From The Times
October 20, 2007
Wanted: a national culture
Multiculturalism is a disaster
Jonathan Sacks

Multiculturalism has run its course, and it is time to move on. It was a fine, even noble idea in its time. It was designed to make ethnic and religious minorities feel more at home, more appreciated and respected, and therefore better able to mesh with the larger society. It affirmed their culture. It gave dignity to difference. And in many ways it achieved its aims. Britain is a more open, diverse, energising, cosmopolitan environment than it was when I was growing up.

But there has been a price to pay, and it grows year by year. Multiculturalism has led not to integration but to segregation. It has allowed groups to live separately, with no incentive to integrate and every incentive not to. It was intended to promote tolerance. Instead the result has been, in countries where it has been tried, societies more abrasive, fractured and intolerant than they once were.

Liberal democracy is in danger. Britain is becoming a place where free speech is at risk, non-political institutions are becoming politicised, and a combination of political correctness and ethnic-religious separatism is eroding the graciousness of civil society. Religious groups are becoming pressure groups. Boycotts and political campaigns are infecting professional bodies. Culture is fragmenting into systems of belief in which civil discourse ends and reasoned argument becomes impossible. The political process is in danger of being abandoned in favour of the media-attention-grabbing gesture. The politics of freedom risks descending into the politics of fear.

Multiculturalism emerged, more as a fact than a value, in the 1970s in the wake of mass migration from nonWestern to Western nations. It found a supportive environment in the intellectual mood of the time. The idea of one nation, one culture had come to seem dangerous and wrong.

But there was something else happening at the same time, of great consequence: the slow demise of morality itself, conceived as the moral bond linking individuals in the shared project of society.

In 1961, suicide ceased to be a crime. This might seem a minor and obviously humane measure, but it was the beginning of the end of England as a Christian country; that is, one in which Christian ethics was reflected in law. It was a prelude to other and more significant reforms. In 1967 abortion was legalised, as was homosexual behaviour.

Collectively these changes represented a decisive move away from the idea that society had, or was entitled to have, a moral code at its base, covering many areas of life that might otherwise be regarded as private. Society was no longer conceived of in terms of a moral consensus. The law would intervene only to prevent individuals from harming one another.

What happens when we lose moral consensus? Morality is reduced to taste. “Good” and “bad” become like yum and yugh: I like this; I don’t like that. Imagine two people, one of whom says: “I like ice cream”; the other: “I don’t”. They are not arguing. Each is simply declaring his or her taste.

We have lost the basis of morality as a shared set of values holding society together. We are living “after virtue”; that is to say, in an age in which people no longer have roles and duties within a stable social structure. When that happens, morality becomes a mere façade. Arguments become interminable and intolerable. The only adequate answer to an opposing viewpoint is: “Says who?” In a debate in which there are no shared standards, the loudest voice wins. The only way to defeat opponents is to ridicule them.

If there is no agreed moral truth, we cannot reason together. All truth becomes subjective or relative, no more than a construction, a narrative, one way among many of telling the story. Each represents a point of view, and each point of view is the expression of a group. On this account, Western civilisation is not truth but the hegemony of the ruling elite. Therefore, it must be exposed and opposed. Western civilisation becomes the rule of dead white males. There are other truths: Marxist, feminist, homosexual, African-American, and so on. Which prevails will depend not on reason but on power. Force must be met by force. Lacking a shared language, we attack the arguer, not the argument.

This is done by ruling certain opinions out of order, not because they are untrue – there is no moral truth – but because they represent an assault on the dignity of those who believe otherwise. So: Christians are homophobic. People on the Right are fascist. Those who believe in the right of Jews to a state are racist. Those who believe in traditional marriage are heterosexist. Political correctness, created to avoid stigmatising speech, becomes the supreme example of stigmatising speech.

One example: in 1957 the Wolfenden committee, then the cutting-edge of liberalism, declared that homosexual behaviour was a sin, but should not be a crime. In 2004, Rocco Buttiglione, a minister in the Italian Government, was chosen by the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, to be its justice commissioner. During questioning, he acknowledged that, as a Catholic, he believed that homosexual behaviour is a sin but should not be a crime. He was then disqualified from taking up office as his private moral convictions were “in direct contradiction of European law”. He described this as the “new totalitarianism”.

PT 1

PT 2

Right or wrong, one thing is clear: the new tolerance is far less permissive than the old intolerance.

So a series of events that began in the 1960s fundamentally changed the terms of society and moral debate. Until recently, serious thinkers argued that society depends on moral consensus. Without that, there is no such thing as society, merely the clamour of competing voices and the clash of conflicting wills. This view began to crumble with the rise of individualism. People began to see morality in terms of personal autonomy, existential choice or the will to power. If morality is private, there is no logic in imposing it on society by legislation.

But if there is no moral truth, there is only victory. The pursuit of truth mutates into the will to power. Instead of being refuted by rational argument, dissenting views are stigmatised as guilty of postmodernism’s cardinal sin: racism in any of its myriad, multiplying variants. So moral consensus disappears and moral conversation dies. Opponents are demonised. Ever-new “isms” are invented to exclude ever more opinions. New forms of intimidation begin to appear: protests, threats of violence, sometimes actual violence. For when there are no shared standards, there can be no conversation, and where conversation ends, violence begins.

The divides that had driven politics hitherto, especially class and wealth, became less salient after the 1960s. Other, more “lifestyle” issues took their place. At first these were construed in terms of the individual, but eventually they came to be framed in terms of groups: first Jews, then African-Americans, then women, then gays. It was not merely that these groups sought equal rights. The real change was that they defined themselves as oppressed. This was a seismic shift.

Identity politics is deeply and inexorably divisive. If the withholding of recognition is a form of oppression, then one way of achieving recognition is to show that I have been oppressed. The logic is as follows: the group to which I belong is a victim; it has been wronged; therefore we are entitled to special treatment. This gives rise to an endlessly proliferating list of the aggrieved. Each of their claims is surely true, but you cannot build a free society on the basis of these truths, just as you cannot heal trauma by endlessly attending to your wounds. A culture of victimhood sets group against group, each claiming that its pain, injury, oppression, humiliation, is greater than that of others.

Ours is a transitional age, as revolutionary as the move from agriculture to industry. The growth of computing, the internet and satellite television will change life as much as any epoch-making development in the past.

With the new technologies the idea of an autonomous national culture disintegrates. Until recently, national cultures were predicated on the idea of a canon, a set of texts that everyone knew. In the case of Britain they included the Bible, Shakespeare and the great novels. The existence of a canon is essential to a culture. It means that people share a set of references and resonances, a public vocabulary of narratives and discourse. Until the early 1950s a politician could quote the Bible and expect people to know what he was alluding to. No longer.

As long as there were newspapers and a small number of radio and television news networks, people were exposed to a variety of views. Today we attend to only those media we choose; we focus only on the stories that interest us. If we see the world one way we will watch al-Jazeera; if another, we will watch Fox. We can filter out the voices with which we disagree. We are exposed to a selectively edited version of reality.

This is massively amplified by the phenomenon of blogs, which often present the news in highly tendentious ways. The result is that our prejudices are confirmed, and need never be disturbed.

The new technologies, by uniting people globally, divide people locally. They strengthen nonnational affiliations. They can make people feel more Hindu or Muslim or Jewish than British. They turn ethnic minorities into “diasporas”, people whose home and heart is elsewhere.

The nation state was brought into being by one form of communications technology – printing. It is today endangered by another. Whether the media, or politicians, or we, will recognise the danger in time, no one can be sure. Without a national culture, there is no nation. There are merely people-in-proximity. Whether this is sufficient to generate loyalty, belonging and a sense of the common good is an open question. National cultures make nations. Global cultures may yet break them.

Mugged by reality? July 25, 2005
WITH hindsight, the defining encounter of the age was not between Mohammed Atta's jet and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but that between Mohammed Atta and Johnelle Bryant a year earlier. Bryant is an official with the US Department of Agriculture in Florida, and the late Atta had gone to see her about getting a $US650,000 government loan to convert a plane into the world's largest crop-duster. A novel idea.
The meeting got off to a rocky start when Atta refused to deal with Bryant because she was but a woman. But, after this unpleasantness had been smoothed out, things went swimmingly. When it was explained to him that, alas, he wouldn't get the 650 grand in cash that day, Atta threatened to cut Bryant's throat. He then pointed to a picture behind her desk showing an aerial view of downtown Washington - the White House, the Pentagon et al - and asked: "How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it?"
Fortunately, Bryant's been on the training course and knows an opportunity for multicultural outreach when she sees one. "I felt that he was trying to make the cultural leap from the country that he came from," she recalled. "I was attempting, in every manner I could, to help him make his relocation into our country as easy for him as I could."
So a few weeks later, when fellow 9/11 terrorist Marwan al-Shehhi arrived to request another half-million dollar farm subsidy and Atta showed up cunningly disguised with a pair of glasses and claiming to be another person entirely - to whit, al-Shehhi's accountant - Bryant sportingly pretended not to recognise him and went along with the wheeze. The fake specs, like the threat to slit her throat and blow up the Pentagon, were just another example of the multicultural diversity that so enriches our society.
For four years, much of the western world behaved like Bryant. Bomb us, and we agonise over the "root causes" (that is, what we did wrong). Decapitate us, and our politicians rush to the nearest mosque to declare that "Islam is a religion of peace". Issue bloodcurdling calls at Friday prayers to kill all the Jews and infidels, and we fret that it may cause a backlash against Muslims. Behead sodomites and mutilate female genitalia, and gay groups and feminist groups can't wait to march alongside you denouncing Bush, Blair and Howard. Murder a schoolful of children, and our scholars explain that to the "vast majority" of Muslims "jihad" is a harmless concept meaning "decaf latte with skimmed milk and cinnamon sprinkles".


Cont...

Until the London bombings. Something about this particular set of circumstances - British subjects, born and bred, weaned on chips, fond of cricket, but willing to slaughter dozens of their fellow citizens - seems to have momentarily shaken the multiculturalists out of their reveries. Hitherto, they've taken a relaxed view of the more, ah, robust forms of cultural diversity - Sydney gang rapes, German honour killings - but Her Britannic Majesty's suicide bombers have apparently stiffened even the most jelly-spined lefties.
At The Age, Terry Lane, last heard blaming John Howard for the "end of democracy as we know it" and calling for "the army of my country ... to be defeated" in Iraq, now says multiculturalism is a "repulsive word" whereas "assimilation is a beaut" and should be commended. In the sense that he seems to have personally assimilated with Pauline Hanson, he's at least leading by example.
Where Lane leads, Melbourne's finest have been rushing to follow, lining up to sign on to the New Butchness. "There is something wrong with multiculturalism," warns Pamela Bone. "Perhaps it is time to say, you are welcome, but this is the way it is here." Tony Parkinson - The Age's resident voice of sanity - quotes approvingly France's Jean-Francois Revel: "Clearly, a civilisation that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself."
And yet, The Age's editor Andrew Jaspan still lives in another world. You'll recall that it was Jaspan who objected to the energy and conviction of certain freed Australian hostage, at least when it comes to disrespecting their captors: "I was, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood's use of the 'arsehole' word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought through ... As I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive."
And heaven forbid we're insensitive about terrorists. True, a blindfolded Wood had to listen to his jailers murder two of his colleagues a few inches away, but how boorish would one have to be to hold that against one's captors? A few months after 9/11, National Review's John Derbyshire dusted off the old Cold War mantra "Better dead than red" and modified it to mock the squeamishness of politically correct warfare: "Better dead than rude". But even he would be surprised to see it taken up quite so literally by Andrew Jaspan.
Usually it's the hostage who gets Stockholm Syndrome, but the newly liberated Wood must occasionally reflect that in this instance the entire culture seems to have caught a dose. And, in a sense, we have: multiculturalism is a kind of societal Stockholm Syndrome. Atta's meetings with Bryant are emblematic: He wasn't a genius, a master of disguise in deep cover; indeed, he was barely covered at all, he was the Leslie Nielsen of terrorist masterminds - but the more he stuck out, the more Bryant was trained not to notice, or to put it all down to his vibrant cultural tradition.
That's the great thing about multiculturalism: it doesn't involve knowing anything about other cultures - like, say, the capital of Bhutan or the principal exports of Malaysia, the sort of stuff the old imperialist wallahs used to be well up on. Instead, it just involves feeling warm and fluffy, making bliss out of ignorance. And one notices a subtle evolution in multicultural pieties since the Islamists came along. It was most explicitly addressed by the eminent British lawyer Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, QC, who thought that it was too easy to disparage "Islamic fundamentalists". "We as western liberals too often are fundamentalist ourselves. We don't look at our own fundamentalisms."
And what exactly would those western liberal fundamentalisms be? "One of the things that we are too ready to insist upon is that we are the tolerant people and that the intolerance is something that belongs to other countries like Islam. And I'm not sure that's true."
Hmm. Kennedy appears to be arguing that our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people's intolerance, which is intolerable. Thus the lop-sided valse macabre of our times: the more the Islamists step on our toes, the more we waltz them gaily round the room. I would like to think that the newly fortified Age columnists are representative of the culture's mood, but, if I had to bet, I'd put my money on Kennedy: anyone can be tolerant of the tolerant, but tolerance of intolerance gives an even more intense frisson of pleasure to the multiculti masochists. Australia's old cultural cringe had a certain market rationality; the new multicultural cringe is pure nihilism.
Mark Steyn is a regular contributor to The Australian.

Where do people get these dumb ideas about what multiculturalism is responsible for?

Multiculturalism has led not to integration but to segregation. It has allowed groups to live separately

Duh, like there were no enclaves before multiculturalism became a buzz word? Like people were forced to live next door to neighbours of a different ethnicity? That's why I started the thread about multiculturalism policy - to point out what a load of crap this stuff is.

freediver wrote on Oct 3^rd, 2008 at 11:36am:

Where do people get these dumb ideas about what multiculturalism is responsible for? Multiculturalism has led not to integration but to segregation. It has allowed groups to live separately Duh, like there were no enclaves before multiculturalism became a buzz word? Like people were forced to live next door to neighbours of a different ethnicity? That's why I started the thread about multiculturalism policy - to point out what a load of crap this stuff is.

Were there as many foreign enclaves in Australia now as there were before multiculturalism policies were adopted in 73 and 78?

I'm not quite sure if I've overcome your gramatical issues, but yes. Ethnic enclaves used to be the norm in Australia. Now they are comparitively rare. But don't let that get in the way of your agitprop.

lol

DT

nothing changes
FD will forever live in complete denial of reality.

why waste your breathe

Grendel wrote on Oct 4^th, 2008 at 2:02pm:

lol DT nothing changes FD will forever live in complete denial of reality. why waste your breathe

The conversations seem to go in circles with him. He's not open minded enough to even consider other people's points of view (Or fairly good evidence) on topics such as multiculturalism and race. A master nit-picker (Of things that aren't really important). Rather than answering your good questions, he ignores most of them and goes in a totally different direction. Instead of posting evidence or second opinions by people with authority on the subject, he gives his own 'assumptions' and acts as though it's the final word on the matter. It's not really worth 'debating' with someone who's completely and utterly convinced they're correct. I have a lot more fun debating with Indians on topics such as this than FD.

And FD, wtf? Agitprop? How long did you spend looking up that term in the dictionary in an attempt to look intelligent? Just say 'propaganda' next time, okay?



Quote:

I'm not quite sure if I've overcome your gramatical issues

Classy stuff, FD.

for blasko

bump

HELLO BWIAN....

It certainly was for Aboriginals since 1788.

Grendel wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2017 at 1:37pm:

HELLO BWIAN....

Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  More ad homimen being trumpeted, Geoff?  Tsk, tsk, you really do have problems with being civil, don't you?    ::)

Brian Ross wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2017 at 4:01pm:

Grendel wrote on Feb 23rd, 2017 at 1:37pm: HELLO BWIAN.... Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  More ad homimen being trumpeted, Geoff?  Tsk, tsk, you really do have problems with being civil, don't you?    ::)

really?

You really think HELLO BWIAN is ad hom? :D :D :D :D :D
You really do need help.

Grendel wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2017 at 10:10pm:

Brian Ross wrote on Feb 23rd, 2017 at 4:01pm: Grendel wrote on Feb 23rd, 2017 at 1:37pm: HELLO BWIAN.... Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  More ad homimen being trumpeted, Geoff?  Tsk, tsk, you really do have problems with being civil, don't you?    ::) really? You really think HELLO BWIAN is ad hom? :D :D :D :D :D You really do need help.

Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  Yes it is, ad hominem, Geoff.  When you use my real name, I'll listen to you.  Tsk, tsk.   ::) ::)

Brian Ross wrote on Feb 24^th, 2017 at 12:30am:

Grendel wrote on Feb 23rd, 2017 at 10:10pm: Brian Ross wrote on Feb 23rd, 2017 at 4:01pm: Grendel wrote on Feb 23rd, 2017 at 1:37pm: HELLO BWIAN.... Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  More ad homimen being trumpeted, Geoff?  Tsk, tsk, you really do have problems with being civil, don't you?    ::) really? You really think HELLO BWIAN is ad hom? :D :D :D :D :D You really do need help. Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  Yes it is, ad hominem, Geoff.  When you use my real name, I'll listen to you.  Tsk, tsk.   ::) ::)

Well brian when you start acting like a normal person with some credibility and respect others.  When you stop being a lying hypocrite.   I will treat you with some respect....  until then YOU need to improve YOUR game or you'll still be bwian to me.

Where is my UNRESERVED APOLOGY BWIAN....  no more diversions, no more crap.

Bwian's idea of an UNRESERVED APOLOGY.... :D ;D :D


Brian Ross wrote on Feb 24^th, 2017 at 12:37am:

OK, an unreserved apology.  I apologise, Grendel.  You have shown that you are not a racist.  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, although I find it interesting that you are today posting in a thread "racism is a right" without attacking racism, yet in 2008, you posted in a thread "racism is wrong" attacking racism.   So, have you changed your mind about racism? Now, how about the Xenophobia and Islamophobia?    ::)

Still a lying decitful hypocrite...
First that is not UNRESERVED bwian in fact it is hardly an apology at all.
You were wrong and are still a liar and continue to lie and  libel me on this site.  You are a dishonest hypocrite bwian.

Your postings on Racism is Right 99% of your posts are simply yawns bwian, are you a RACIST?  My post to you simply say you will not win the debate using those tactics...  so no more lies eh...  Aussie accuses me of dragging this on and on and on....  well I've been putting up with this crap for 2 decades...  YOU NEED TO MAN UP BWIAN.

I've proved I am no racist, xenophobe or Islamophobe.

WHERE IS MY UNRESERVED APOLOGY?

Grendel wrote on Feb 24^th, 2017 at 8:23am:

Bwian's idea of an UNRESERVED APOLOGY.... :D ;D :D Brian Ross wrote on Feb 24th, 2017 at 12:37am: OK, an unreserved apology.  I apologise, Grendel.  You have shown that you are not a racist.  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, although I find it interesting that you are today posting in a thread "racism is a right" without attacking racism, yet in 2008, you posted in a thread "racism is wrong" attacking racism.   So, have you changed your mind about racism? Now, how about the Xenophobia and Islamophobia?    ::) Still a lying decitful hypocrite... First that is not UNRESERVED bwian in fact it is hardly an apology at all. You were wrong and are still a liar and continue to lie and  libel me on this site.  You are a dishonest hypocrite bwian. Your postings on Racism is Right 99% of your posts are simply yawns bwian, are you a RACIST?  My post to you simply say you will not win the debate using those tactics...  so no more lies eh...  Aussie accuses me of dragging this on and on and on....  well I've been putting up with this crap for 2 decades...  YOU NEED TO MAN UP BWIAN. I've proved I am no racist, xenophobe or Islamophobe. WHERE IS MY UNRESERVED APOLOGY?

Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  Poor Geoff, how long have you suffered ingratitude?   Tsk, tsk.    ::) ::)

How long have you been a lying worthless hypocrite bwian?

Bwian you broke your worthless word buddy... you have no credibility.

So bwian you've reneged on your promise hey...  how unusual for you...  well bwian you owe me an unreserved apology as originally promised...  and I will keep holding you to it until I get one...

WHERE IS MY UNRESERVED APOLOGY BWIAN...

Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  Still shouting your ad hominems even after I have apologised, Geoff?  Tsk, tsk, you really do need to do something about your ingratitude.   Tsk, tsk.   ::) ::)

Oh, dearie, dearie, me. 
Still not shouting just waving and reminding you of your dishonesty bwian is not ad hom....
Tsk, tsk, you really do need to do something about your blatant dishonesty.
Tsk, tsk.   ::) ::)

Look familiar to you does it...  anything you can do bwian I can do better...

Grendel wrote on Feb 25^th, 2017 at 10:12pm:

Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  Still not shouting just waving and reminding you of your dishonesty bwian is not ad hom.... Tsk, tsk, you really do need to do something about your blatant dishonesty. Tsk, tsk.   ::) ::) Look familiar to you does it...  anything you can do bwian I can do better...

Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  Tsk, tsk.  Poor Geoff.   ::) ::)

Bwian, if you keep posting crap I have to keep posting the truth in reply...

This is an unreserved apology bwian...

I Brian Ross, unreservedly apologise to Grendel for libeling him on this site by calling him a racist, a xenophobe and an Islamophobe... which he patently is not, nor has he ever been.

there you go bwian...  it isn't hard to post at all is it?

Grendel wrote on Feb 26^th, 2017 at 11:13am:

Bwian, if you keep posting crap I have to keep posting the truth in reply... This is an unreserved apology bwian... I Brian Ross, unreservedly apologise to Grendel for libeling him on this site by calling him a racist, a xenophobe and an Islamophobe... which he patently is not, nor has he ever been. there you go bwian...  it isn't hard to post at all is it?

Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  Tsk, tsk.  Poor Geoff,  I have apologised.  I take pity on you that you cannot accept it, Geoff.   ::) ::)

And on and on and on.... 

Bwian...  you need to stop filling these threads with your crap...  just apologise with an UNRESERVED APOLOGY and get it over with...

"Londonistan" Author Melanie Phillips speaks more truth...

[quote]In both Europe and America, the problem of Islamist aggression is matched by the inability or refusal of the governing and intellectual classes to acknowledge the nature and scale of this threat to the west.

In Germany, the huge influx of mainly Muslim young men has brought in its wake so much aggression, sexual violence and other social problems that even the Chancellor Angela Merkel, who opened Germany’s doors to these migrants, has acknowledged grave difficulties. Similar problems and more are being experienced in the Netherlands, France, Sweden and elsewhere.

Hardly surprising, then, that a poll by the international think-tank Chatham House found that in eight out of ten countries surveyed, the majority of respondents wanted all further migration from mainly Muslim countries stopped.

Such a view is of course damned in progressive circles as Islamophobic. But then anyone who says there’s anything wrong or dangerous about certain groups of Muslims or certain types of Islamic thinking is said to be Islamophobic.

This is ridiculous. Of course, most Muslims are not aggressive religious fanatics who want to conquer the west. But the overwhelming majority of aggressive religious fanatics who want to conquer the west happen to be Muslim.

It’s not a form of bigotry to try to protect ourselves against that threat. It’s essential to do so. But we can only protect ourselves if we correctly identity the nature of this threat, and specifically its roots in Islamic religious belief.

For sure, many Muslims do not subscribe to this particular interpretation of their religion. But enough do subscribe to make it a desperately serious threat. And it is a legitimate interpretation of Islam. Only one interpretation, sure; but it’s rooted securely in the theology, and has been expressed throughout the centuries in Islam’s colonialist and warlike history.

In Britain, the official class has consistently refused overall to accept this crucial point. It refuses to acknowledge the Islamic bit in Islamic extremism. It prefers to believe instead that it’s a perversion of religion rather than the real thing. As a result, time and again it’s ignored the evidence of religiously-driven, non-violent Islamist aggression against British society.

Around three years ago a plot was exposed known as “Trojan Horse”. This aimed to impose the most extreme version of Islam on some mainstream schools in Birmingham. An inquiry was carried out by the former head of counter-terrorism policing, Peter Clarke. He concluded: “There has been co-ordinated, deliberate and sustained action, carried out by a number of associated individuals, to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos into a few schools in Birmingham.”

Subsequently, Mr Clarke warned that what he had found in Birmingham’s schools was likely to be merely the tip of the iceberg. “There is a huge amount of material which I didn’t put in”, he said. “There were problems elsewhere which I couldn’t evidence sufficiently in the time available.”

The government ignored Mr Clarke’s warning to look elsewhere. His report was bad enough, from the government’s point of view, in provoking the usual uproar about Islamophobia, demonising all Muslims and similar nonsense. The last thing the government wanted was to confront the appalling vista of similar attempts to Islamise British schools going on up and down the country.

But it’s no surprise that this problem has indeed now emerged elsewhere. It’s been reported that the head-teacher of Clarksfield primary school in Oldham, Trish O’Donnell, is the victim of a campaign against her by Muslim parents. A confidential report by Oldham council says she has been subjected to “death threats”, “threats to blow up her car”, “aggressive verbal abuse” and a physical attack. Officials believed that a particular parent-governor and his wife were trying to “intimidate school staff”, “undermine the head teacher” and “secure changes at the school to reflect their interpretation of Islam”. And this head has written that she has “very strong reasons to believe that… a ‘Trojan Horse’ agenda [is] being played out”.

Oldham council has brushed this claim aside and dismissed the suggestion of any conspiracy. Yet two other Oldham schools are reportedly causing concern by hosting a speaker who had previously justified killing British troops and donating to an organisation linked to extremists. A second Oldham head has claimed that a “Trojan Horse playbook” was used to drive him from his post. And last year, it was reported that a number of Muslim schools were still open, despite the fact that official inspections had found they were failing to protect children from extremism or radicalisation and that pupils there were “unsafe”.
pt1.

pt 2.


Quote:

More disturbing even than this is that elements in the government have tried to suppress evidence of the problem. Peter Clarke has said that parts of Whitehall attempted to “intimidate” him out of undertaking the Birmingham inquiry in the first place. He also accused the government of “betrayal” after it decided to give five alleged Birmingham plot leaders, who are up before an education department disciplinary tribunal, the names and testimonies of witnesses whose confidentiality Clarke had guaranteed. These terrified witnesses are now being intimidated by abuse and threats as the tribunal itself becomes bogged down by legal manoeuvring. Ever since 9/11, Whitehall has been dominated by those who want to take the path of least resistance over the problem of Islamic extremism. In 2014 Theresa May, now Prime Minister but who was then the Home Secretary, and Michael Gove, the then Education Secretary who commissioned the Clarke inquiry, spectacularly fell out over mutual accusations that the other had failed adequately to combat Islamist extremism. At the heart of that row lay the dominant Whitehall thinking, espoused by Mrs May but strongly opposed by Gove, that the problem was not extremist attitudes but merely extremist violence. Mrs May won that bout. Since then, government thinking has shifted in the right direction. It now acknowledges that it’s not just violent extremism that’s the problem but non-violent extremism – the attitudes that create hatred and fanaticism and swell the seas in which violence swims. But it still refuses to acknowledge that non-violent extremism is driven by Islamic religious fanaticism. As a result, the government’s anti-extremism policy is paralysed because it can’t agree what extremism is. There are other signs that Theresa May still doesn’t get it. The inquiry she set up into sharia courts, for example, has been designed merely to tinker with marginal improvements rather than address the fundamental problem of having a parallel legal system inimical to British values. This refusal to acknowledge the religious driver of Islamist extremism was of course a signature motif of the Obama administration. So it is extremely troubling to read that the new National Security Adviser, General HR McMaster, has reportedly said that the term radical Islamic terrorism is “counter-productive” and even that Islamic terrorists are “unIslamic.” [highlight]If the people we entrust to protect us against the threat posed by religious fanaticism cannot even bring themselves to agree that it is indeed religious fanaticism, they will not protect us at all but will assist our enemies instead.[/highlight]