When it comes to Fraser Nelson’s Telegraph piece on this subject, possibly all three.
Making historical allusions without knowing much history suggests ignorance laced with arrogance.
Not being able to draw logical conclusions from observation hints at a lowish IQ.
And refusing to see the obvious betokens a clean break with reality, which is a reliable symptom of schizophrenia.
But judge for yourself. Mr Nelson’s Panglossian argument is that the Muslims are perfectly integrated in Britain, which contrasts her favourably with other European countries where the Islamic communities remain alienated from the ambient culture.
No doubt the Muslims running retail outlets in the better London boroughs indeed appear to be perfectly integrated. But contrary to Mr Nelson’s perception there’s a bit of Britain south of the Thames, east of the Tower and north of the A40.
If he seriously thinks that the Islamic communities in, say, Leicester, Birmingham, Leeds or Bradford are more English than, say, the banlieues of France are French, he either hasn’t seen those places or is blind.
It’s there that the denizens insist on Sharia superseding the law of the land. It’s there that forced marriages are practised, along with such other rather un-British things as ritual murders, beatings and, within mostly the Somali community, female genital mutilation.
And it’s there that thousands danced in the streets celebrating the World Trade Centre atrocity and then the 7 July massacres in London.
True enough, there are more cars burnt every year in St Denis than in Streatham, and during the riot seasons even Muslims born in France scream ‘Nique la France!’ (f*** France). But I haven’t heard of too many French Muslims blowing up buses full of their countrymen – as British-born Muslims have been known to do.
Drawing Winston Churchill in as support is simply disingenuous. Does Mr Nelson really think that quoting Churchill’s 1897 remark “Their religion – fanatic though they are – is only respected when it incites to bloodshed and murder” supports Nelson’s assertion that Churchill’s “criticism of the Afghan tribesmen was that their behaviour was un-Islamic”?
This is cloud cuckoo land, especially in the context of Churchill’s other comments on Islam, such as “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith” or “The religion of Islam above all others was founded upon the sword… Moreover it provides incentives to slaughter, and in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men – filled with a wild and merciless fanaticism”.
Equally silly is referring to the Victorian ministers’ boast that Queen Victoria, with her millions of Islamic subjects, was “running the greatest Muslim power on earth”.
Surely any sane person with or perhaps even without secondary education ought to know that Victorian England wasn’t a Muslim power. It was a Christian power with Muslim colonies.
By the same token, the Queen’s empire included millions of animist subjects. Did that make Britain an animist power?
And how does Mr Nelson think Queen Victoria and her ministers would have felt about thousands of minarets disfiguring the skylines of British cities? Especially had they known that most mosques lent their premises to virulent anti-British propaganda and incitement to terrorism? I bet with a lot less equanimity than the ministers of our own dear Queen.
Quoting isolated instances of British Muslims protecting Jews in, say, Bradford is equally – insane, idiotic, disingenuous? Choose your own adjective.
Some Russian peasants took in half-dead GULAG escapees. Some Germans harboured Jews. However most Russian peasants turned the emaciated skeletons in for a pat on the back and a couple of herrings. And most Germans either collaborated with the SS or at least were enthusiastic about its nightmarish deeds.
Individuals, regardless of their religion, have a free choice between good and evil, and some will choose good. However, large groups of people are judged collectively, and the judgment has to depend on the predominant tendency.
From sociology on to theology: “Anyone serious about either religion will know that they both worship the same God…”
If Mr Nelson were serious about either religion, he’d know that they are chalk and cheese. Of course they all worship the same God: ultimately there’s no other God to worship, at least not for an exponent of an Abrahamic creed.
But this is neither here nor there. For we aren’t talking about the fine points of doctrine. We’re talking about a Muslim community integrating into an historically Christian society – which has been proven time and again to be impossible.
Actually, this incompatibility can indeed be traced back to the divergent doctrines. Christianity would be impossible without freedom of choice, and therefore of thought; Islam would be impossible with it.
In this life such freedom may eventually lead to atheistic secularism, as it has done in the West. But it also ineluctably produces a quest for pluralism and tolerance, while its absence produces the diktat to kill infidels and apostates.
Not all Christians are loving and tolerant, and not all Muslims are murderous fanatics. But the overall tendencies are unmistakeable, which is why the two religions – or rather the civilisations they produced – have been at daggers drawn for 1,400 years.
The formerly Christian West has sheathed the dagger a long time ago; the Muslim East hasn’t and never will. Witness the horrendous persecution of Christians throughout today’s Islamic world, complete with churches burnt and parishioners murdered.
Muslims living in Britain aren’t yet in a position to persecute Christians en masse. But there’s little doubt where their sympathies lie, which makes Mr Nelson sound utterly ridiculous when claiming that “The integration of Muslims can now be seen as one of the great success stories of modern Britain.”
The only way for Muslims to integrate is to lapse as Muslims, or at least not to follow their religion too closely. Muslims qua Muslims are, and will forever remain, an alien – and typically hostile – element within any Western society.
Not to see this is a sign of either ignorance or blindness. And to insist that Muslim integration is ‘one of the great success stories of modern Britain’ is wishful thinking bordering on insanity.