friday a service is held in the street because they do not have access to the mosque.

I am for our anti terrorism laws to be enacted including IMHO phone taping etc should be allowed.

By all means, for the target ethnic group. But I'm looking forward to a day when we don't have to spy on Muslims because they're mostly absent from our shores. Those who are expressing grim determination to fight a "multigenerational" war are defeatist, as far as I'm concerned. We need to nip this in the bud so we can get on with our otherwise free lives.

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