Category Archives: islam

Inner turmoil

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I am in a weird place at the moment.

I haven’t been well – and am still not right – I suspect that after three years of avoiding it I have finally had a dose of Covid. My immune system seems to be ‘cycling’ several times a day, which is why at first I thought it was allergic (gluten or dust or feathers or what-have-you) but it has been nearly three weeks now. I seem to only have about half of my normal energy.

Also, though, and what is taking up much of my attention at the moment, is the situation in Israel and, even more, the protests in London celebrating Hamas (and I think that is a fair description). I’ve thought a lot about Islam in the last couple of decades. I did some academic study of it in Cambridge, and then in my curacy I was in a Muslim majority area at the time of 9/11, and that was rather formative for me. There is a heart of darkness there, and when I ponder it I start to worry that I’m Islamophobic. “What can men do against such reckless hate?”

We are facing a fundamentally spiritual crisis and – channelling MacIntyre – it is our unawareness of the nature of the problem that is the most important part of the problem. Secular thinking has run aground, the only question is what will take its place.

Such horror.

The tightrope we must walk

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tightropeI write this article a few days after the latest terrorist atrocity in Manchester, and I wonder what is the right word to describe what has happened. Clearly there is a link between this barbarity and previous barbarities in Stockholm and Paris and Nice and Westminster and Florida and the rest. Should they be called ‘Islamic terrorist acts’? I would say that there is a lot of justification for doing so, for such acts draw upon a long tradition within Islamic thought going back to Muhammed himself.

To do so, would, however, open myself up to all sorts of problems that might make my main points irrelevant; or, if not irrelevant, at least unheard. For as soon as the word ‘Islamic’ is deployed in this context, then the clouds of politically-correct opprobrium descend, accusations of Islamophobia and fascism are made, and all rational considerations depart.

Yet this is also why the police force in Rotherham turned a blind eye to the systematic child abuse perpetrated by those of a particular community in that town. They were afraid of being called racist. As a result thousands of girls suffered horror. Perhaps the only courageous path is also the only honest path – we have to start using the most accurate language to describe the problems that we face. In Manchester, as with Westminster and all the other atrocities, what we face is a form of Islam.

How might we engage with and overcome such a problem? There is a tightrope here that we must walk across with great care.

The recent election in France, to my mind, portrayed the two sides of the tightrope, each one representing a fall into the abyss, two equal and opposite catastrophes. The first catastrophe is Macron, representing an unfettered globalism, where nation states are simply inefficiencies to be overcome by technocratic capitalism. Human beings, both individually and as persons bearing particular cultures, are simply resources to be deployed in the great march towards making more money. Such an approach is both dehumanising and ecocidal, a last flourish for the 1% before the deluge.

Yet Le Pen also offered a catastrophe, one of dehumanising nationalism coupled with a near-imbecilic economic policy. Human beings, when threatened, have a long-studied tendency to scapegoat others when confronted with challenges to their well-being and their world-view. When all that has been held sacred by a community is laid waste, and insult is added to such injury by the suppression of truthful discussion, then the subsequent anger seizes upon the closest available victims on which to vent their furies.

The Macron catastrophe leads to an abolition of meaning, where all are dehumanised in order to worship Mammon. The Le Pen catastrophe leads to a moral collapse, where all are dehumanised in order to worship a reactionary fantasy.

There is a tightrope to be walked between these two options, and we cannot walk upon that tightrope without an honest and truthful account of what is actually happening in our society.

Which means, to my mind, that we have to speak openly about several things. The first is that we have to say that there is a problem with the Islamic community. It does not affect the whole community but it does represent a significant part – a part which is convinced of the inferiority of Western ways of life, and the need to attack such ways using violence. There needs to be an honest conversation about the roots of such attitudes within broader Islamic patterns of thought. Without this discussion, without this ‘bringing to light things now hidden in darkness’, the control of this conversation simply passes to the most extreme voices, and that serves nobody’s best interests.

We also, however, need to talk honestly about the nations, about England and Britain, and about what it means to become a part of such a nation. Much of the contemporary secular mentality is premised on the notion that nations are, as such, obstacles to be overcome in the pursuit of a better life. This doesn’t just apply to economics, where the expansion of ‘single markets’ reduces the role for national governments in order to maximise profits. Rather, the nation as a source of stability and identity, a focus for loyalty and thereby a ground for community cohesion, needs to be affirmed explicitly and confidently by the whole range of our leadership.

Lastly, we need to talk about religion. Most especially we need to understand the way in which discussion of religious issues in our society are bedevilled by our own peculiar history. We need to understand that our professed ‘enlightenment’ and release from traditional religious beliefs has served merely to blindfold and handcuff us in this present crisis. Without a coherent understanding of the role of religion within our national life, and most especially within the life of those who wish to destroy our culture, we will forever be compelled to robotically reiterate moronic mantras like ‘this has nothing to do with Islam’ and we shall suffer the inevitable consequences.

We are so much better than this. We need to avoid such politically correct platitudes that avoid addressing our crisis; we also need to avoid all forms of scapegoating and victimising that pretend to wash our hands of any role in what has gone wrong.

Rather we must engage forthrightly, honestly and courageously with our present predicaments, naming truthfully what is presently happening and yet not collapsing into a reactionary fantasy seeking a restoration of what has been.

We have a tightrope to walk. It is a tightrope made of truth, a tightrope that leads to a hopeful future for all who live in this land, where all give their active consent to a form of life that preserves the peace between all our communities, where we no longer fear to wake up to headlines announcing yet another slaughter of the innocents.

May our political leaders find their proper balance as they seek to carry us across the abyss.

The dilemma facing British Muslims after Westminster

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isis barbarity
I write these words the day after the horrific terrorist atrocity in Westminster. Khalid Masood was a person who subscribed to a militant form of Islamic thought. As such, the attack on the civilians walking along Westminster Bridge fits with the pattern of other recent ‘attacks-in-the-name-of-Islam’ in Berlin and Nice.

The British Council of Muslims released a statement saying “We are shocked and saddened by the incident at Westminster. We condemn this attack and while it is still too early to speculate on the motives, our thoughts and prayers are for the victims and those affected. We pay tribute too to the police and emergency services who handled this with bravery. The Palace of Westminster is the centre of our democracy and we must all ensure that it continues to serve our country and its people with safety and security.” The head of the Council, Harun Khan, said: “This attack was cowardly and depraved. There is no justification for this act whatsoever.”

There are no grounds for doubting the sincerity of these words. From the earliest times of Islamic military conquest there have been clear guidelines prohibiting the use of force against non-combatants. The companion of Mohammed and the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, taught the Muslim army “You must not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man.”

Even more than this, surprise attacks – which the attack in Westminster certainly was – are explicitly forbidden. Does this mean, then, that we can share in the liberal consensus as articulated by Western leaders like George W Bush and trust that Islam is a religion of peace? That those who commit ‘attacks-in-the-name-of-Islam’ simply do not understand what it is that they are claiming to protect?

I believe that the situation is more complex than this and that British Muslims are slowly being impaled upon a painful dilemma.

In August 1996, Osama bin Laden was careful to issue a declaration of war against the United States, which was published in the London newspaper Al Quds al Arabi; bin Laden knew his theology! This fatwa (religious proclamation) can be seen as initiating our present experience of ‘attacks-in-the-name-of-Islam’. It was followed two years later by a further fatwa issued by bin Laden and co-signed by several others, amplifying and expanding the declaration of war, and including the following sentence: “to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it…”

Given that bin Laden was scrupulously trying to keep to Islamic law and theology, how could he come up with such a conclusion? His answer, when pressed on this, was to say that killing of innocent lives was legitimate if it was understood as retaliation for the killing of innocents by the United States. The Koran is quite clear that proportionate retaliation is fully acceptable, surah 2.178 stating “O believers! retaliation for bloodshedding is prescribed to you: the free man for the free, and the slave for the slave, and the woman for the woman”.

There is therefore a debate within Islam about whether bin Laden and those who have followed in his footsteps are in fact theologically justified to apply the rule of retaliation to the question of murdering innocent civilians. It is surely beyond dispute that the United States and its allies (including the United Kingdom) have been killing innocent people across the Middle East, most recently through the extensive use of drones. Where this situation obtains, what is the response of a faithful Muslim to be?

Some Muslims believe that bin Laden is not justified in applying the rule of retaliation in this situation, some do. Within Britain, according to the most thorough recent survey (ICM for Channel 4, April-May 2015) some 4% of British Muslims believe that it is acceptable to use terrorism for political ends, including suicide bombing. This works out to around 100,000 people.

Khalid Masood was one of them.

The dilemma that British Muslims face is that the theological debate is not some abstract matter without practical consequence; rather it is one that will govern their relationship with the wider British society. Moreover, the need for that community to make a very clear decision and act on it will only become stronger over time, as more and more terrorist atrocities take place.

When the ICM poll results were announced, Trevor Phillips, former head of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, wrote this: “There is a life-and-death struggle for the soul of British Islam — and this is not a battle that the rest of us can afford to sit out. We need to take sides… There is one truly terrifying finding [of the ICM poll]. Muslims who have separatist views about how they want to live in Britain are far more likely to support terrorism than those who do not. And there are far too many of the former for us to feel that we can gradually defeat the threat… Muslims want to be part of Britain — but many do not accept the values and behaviors that make Britain what it is; they believe that Islam offers a better future. And a small number feel that these sincerely held beliefs justify attempts to destroy our democracy. Britain’s liberal Muslims are crying out for this challenge to be confronted. The complacency we’ve displayed so far is leaving them to fight alone, and putting our society in danger. We cannot continue to sit on the fence in the hope that the problem will go away.”

If we wish to fully address the problem of our home-grown terrorism we need to be much more robust in the assertion of our values. That will mean saying that some values are better than others, and therefore some belief systems – those systems through which values are taught and embodied – are better than others. We cannot combat terrorism without a vigorous reassertion of our own inherited beliefs and values. Ultimately, that means Christianity. It is a sign of the painful nature of the dilemma facing British Muslims that the peaceful majority will only be able to root out the violent minority if the wider community becomes much more devoted to a non-Islamic faith.

Beelzebub knows his own
Yes, I really do want Trump to win, and this is why

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Let me begin by saying that I do not see Trump in the way I saw Palin, as someone of substance and virtue. There are many things which a Christian might see as less than ideal with Trump, which are too familiar to need listing here. However, I do wonder whether those things which seem such strong flaws, such as his narcissism, are in fact essential characteristics that shield him from the immense assaults that he is facing – that, in other words, if there was to be a presidential candidate who might succeed in taking on the entrenched principalities and powers that have so disfigured our world, it could only be someone like Trump.

I rush ahead of myself.

Clinton is the candidate of the establishment. That establishment encompasses both sides of the standard Rep/Dem divide. As an establishment candidate, Clinton embodies the policies that have become embedded in the ‘deep state’ since the collapse of the cold war, and would continue to implement them were she to assume office. These include: a reckless and ill-considered foreign policy that has caused havoc across the Middle East and in the Ukraine; protection for financial vested interests and ‘too big to fail’ banks like Goldman Sachs; and more power and protection for the surveillance state and torture.

Broadly speaking, if you believe that, in the light of the situation in Syria and elsewhere; the financial collapse; and the revelations about the NSA from Snowden et al; that the United States is a beacon of virtue lifting up the world towards the light, then Clinton is undoubtedly the best candidate. If, however, you believe that vested interests have taken charge of the United States and have led it away from its destiny, that have turned it into an oppressive Empire, and that it needs to reformed and returned to its foundational values – then, perhaps, there might be a question as to Clinton’s suitability for leadership.

Those questions have greater purchase when considering Clinton’s own character and fitness for office. The director of the FBI has assessed her as being extremely careless with state secrets, and quite clearly, were she not a presidential candidate, she would be in the midst of a prosecution and facing jail for serious breaches of security. Her actions throughout the Benghazi story are deeply disturbing for anyone who takes the idea of public service seriously. There is evidence that she has abused her office for the purposes of personal enrichment through the Clinton Foundation. There are serious questions about her personal integrity and the way in which she will mouth feminist platitudes whilst having protected her husband from all questions of sexual assault. In addition to these, there are serious questions about her health and her possible alcoholism.

Of course, these may all be considered simply as standard attributes of those who have sought and attained high office in the United States, and therefore unremarkable. I am not in a position to comment authoritatively on that.

However, it is possible to see behind Clinton the shape of the principalities and powers that are opposed to the Kingdom of God, against which all Christians are called to stand. That is, if we are to take our Scriptures seriously, Christians are baptised into a situation of spiritual warfare, where that spiritual struggle is necessarily political – and the political struggle is necessarily spiritual. To separate out the two is ultimately to deny the incarnation, and anti-Christian.

What Christians refer to as the ‘principalities and powers’ are the deep structural forces that keep human beings in subjection and oppression; that pursue and worship the exercise of power, eternally seeking to extend it; and which always seek to suppress dissent and the voices of the prophets. These are the forces of injustice which choose to crucify those that oppose them.

In today’s world, those forces can most aptly be seen at work in the ‘deep state’ of the United States. I say most aptly simply because they are most clear there – I do not wish to say that the United States is uniquely prone to wickedness. If pushed, I would rather say the opposite, that the constitution of the United States, the idea of a ‘proposition nation’ to which all are welcome – this seems to be a step forward in the history of humanity, an outgrowth of the gospel itself. My concern is that the United States has forgotten itself, and become captured. (For more on this, see here.)

This deep state would include what Eisenhower christened as the military-industrial complex, but also the mainstream media, which operates as a directed chorus to generate assent for what the deep state chooses to do. More broadly I would include within the principalities and powers all the habits of mind and speech that fall under the heading of political correctness, the ways in which we censor ourselves for fear of being excluded. It is such a fear which is the fuel that allows the principalities and powers to maintain their power within the world, subject only to the directions of the prince of this world.

That is the broad context in which I understand this election. That for the first time there is a candidate against whom all of the established principalities and powers are united. This should, at the very least, cause Christians to give sustained attention to that candidate and wonder whether the Lord is doing something particular here.

This does not mean that the person struggling against the principalities is a saint, let alone one without sin. The notion that a political candidate might be such is a reflection of both spiritual and political immaturity, and the failure to recognise Jesus as Lord. It can mean that we are called to pay close attention, and remember that God is able to use frail and weak human nature to accomplish something miraculous.

After all, what is at stake in this election? What is most at stake for the world?

In my eyes, the most important issue relates to Syria – the civilisational clash with ISIS, and the way in which great power relations are at stake. If this is handled wrongly – that is, if the United States continues to behave in the way that it has been doing – then what might have been an opportunity for all the civilised nations of the world to unite against barbarism will instead become a catastrophic war between great powers.

In the second presidential debate this issue was raised, and the differences between the candidates were very clear. One candidate spoke about ISIS as the most important enemy, and the need for cordial relations with Russia. The other spoke about Russia as being a greater threat than ISIS. One candidate sees the issue clearly and neutrally. The other sees through the lenses manufactured by the deep state and would act accordingly.

Those latter actions, in my view, would be utterly devastating to the world, and lead to immense misery and suffering. What most disturbs me about almost all coverage and analysis of this election is that these weighty matters are ignored in favour of the equivalent of celebrity culture and gossip.

I believe that all Christians have a duty to vote, and to vote in such a way that the Kingdom of God is brought forward. Those forces which are in eternal opposition to the Kingdom are now united against Donald Trump. The principalities and powers do not wish you to pay attention to the serious matters of life and death, of war and peace. They would far rather that people were concerned about lewd behaviour, potential rudeness, arrogance and egotism, vulgarity and bad taste. I do not see how any spiritually serious Christian could consider voting in favour of the principalities and powers. That is why I want Trump to win.

Or, to put it all into one single image: Beelzebub knows his own.

hillary-fly-head

Muhammad is the most popular boy’s name in England

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The Telegraph has an article with the seemingly innocuous headline “Oliver and Amelia the most popular baby names for the third year running”. Oliver was chosen as a boys name by 6,941 parents.

This is only capable of being the truth because, hidden in the text itself, there is a po-faced admission from the Office of National Statistics: the statistics are “based on the exact spelling of the name given on the birth certificate; grouping names with similar pronunciation would change the rankings”.

Ah, there’s the thing.

If you put together the three variant spellings of Muhammad (Muhammed and Mohammed) then suddenly what is effectively the same name is chosen by 7038 parents.

Why doesn’t the Telegraph lead with that description? I would think it rather more news-worthy.

One land, one law, one language

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77-tavistocksquare
It’s about culture, not race. Whenever there is a discussion about how different people from different backgrounds might be able to co-exist, and potential problems are pointed out – like the fact that ‘co-existence’ might not be the intention of some groups – then the word ‘racism’ gets thrown out.

Racism as an insult has functioned to shut down the debate about immigration that our society really needs to have had. It does that because of the dominance of political correctness in our political conversation. Unless we can signal our virtue by repeating the necessary platitudes then society simply shuns us. (I saw a story that ran before the Brexit vote, about a civil servant that had taken unpaid leave from her post in order to actively support the Leave campaign. It was clearly indicated to her that she had committed career suicide – I hope that the referendum result has changed things for her!)

This is why we need to be clear that the issue is not about race – that is, it is not about particular physical characteristics that a person may or may not have. No, it is about culture, that is, it is about the ways in which we order our common lives together.

Different cultures do things differently. Some cultures encourage free speech and individual creativity; other cultures emphasise the importance of community and shared endeavour. Some cultures prohibit the eating of pork; others delight in bacon butties; others enjoy deep-fried Mars bars (allegedly).

Where there is a healthy distance between cultures, their diversity can be celebrated. Tensions arise when different cultures are required to live in close proximity one with another. At that point, where the cultures clash in significant ways, there is a significant risk of conflict. Put in summary form, if you add cultural diversity to immediate proximity then the result will be conflict.

This is what we have seen in our nation in recent decades. Enoch Powell infamously warned of the ‘rivers of blood’ that would flow from uncontrolled immigration, and that is not a bad description of London after the terrorist outrages of 7/7.

Where I very much disagree with Powell’s analysis, however, is that some groups of immigrants have been able to assimilate into our country immensely successfully, whereas others – a minority – not only have failed in the past but show no indication of succeeding at any time in the future.

So, for example, the ‘Windrush’ immigrants that came in the 1950s came from a distinctly British culture – they were, in general, English-speaking, Protestant, cricket-loving, formed within a state that had adopted British common law. Yes, they faced immense racism on their arrival (to our shame) but in many ways these immigrants were ‘more British than the British’. In other words, once the distraction of racism had been removed, their culture could be seen as profoundly compatible with what already existed here, and the new things that they brought, like reggae, could easily be absorbed.

In contrast to this are cultures with values that are inimical to classical British values, which seem to have established semi-autonomous enclaves within our cities – with horrifying consequences as in Rotherham. Some cultures contain deeply engrained misogyny; worse, that misogyny is particularly focussed on white women who are seen as legitimate targets for abuse, as their behaviour (wearing normal Western clothes) shows that they are not respectable and honourable.

It is not possible to have these two cultures co-existing in one space. In the end, one will displace the other. I would argue that if there is to be any form of healthy assimilation and co-existence between people of different cultures then there has to be an acceptance of ‘one land, one law, one language’. In other words, that if people of a different culture are to live peaceably in the ‘one land’ then the primacy of the existing law has to be paramount ‘one law’ and in order to engage with the wider society there has to be an acceptance that there is only ‘one language’ that can be used in any public forum. To accept that a different language is legitimate is to embed divisions with pernicious consequences over time.

We need, as a single British society, to be very clear about what sort of culture we wish to see affirmed and maintained in this land. The existing culture has been under sustained assaults for many decades, and the Tony Blair-led surge in immigration that has so changed the texture of British life needs to be addressed from a position of strong confidence in classic British values.

What does that look like? I am very fond of the story about Sir Charles Napier, who in the mid-nineteenth Century was the Commander-in-Chief in India. There was an Indian custom called Suttee, which required a widow to be burned alive on her dead husband’s funeral pyre. This had been banned several years before, and Napier was being petitioned by Hindu priests to allow a resumption of the practice. As recorded by his brother William, Napier said this: “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”

This sort of robust and unapologetic assertion of British values is desperately needed in our present context. It is because we have seen such assertions as ‘in bad taste’ that we have ended up in the predicament that we are in. We need both the scope and the confidence to assert our own distinct English and British identities, in order to ensure that the dominant culture in this land is not eventually eclipsed by the present toxic and aggressive alternative.

I am also convinced that such a robust assertion of ‘Britishness’ would be welcomed by the overwhelming majority of immigrants, who quite often identify more strongly with Britain than many who have been born here. After all, they have chosen to come here as a deliberate act, rather than simply enjoying the good fortune of being born in the best place in the world. Those who hate Britain and all that it stands for are a distinct minority, but they are a minority which need to be engaged with and required to accept that we cannot have different cultures co-existing in the one space, for it can only lead to conflict. One land, one law, one language.

(A Jeremy Creake article for the Courier)

Inside the mind of an Islamist

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islamist

How does an Islamist think? Most especially, what is it that drives young British men to leave their homes and families behind and to trek off to Syria to join up with the crazies in ISIS? Or to stay in this country and perpetrate barbarities like the 7/7 attacks or the savage slaughter of Corporal Lee Rigby on the streets of Woolwich? To begin answering that question, I very much recommend reading ‘The Islamist’ by Ed Husain.

Husain grew up in Tower Hamlets, a child of devout and traditional Muslim parents. When he was a teenager he fell under the influence of more radical teachings associated with the East London Mosque in Whitechapel. As he grew older, his radicalism developed and he became a key recruiter for a group known as Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), which is an Islamist group dedicated to the establishment of a Caliphate, in which Muslims might be enabled to live fully Islamic lives. If you think that sounds exactly like ISIS you would not be wrong – it’s just that HT is a competing ideology, and rather like with Protestant ideologies in Christianity, the smallest differences make for the bitterest rivalries. ISIS recently executed an HT preacher in their territory.

Husain’s work for HT eventually led to a personal crisis, when a close ally in HT made a violent attack upon a fellow student at Newham college, where Husain had become a student. This led to a process of self-questioning and further intellectual exploration of Islam. Husain learned to speak Arabic properly and spent time in Syria and Saudi Arabia, teaching English as a foreign language and working for the British Council. Over the course of several years Husain was gradually able to shed his Islamist beliefs and return to the form of Islam into which he was raised, one which is centred on a peaceable life and spiritual growth.

Husain’s story is a fascinating one, and one which had particular resonance for me as I spent several years working in Tower Hamlets before coming to Mersea, and so I was familiar with the various locations that he described, and the general culture. I was also reasonably familiar with the divisions in Islam that are the background to Husain’s writings. What Husain provides, and it is invaluable, is an extremely resonant portrayal of how those differences work out in practice. For example, Husain describes visiting Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Many traditional believers who visit that most sacred site do so with a desire to express personal devotion to their prophet. This, however, is complete anathema to the Saudi authorities, who follow a particular brand of Islam called Wahhabism. This brand is very much like the Puritans in our own history – and they violently disapprove of any expression of Islamic devotion that might be taken to imply ‘worship’ of Muhammed.

Husain writes, “While trying to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet, I realized that there was precious little left of his heritage in Saudi Arabia. In Mecca, all historical remnants of the Prophet’s life were destroyed with dynamite for fear of polytheism and in accordance with the Wahhabi mantra of ‘worshipping one God’. To visit the Prophet’s house in Mecca, or to view with awe the houses of his close companions, was now considered shirk or polytheism.”

One of Husain’s strongest emphases is that the Wahhabi form of Islam – which is that which dominates the Saudi nation – is a radical break with more traditional, and more peaceable forms. It is worth remembering that 19 of the 20 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi nationals. Imagine that our own Oliver Cromwell had won the English Civil War, and that we had then had two hundred years of Puritan government. Imagine further that we had then discovered an immense natural resource under our land, which generated a wealth beyond imagining, said wealth then being used to export Cromwell’s brand of Puritanism – a brand of Christianity that banned the celebration of Christmas – to other nations around the world. Imagine further that this brand of Puritanism taught that Islam was heretical folly doomed to destruction, and that a clear sign of this imminent destruction was the way in which Islamic nations were slowly being converted to Puritan Christianity – and were paying for the privilege no less!

This is how Britain is seen – a moribund nation with no moral strength, which has been captured by the worship of Mammon and is therefore ripe for being converted. I cannot understand how our government can persist in financially and militarily supporting the Saudi regime. It is as if our government sold arms to Russia during the Cold War – these are people who are utterly committed to the overthrow of our pattern of life! Husain is very clear that this desire is in no way hidden in Saudi Arabia: “What I was taught in clandestinely Islamist mosques and cell meetings in Britain was being taught openly at universities in Saudi Arabia. Islamist extremism was nowhere near subsiding.”

After reading Husain’s book, I am left with a few answers and many more questions. I am reassured that there is a form of Islam which is compatible with British life, with which it is possible to have a mutually beneficial dialogue – a form of Islam which is associated with Sufi teaching. My concerns, however, are now even more sharply focussed. How does that traditional form of Islam relate to the more dominant form (historically and today) which has conquered vast territories, conducted indiscrimate slaughter, and now explicitly wishes to destroy Western civilisation? How does it link to the severely pathological cultural norms that have been imported into this country and which drive barbarities like the systematic child abuse taking place in Rotherham and Oxford and elsewhere?

I am persuaded that there are forms of Islam – possibly dominant forms – that are simply incompatible with being British. Unless we take active steps to engage with those forms – to resist them and overcome them – then our way of life will cease. Husain relates an extremely interesting story about the prophet Mohammed. He has been asked to pray for the area of Najd, which is the territory now occupied by Saudi Arabia. Twice he refuses to pray for that area, and in response to a third request he simply says “The horn of evil will appear from Najd”. In that, at least, he was correct.

Lessons from Cologne cathedral

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Did you hear about the young German louts who got in to the sacred shrine in Mecca in Saudi Arabia and went around pulling off the face veils of Muslim women there? No? Me neither. I did, however, hear about what happened at Cologne cathedral, where large groups of immigrants went round systematically groping and assaulting young German women, in at least two cases going so far as raping them. Why is it that we do not hear about the first, but our front pages are full of the second? For the simple reason that we have lost all confidence in the values of our own society. Consequently, those values will in turn be lost.

Consider this thought experiment. There are four tribes leaving close to each other. These four tribes are peaceable, and they trade various products easily. All is well. Now imagine that one of the tribes changes in such a way that they become warlike; they are no longer interested in trade with the neighbouring tribes, instead they simply decide to take up arms and go in to take what it is that they want. The other three tribes face a dilemma. If they do not resist in a warlike fashion, then their tribes will die and be assimilated. If they do resist in a warlike fashion, however, then their culture will be changed, from a culture of peace to a culture of war. As a result of the one tribe changing, all the other tribes will change, and the ‘culture of war’ has become universal. The culture that chose to become warlike has succeeded in changing the other cultures – even if they do not win militarily.

This is now happening in Western Europe. Muslim countries which are much more restrictive in their attitudes about sexuality and the role of women in society are now succeeding in imposing their own cultural values upon the West. Consider the advice that the Mayor of Cologne has given to the young women there – that they are to ‘stick together in groups, don’t get split up, even if you’re in a party mood’ and so on. Soon, no doubt, well meaning political leaders will start arguing that young women need to dress modestly if they are to go outside, then soon after that they will start saying that ‘it is only prudent’ that young women don’t go out without a trusted male relative to look after them. At that point we will have succeeded in importing muslim cultural standards wholesale into our society. Do we really want this to happen? And if we don’t, how will we make sure that it doesn’t happen?

Do you remember the ‘Arab Spring’? There was such a sense of optimism that various regimes in the Middle East would throw out their dictators and a wonderful rainbow unicorn fairy land would emerge. There was one incident in Tahrir square, however, which was deeply disturbing, and was clearly a harbinger of what was to come. The CBS reporter Lara Logan was caught up in a mass sexual assault by dozens of young men. She was rescued by the security services and flown back to the United States where she spent four days in hospital being treated for her injuries. This form of assault has a particular name in Egypt – it is called taharrush gamea. Young men seek the cover of a large crowd, and then pick on the vulnerable with impunity. The German police have now admitted that this is what happened in Cologne.

According to Gibbon, the Western Roman Empire did not fall because it was beaten militarily by the barbarians, but rather because it had first succumbed to a spiritual and moral defeat. That is, those who exercised power on behalf of the Empire no longer believed in a higher purpose to what they were doing. I believe that we are in a similar position – our spiritual roots have been discarded and we have lost ourselves in a search for material gratification, we have ‘sold our inheritance for a mess of pottage’. Yet I do not believe that the culture and civilisation of Europe is doomed to the same fate as the Western Roman Empire. If we are to avoid such a fate, however, we need to remember and renew our own spirituality, and refresh the well-springs of our own culture.

The reason that we do not hear about young German louts acting offensively in Mecca is because entry to the sacred sites there is restricted to those who are Muslim. The Saudi authorities take their religious obligations seriously, and this is both a source of strength and a symptom of strength. By way of contrast, we have turned our great cathedrals into tourist venues, picturesque museums which show how our ancestors lived. The vibrant vitality of our historic culture has now been absorbed into mindless consumerism, the confessional becoming the selfie.

We are facing a challenge to the very foundations of our civilisation. If we are truly to continue on an enlightened and Enlightened path then we need to start taking steps to ensure that those values that we are most committed to are transmitted forward. This is not a matter simply of words, although words are essential, but also of action. We need to embody our highest values and not simply pay lip service to them. Unless we become a virtuous people once again then our values will pass into history and forgetfulness.

A start to this process would be to reclaim control of our own borders, so that we can make sure that we can decide for ourselves whether we wish to endure the delights of taharrush gamea in England. Just one more reason for voting to leave the EU when the time comes.

What shall we do about the ISIS crisis?

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isis barbarity

When we are baffled about what we might do with respect to a particular problem, it can be worthwhile first to consider what not to do. Here are some examples.

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, has called for compulsory registration of all Muslims in the United States. Here is a perfect example of historical ignorance leading to morally repugnant thinking. Anyone who has any historical sense whatsoever will immediately ask – what next? Shall they be required to wear yellow stars sewn into their clothing? This is how the evils of Nazism began to take root in 1930s Germany. The Holocaust did not happen all at once but rather the human rights of Jewish people were progressively dismantled over time. First the Jews were identified, then they were segregated, then they were shipped in cattle trucks to Auschwitz. We cannot defend an open and tolerant society by disregarding all the human rights that make us who we are. Let us trust that Mr Trump quickly sees the error in his thinking and abandons these evil plans.

Our Prime Minister, David Cameron, has called for our country to join in with air strikes in Syria. Please remind me: who we are trying to attack at the moment, Mr Cameron? After all, a few years back you were calling for air strikes against the forces of Assad, and supporting what became ISIS. Now we want to support Assad against ISIS? Is that with the Russians or against them? Is that with the Turkish government (presently profiting hugely from the oil sales that come via ISIS) who are our NATO ally or not? Committing our armed forces to an area of conflict, where our past actions bear a significant burden of responsibility for shaping the present fiasco, must surely be based upon extremely clear and convincing reasons, ideally ones which command wide public assent. Without those things a desire to act militarily is just so much knee-jerk posturing.

Earlier this year the Prince of Wales visited Saudi Arabia to pay his personal condolences to the Royal Family following the death of their King. In amongst other matters there was doubtless discussion about the ongoing major arms sales to the Saudi regime. After all, the UK has been selling arms to the Saudis for many years. Some of those sales were even investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, until political pressure forced them to stop. Let’s remember what Saudi Arabia is – it is a feudal monarchy that retains the death penalty for gays and adulterers and from that country came 19 out of the 20 hijackers on 9/11. The particular strain of Islamist nutjobbery which dominates ISIS has clear roots in the Wahhabi ideology which is dominant in Saudi Arabia. This ideology cannot tolerate any compromise with the West – and it is this ideology which is preached in all the mosques financially backed by the Saudis throughout the world, including many in the UK. Perhaps we need to be clearer as to which sorts of ideology help mutual flourishing in our society, and which do not?

If we are to engage constructively with this present crisis we would surely benefit from some clear and honest thinking and conversation about these issues. We face an ideology that is committed to the destruction of our western ways of life. As a minimum, might I propose that we stop financially and militarily supporting that ideology?

The critique of our society which that ideology offers is not entirely without merit. By which I mean that it makes sense to significant numbers of Muslims – for if it did not make any sense, nobody would support it. According to a BBC survey earlier this year, one in four British Muslims “have some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris”. Clearly our society is doing a very poor job at assimilating those who come to this country with different values. This is where we need to concentrate our energies – not in some vainglorious foreign adventuring, or in short-term political posturing, or simple money-grubbing obsequiousness to murderous dictators.

The philosopher Karl Popper, writing in ‘The Open Society and its Enemies’ (written during the Second World War), argued that for a tolerant culture to exist, it must tolerate all things except for intolerance. He wrote, “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.” This is the situation that we are presently living in.

It is undoubtedly true that most Muslims are not suicide bombers. Most Muslims – as with most human beings – simply want to live a peaceful and prosperous life within which they can love their families and pursue the goods that God has given them to seek. Yet it is also undoubtedly true that most suicide bombers are Muslims and that, in the last fifteen to twenty years, whenever there has been a terrorist attack, the chances of one of the perpetrators being named Muhammed is pretty high.

We simply cannot tolerate this, for if we do then we shall cease to exist. By ‘we’ I am not referring to our biological existence; rather, I am referring to all the things which make up British life. I like the fact that we live in a country where sexual orientation is no longer a matter for legal investigation and blackmail. I like the fact that we live in a country where my daughters can receive a full education alongside their brothers and are enabled to pursue their own interests. I like the fact that we – still, just – enjoy a culture of free speech and open debate in which the pursuit of truth is allowed to proceed without government interference. If we tolerate the intolerant then all these good things, and many more, will come to an end. That is what I mean by saying that ‘we’ shall cease to exist.

I do not believe that we can engage properly with ISIS and all the other strands of Islamic terrorism without properly rooting ourselves in our own deepest traditions. We cannot succeed militarily without engaging intellectually – and that means spiritually. Without it, military means are pointless and self-defeating. Yet we also cannot engage spiritually unless we recognise our own spiritual blindness, the way in which we have turned away from spiritual truth in favour of materialist and utilitarian ends. We have to assert our values, and we can only do that when we have rediscovered them for ourselves.

Gibbon’s analysis of the decline of the Western Roman Empire remains of value for us today. He argued that it was the moral corruption of Rome that rendered it vulnerable and impotent in the face of new challenges. We do not have to suffer the same fate.

On the question of what is permissible in church

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The Daily Telegraph has a story about a church in London which has been hosting an Islamic prayer service. There are more details here, presumably written by the person who shot the video.

First point: do not believe everything that you read (or see or hear!) in the newspapers (I speak with authority).

That being said, unless the video is demonstrated to be a forgery, I think this is a serious breach of ordination vows – specifically the declaration made at ordination and then repeated at each new appointment that “in public prayer and administration of the sacraments, I will use only the forms of service which are authorized or allowed by Canon”. I believe that there are other elements of Canon Law that are relevant.

I believe that our words matter, and when ‘Allahu Akhbar’ is chanted in a church, then this is a quite straightforward example of blasphemy – it is a profaning of Christian worship – and sacrilege – a profaning of the place of Christian worship. To argue otherwise is to indulge in syncretistic nonsense of the worst sort. The different faiths, whilst they have all sorts of family resemblances, are not simply different paths up the same mountain. It matters that Jesus was crucified, and to preach Christ crucified is to say that Jesus was killed, which the Koran explicitly denies.

I can see all sorts of arguments for pursuing peace, hospitality and friendly co-operation with those of non-Christian faiths and no faith at all. What I cannot see an argument for is abandoning our own distinctive identity, with all that binds it together.