UK: Mixed Messages on Radical Islam

In 1993, the murder of Stephen Lawrence, a young Black man of 19, led to wide sweeping reforms within Britain's police authorities. Mr. Lawrence had been waiting for a bus, minding his own business, when he was attacked by several other young men in an unprovoked attack. Criminal and civil proceedings were brought against five men, but no one was ever convicted of the crime, largely because of shortcomings in the police's response and subsequent investigation. The press was rightly enraged by the response of the police, and, perhaps, the complicity of some of the investigating officers in the case in obscuring the facts. The case remained a focus of national attention for some time, and resurfaced periodically over the next few years, with the center-Right Daily Mail referring to the formerly accused as "murderers" in one 1997 headline, and challenging them to sue the newspaper in response.

It was widely believed that the crime was motivated by racial hatred. In 1999, after a lengthy investigation into both the murder and the police's response and subsequent investigations, the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report was drafted. The inquiry confirmed that there had been serious failings in the police's actions, and concluded that Britain's police forces were, in effect, institutionally racist.

The report's recommendations focused to a very large extent on racism, especially within the police authorities, and ways to combat it, such as "independent and regular monitoring of training" of police authorities and "a review of the provision of training in racism awareness and valuing cultural diversity in local Government and other agencies including other sections of the Criminal Justice system." Racism was undoubtedly accepted within various police authorities, to a greater or lesser extent, as well as in many other state organizations. As such, reforms were probably long overdue.

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report helped usher in an era, however, that became so zealous in its institutional anti-racism that British authorities learned not to respect the rights of the individual, but to believe that race and culture should take precedence over the wishes of individuals – ironically, particularly when it came to "minorities."

Did the police learn nothing from the murder of Stephen Lawrence?

It has recently emerged that the police authority for Tower Hamlets has actively covered up a number of serious crimes, including at least a dozen assaults.

Mohammed Monzur Rahman was so severely beaten that was left partially blind. Mr. Rahman was attacked on a busy street, and one, moreover, equipped with CCTV cameras – put there to help police track such criminals. The authorities refused to investigate, claiming there were "no witnesses."

Over the last few months stickers have been posted across the borough, declaring a "gay-free zone" and warning "verily Allah is severe in punishment." Acts of homophobia, especially if threatening, would in other circumstances be investigated to the fullest extent possible. However, like the assault on Mr. Rahman, and other attacks covered up by the authorities, the perpetrators of the sticker campaign are Muslim, intent on forcing sharia on the residents of the London borough of Tower Hamlets through violence and intimidation. Mr. Rahman was attacked because he was smoking during Ramadam.

During a routine stop and search a young Muslim man was found in possession of a number of the stickers. The Telegraph reports that he was released without charge, on the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service. Footage of another man posting the anti-gay stickers was withheld for weeks. According to the gay rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell, "the police said no-one was allowed to talk publicly about this because they didn't want to upset the Muslim community."

Mohammed Hasnath, 18, was later found guilty of posting some of the anti-gay stickers, and fined a mere 100 pounds (approximately $163). On his Facebook page Hasnath had listed Khalid Yasin, a "sheikh" who has declared that homosexuals should be put to death, as an "interest."

Perhaps surprisingly, as Peter Tatchell notes, gay rights groups have likewise remained largely silent over attacks on homosexuals by Muslim fundamentalists – despite Tatchell and others in the gay-rights organization OutRage campaigning against Hizb ut Tahrir and the murder of homosexuals in Iran as far back as 1995. In what should have proved a wake up call at the time, the gay-rights campaigners were arrested, and charged with displaying placards that were "threatening, abusive, and insulting." Apparently, these read, "Iran Murders Queers," and "Islam Nazis Behead & Burn Queers."

The extent of the Islamization of Tower Hamlets is significant. In 2010, the borough elected Lutfur Rahman as its mayor, a position that comes with a one billion pound ($1.6 billion) budget. Rahman was thrown out of the Labour Party prior to the mayoral election for his ties to the Islamic Forum of Europe, an organization that, according to the Telegraph, "believes in jihad and sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state." After Rahman's victory was announced, one Labour insider bemoaned, "it really is Britain's Islamic republic now."

Since the election, according to the Telegraph, Lutfur's supporters have "targeted gay councillors with homophobic abuse and intimidation from the public gallery," including Tower Hamlets Labour Party leader Josh Peck, who was heckled with animal noises and shouts of "unnatural acts."

Islamic radicals have also targeted schools. As the Telegraph also reports, extremists, "have mounted campaigns [against teachers] through both parents and pupils – and, in one case, through another teacher - to enforce the compulsory wearing of the veil for Muslim girls." In 2010, Nicholas Kafouris, a primary school teacher sued the local council, claiming that he was forced out of his job for complaining about Muslim students, "engaging in racist and anti-Semitic bullying and saying they supported terrorism." In one particularly terrifying example of enforcing sharia, a 38 year-old religious education teacher was attacked by a Muslim mob that believed he had ridiculed Islam in his lessons. He was so badly injured that his mother was unable to recognize him. According to the Daily Mail,

"In a ten-minute attack, the fundamentalist [Muslim] mob smashed him over the head with a concrete block and iron rod and slashed his face from the corner of his mouth to his right ear with a Stanley knife. They punched and kicked him in the stomach, head and face, before driving away 'praising Allah' as they left their victim covered in blood and unconscious with a fractured skull and shattered jaw."

Britain remains largely in denial about the extent of the penetration of radical Islam into the UK. Nevertheless, there has recently been some long-overdue movement against radical Islam in Britain. Baroness Cox (who, along with UKIP's Lord Pearson, invited Dutch MP Geert Wilders to London in 2009) recently proposed the introduction of the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill. The Bill would make it illegal for sharia courts to claim or suggest that they have jurisdiction over English law. According to the Bill (pdf), a person is guilty of falsely claiming legal jurisdiction if he,

(a) falsely purports to be exercising a judicial function or to be able to make legally binding rulings, or

(b) otherwise falsely purports to adjudicate on any matter which that person knows or ought to know is within the jurisdiction of the criminal or family courts.

The Bill also reasserts the equality of the sexes, insisting that the testimony of men and women be given equal consideration, and that women receive an equal share of inheritance as male relatives. It would also mean that arbitrations would be required to inform "individuals of the need to obtain an officially recognised marriage in order to have legal protection" and "that a polygamous household may be without legal protection and a polygamous household may be unlawful."

Although neither Islam nor sharia is mentioned, the aim of Baroness Cox is to protect Muslim women, especially those who have come to Britain as immigrants, and who do not speak English, and are consequently unaware of their rights under English law. The Bill has received the support of the National Secular Society and a number of women's rights groups.

True to form, the Muslim Council of Britain immediately raised objections. Like some other hard line Islamic, or Islamist, organizations, the MCB invokes democracy, freedom, free speech, and the fear of "Islamophobia," whenever they, or other hard line Muslims, are challenged by the authorities. The MCB's Khurshid Drabu complained, "Bills of this kind don't help anybody. They don't appear to understand that we live in a free country where people can make free choices."

The MCB's multiculturalism melts away, however, whenever there emerges an opportunity to enforce hard line Islam. Only recently, the MCB issued a statement that appeared to use veiled threats against those who suggested that the burka was voluntary, not compulsory in Islam. Freedom of choice, as the MCB then made clear, was anathema to its position, and not available to Muslims: "It is not for a believer, man or woman, that they should have any option in their decision when Allah and his Messenger have decreed a matter."

Despite spending the first few months continuing, even expanding, Labour's legacy of courting and appeasing Britain's Islamic extremists, the coalition government has begun to change direction. Prime Minster David Cameron has suggested, quite correctly, that Islamism needs to be challenged no less so than racism. He has also compared the post-9/11 tactic of funding non-violent Islamist organizations to "turning to a right-wing fascist party to fight a violent white supremacist movement."

The "Prevent" strategy, established by the previous Labour Government under Tony Blair, with the aim of preventing young Muslims being radicalized, was recently put under review. As a result, the British Government has said that it will now begin to tackle non-violent Islamic extremists, advocating ideas incompatible with the British tradition of liberal democracy.

The attempt to combat those promoting political Islam and sharia through non-violent methods will not be easy. Notably the review was delayed five months due to objections by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and the Conservative Party chair, Baronnes Warsi, among others. They argue that the British authorities must distinguish between violent and non-violent Islamic organization, and must continue to dialogue with those that do not advocate violence as a method of establishing sharia, and Islamic state, etc.

It is noticeable, too, that the Government's announcement to tackle the ideology of Islamism was soon followed by news of a new sharia-compliant pension. Sharia finance (a modern creation that relies on hiyal, or legal ruses) may require moral considerations, (such as requiring that capital not be invested in pornography, alcohol, gambling, etc.), but sharia is, fundamentally, a supremacist ideology that regards, and treats, non-Muslims as inferiors. Sharia finance is, by definition, the financing of sharia; and it should be a cause for concern that it is being financed in Western, liberal democratic nations.

In various ways, Islamist norms, perspectives, and propaganda have already been soaked up by Britain's "elites," and into British society. The defense, and even the promotion, of sharia, by such eminent figures as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Stephen Hockman QC [video], or support for Hamas and Hezbollah by Leftists on "pro-Palestinian" demonstrations, are merely the most obvious manifestations. No less troubling, however, is the recent anti-Israel turn by the Conservative Party – with David Cameron, for example, calling Gaza a "prison camp." The Prime Minister seems genuinely unaware that the destruction of Israel is a central plank of Islamism, motivated by both a hatred of Jews and Western-style liberal democracy, and a desire to reclaim land once conquered, and made part of the dar al-Islam.

It would appear that Britain's press does not feel such outrage at the police covering up violent crime by Muslim gangs and Muslim fundamentalists, as it did to the negligent, perhaps criminal, response to the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. However, it should not be beyond the government to grasp the essential nature of Islamism, and to make sure that statements by officials challenge, rather than lend credence to, its propaganda.

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UK: Mixed Messages on Radical Islam

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