Posted on 08/26/2006 8:16:19 PM PDT by Mount Athos
By common consent, Britain faces a more serious threat from home-grown Islamic terrorists than the United States or any other European country. Britain also has a less integrated Muslim community than any other Western nation. In part, this is the result of more than 20 years of multiculturalism, an official ideology of separating cultures which has encouraged communities to follow their own customs and beliefs, irrespective of the extent to which they may conflict with the fundamental political and social principles which define Britain today: the secular basis of political institutions, the equality of the sexes, freedom of speech, and the central value of toleration.
The intellectual tide has now turned against multiculturalism, which is recognised to have been a catastrophe for cohesion and integration. Institutionally, however, multiculturalism is still dominant: thousands of public sector workers depend for their livelihood on "diversity projects", and on isolating ethnic and religious communities and enabling them to "flourish separately".
It is that institutional juggernaut which will have to be dismantled if the policy of multiculturalism is to be ended in fact, rather than merely in words. It is to the great credit of Ruth Kelly, the Department for Communities and Local Government Secretary, that she has taken the first tentative steps in that direction.
In a speech last week, she said "our ideas and policies should not be based on special treatment for minority or faith communities as a society we have to have the confidence to say no to certain suggestions from ethnic groups".
In the past, the inability to say No has been precisely the problem. The fear of being labelled "racist" or "Islamophobic" for voicing criticism of Islam has meant that radical mullahs preaching prejudice and hate have been allowed to flourish and this has created the climate terrorism needs in order to recruit followers.
There are dozens of examples of double-standards: conduct which, if it came from secular Britons, would be investigated and prosecuted, but which, when it emerges under the cover of "religion" or "ethnicity", is tolerated, or even encouraged.
As a consequence of this apparent official sanction for their activities, extremists have been able to colonise some of the immigrant communities which should, instead, have absorbed British values and been integrated into British society.
The Government must have the confidence to say no to the religious and multicultural extremists, and their demand that, for instance, some Mulsim communities should be able to follow Sharia rather than UK law.
If the Government has the courage of its new-found convictions, there is a chance that Ruth Kelly's Cohesion Commission will succeed in facilitating the greater integration of religious and ethnic communities which is so desperately needed.
Dam*ed straight they'd better.
I hope that this article is seen by many Freepers and passed on to many others. Many Americans must learn of the danger that multi-culturalism also poses for the US. Lack of assimilation could lead to balkanization and the eventual destruction of the country.
Coming full circle?
Jewish organizations here are quite rightly quite upset about inclusion of a poem by one "Gideon Taylor," a boy of 14, which includes the lines: "Jews are here, Jews are there, Jews are almost everywhere, filling up the darkest places, evil looks upon their faces." Obviously not a young man who believes that less is more, Master Taylor goes for the big finale: "Make them take many paces for being one of the worst races, on their way to a gas chamber where they will sleep in their manger. I'll be happy Jews have died."[...]Rather creepily, "Gideon Taylor" is the only contributor in the entire book whose school or location is not included. Even creepier, the country's education minister, Ruth Kelly - a devout Catholic who is a member of the extremist cult Opus Dei...
BTTT
I'm shocked but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The far left and the Islamists are bringing back a form of Naziism. The multiculturalists claim tolerance but then they always define Jews as Untermenschen.
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