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January 6, 2008

UK: Bishop Says Muslim Extremism Creates "No-Go Areas"

58-year old Michael Nazir-Ali is a Pakistani-born Christian, who is the (Anglican) Bishop of Rochester. When he was ordained at aged 35 to the position of bishop, he was the youngest person in the world to have attained such status. His father had converted out of Islam, and until age 20 Michael Nazir-Ali was brought up as a Catholic. He then converted to the Anglican faith.

We first wrote of him in November 2006, when he complained of the double standards of the Muslim mindset, which wanted simultaneous "victimhood and domination'. His comments were then reported in the Sunday Times.

He said then that: "Their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, and always wrong when the Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists, as with the Taliban or in Iraq."

"Given the world view that has given rise to such grievances, there can never be sufficient appeasement and new demands will continue to be made."

He argued that Muslim imams coming to Britain should be given rigorous checks before their arrival on Britain's shores, to ensure they were committed to British values and culture. He argued that a long-standing failure to vet the arriving imams had led to a climate where extremism had flourished in Britain.

The bishop also condemned the wearing of the niqab or full-face veil. He said: "I can see nothing in Islam that prescribes the wearing of a full-face veil. In the supermarket those at the cash tills need to be recognised. Teaching is another context in which society requires recognition and identification."

A month later, the Rt. Rev. Michael Nizar-Ali went a step further, to argue that the niqab should be outlawed in public on security grounds. He said to the Independent newspaper: "Given that we are facing an unprecedented security situation, legislation needs to be introduced that allows officials to remove the veil."

In a written article in today's Sunday Telegraph, Michael Nazir-Ali has blamed Islamic extremists for fostering a climate which has led to the creation of parts of Britain which are now "no-go" areas for non-Muslims. He warned that in these "no-go" areas, people who are of a different race or faith face the risk of physical attack. These comments have been circulated internationally in other news outlets, being taken up even by local American newspapers.

In his article, he is critical of policies of forced multiculturalism, so beloved by Labour politicians. He states that widespread immigration of peoples of diverse faith and the destruction of Britain's empire have - over the last 50 years - created this situation.

He writes:

"Alongside these developments, there has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. One of the results of this has been to further alienate the young from the nation in which they were growing up and also to turn already separate communities into "no-go" areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability.

Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them. In many ways, this is but the other side of the coin to far-Right intimidation. Attempts have been made to impose an "Islamic" character on certain areas, for example, by insisting on artificial amplification for the Adhan, the call to prayer."

He says that electronic amplification of mosque calls to prayer are not part of Islam's historic tradition.

(The latest example of this demanding of electronic amplification of mosque calls to prayer is being made in Oxford, from its Central Mosque. Rezwana Rana, the spokesman for Oxford Central Mosque, argues: "We don't want to tread on anyone's toes, but the area is very multicultural and we thought it would be an idea to have a call to prayer." This demand is being challenged by local non-Muslim residents).

The Rt. Rev. Michael Nizar-Ali writes:

"Christian chaplains can arrange for people of other faiths to have access to their own spiritual leaders without compromising the Christian basis of their own ministry.

Instead of this, the multifaith "mish mash" is producing a new, de facto, establishment as the Government attempts to bring particular communities on to its agenda for integration and cohesion, an agenda which still lacks the underpinning of a moral and spiritual vision."

The bishop's comments have been supported by David Davis, the Conservative shadow Home Secretary, and condemned by Ibrahim Mogra of the Muslim Council of Britain.

Back in September 2005, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, highlighted the ghettos that were being created in Britain.

"As a country, we are not talking across the ethnic, religious and colour lines," he said. "There is more residential segregation, we are reaching US levels. We are not making friends across the colour line. When we leave work, we leave multi-ethnic Britain behind. We are going in the wrong direction. Our worry is that this is fertile breeding ground for extremists."

David Davis said: "Bishop Nazir-Ali has drawn attention to a deeply serious problem. The Government's confused and counter-productive approach risks creating a number of closed societies instead of one open, cohesive one. It generates the risk of encouraging radicalisation and creating home-grown terrorism."

Ibrahim Mogra has responded to the Bishop of Rochester's comments by saying: "It's irresponsible for a man of his position to make these comments. He should accept that Britain is a multicultural society in which we are free to follow our religion at the same time as being extremely proud to be British. We wouldn't allow 'no-go' areas to happen. I smell extreme intolerance when people criticise multiculturalism without proper evidence of what has gone wrong."

What Mogra fails to acknowledge is that before the artificial confection of multiculturalism was forced by Labour councils and the Labour government upon the nation, people have long been free to practice their own religions. Britain's first mosque opened in Liverpool in 1889 (pictured).

The Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn (which has many Muslims) has supported the comments made by the Bishop of Rochester. He claimed that it was becoming far harder for Christians to share their faith where communities contained high numbers of immigrants of other faiths.

I have long argued on these pages that multiculturalism creates unnecessary and undesirable divisions in society. A multiracial society is a desirable and achievable goal - but multiculturalism creates a mess of competing cultures.

The ghettoization of Britain has been something that few people have been brave enough to condemn. Trevor Phillips is black, so his comments were widely reported. Any other critics of multiculturalism fall into the multiculturalist's favored trap - they fall prey to knee-jerk accusations of racism.

In August 2004 Britain's Channel 4 TV produced an exploration of the fractured ghettoes of Britain called, controversially, "Who You Callin' a Nigger?" This investigation was made by Trinidad-born Darcus Howe.

He found that the immigrant ghettoes were far from harmonious. He was threatened with violence by South Asian (Pakistani) youths in Walsall. He encountered animosity between Somali and South Asian youth gangs and between West Indian-origin youths and Somalis. Darcus Howe claimed then that inter-racial tension in Britain was at its worst level for 50 years.

In 2003, the Telegraph reported that black youths in Walsall in the Midlands were living in fear of Pakistanis. Many had been threatened by Pakistani gangs, and violent incidents had occurred.

Darcus Howe's investigations were shocking. In Woolwich, southeast London, he interviewed a 16-year old youth of West Indian origin. This youth had been attending an anti-racism concert in Greenwich when he was physically attacked by a Somali gang and suffered skull injuries. He said: "When I talk about them it makes me want to be sick. I think they are vermin. They are not a civilised people. They are black but a different kind of black To me they are like dirt. We have to clean up the dirt. I can remember one punching me, I can remember a brick hitting my head. I could see blood but I didn't know where from. I felt my head. I went down, and I went unconscious. I ended up in an ambulance."

Another youth said: "I had a Somali woman call me a nigger. You say to yourself, 'Well you are not white. You're black; you come from Africa'."

The show also documented how one black woman who had lived in Woolwich for 21 years had her apartment attacked in 2003 by Somalis. Her siege lasted nine hours.

Darcus Howe's director was "slapped around" by a Somali "community worker" because the crew had filmed Somali youths without asking his permission.

The violence between new immigrants and older immigrants continued, according to Burhan Wazir, writing in the Times of November 27, 2004. He wrote:

The new racial tensions pit Pakistani against Kurd, or West Indian against African, while the white majority focuses on the cleaning of its own Augean stable. In Woolwich and Plumstead, southeast London, where young West Indians have been at war with their Somali neighbours, a black youth speaks of the African newcomers as being "a different kind of black, like dirt", and a West Indian grandmother wishes the Somalis would "go back where they came from".

In Harringay, North London, a man was killed during a street fight between Turkish and Kurdish groups. In the West Midlands, successful Asian businessmen casually dismiss local blacks as lazy and drug-ridden. And in Peterborough, designated as a cluster area for the dispersal of asylum-seekers, the greatest resentment of the newcomers - who include an estimated 3,000 Kurds - is to be found among the city's 10,000-strong Kashmiri population.

It is obvious that there are many factors beyond mere religion that exacerbate tensions between communities, but Michael Nazir-Ali has highlighted one fundamental factor that does exist - a climate where young Muslims are becoming more aggressive and militant towards non-Muslims.

There are "no-go" areas in Britain, and to deny this is folly. Those who make the rules in Britain generally do not have to live in the squalid ghettoes that exist in most of Britain's cities and large towns.

Multiculturalism is a bane of society and interferes with assimilation of immigrants, and foments mistrust between communities. The values of the host nation should never be traduced by politicians because of fear of offending "outsiders". To go down that road will really be the start of Britain's cultural suicide.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at January 6, 2008 6:26 AM

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