Where Islam Should Get Off

Islamic terrorism is not the enemy. We have coped with terrorism before and we can cope with it in future. They are a puny enemy who are making demands that we can never agree to, we simply must destroy them whenever we come across them. Their demands are not of the sort that can be met. They want us dead and gone. Their demands come down to basically stop it, die, leave your women behind and lay the keys to all your weapons, toys and technology on the table before you go. The only reasonable strategy to approach such an enemy is dead simple. We cannot negotiate, if they do not stop their criminal behaviour and surrender we must either arrest or exterminate them.

There is no more a negotiable middle way with an Islamist terrorist organization such as al Qaeda than there is with a damsel-devouring dragon. Their intent is not compatible with our society, their demands are illegal, we will never concede them. That is not a weakness of our imagination and liberal intent, the only thing we can legitimately negotiate with them is the terms of their surrender.

We don't need to empathize more with them, understand their motivations or respect them more. They are asking for what they cannot have. They can't have it. If they insist on demanding it with menaces we have to remove them, follow them to the ends of the earth, find them and either arrest them or kill them.

It is not a philosophical matter, it doesn't require much contemplation or thinking about. When you are fed up of being victimized you engage professionals to hunt down and eliminate the threat.

We don't need to get concerned about the whys and wherefores of this, just leave it to the professional men of violence, it is what they are for, the SAS and the US Navy SEALS and the like do not serve only as a masturbation aid for politicians, they are trained to kill enemies of the state and threats to the peace. They're good at it and many of them enjoy it too.

Terrorism is a crime and it should be treated accordingly. Armies cannot do the work of police. You don't stop bombs being placed on commercial aircraft by fighting for control of rural provinces, all that does is cost lots of lives and creates more aggrieved people out of which fresh terrorists can be recruited. If people want to live in filth, ignorance, superstition, barbarism, squalor and isolation there is nothing that can or should be done to make them change their minds.

The Religion of Islam is not the enemy.

The enemy is Islamism, political Islam, the rule of Sharia, the religion turned into a political cause which cannot be questioned because it claims to be a religion. This is not on. It's like a boxer hitching his belt up above his ears and saying “no hitting below the belt”. The rights that Islam deserves in a free democratic western society is the right to organize, to assemble, to express beliefs without persecution. To me that means Islam has the same rights as the Elvis Presley Fan Club or the Barrow in Furness Golf Club. It's a hobby that people have a right to pursue, they have the right to join, to solicit others to join. They don't have the right to tell non-members what they can say or do. They don't have the right to demand special representation in parliament. They don't have the right to say that their members are exempt from laws that they don't happen to like.

If Bradford's Muslim community wants representation in parliament they can put up Muslim candidates and see if they are elected. If they are not elected they are not community leaders and they are no more spokesmen for their communities than Jarvis Cocker is a spokesman for his generation. This is not bloody Afghanistan, we should not recognize tribal leaders and local warlords in democratic countries.

Muslims do not have a right to have communities, to control territory, for people to assume leadership and control over other people based upon their definition of who is in and who is out of the group. The left and the politically correct are wrong. Those in minorities do not have to answer to the majority within their minority. We don't have to turn a blind eye when they victimize women and children – they are not their women and children! You tell a leftist feminist to follow the instructions of her father and she'd bite your head off, but she'd call you a fascist racist hypocrite scumbag for suggesting that you care about the women and children who are victimized by Islam. It's as if humanity and decency were the monopoly of socialists, an outrageous and obscene suggestion.

We need to start asking better questions about these people. We need to stop just taking it for granted that the children of Muslims should be Muslims or would want to be obliged to become Muslims if they had a free choice. If Muslims are kept in ignorance from generation to generation how does anybody know that they are Muslims by free valid choice? We need to stop the nonsense of religious worship in schools, yes, that's right Americans, worship in schools is actually compulsory in England rather than illegal! Instead we need compulsory comparative religious education and compulsory moral instruction that does not mention religion.

Morality should be compulsory and religion an optional extra for adults to choose themselves when they are adults. This change should also get around the nonsense of “Islamic dress” for girls in schools. If children don't have a religion recognized by the state and the school the concept of Islamic dress for Muslim schoolgirls becomes meaningless. There will be no such thing as Muslim schoolgirls, just school girls who come from Muslim families who may or may not become Muslims when they become adults.

Nobody should be told at school that this is what you believe, or should believe, instead all major religions should be described fully and no child should be excused because of the squeamishness of its parents. Children should be taught about Christian and Jewish beliefs, Muslim beliefs, Hindu beliefs, Buddhist beliefs and so on. Children should also be taught that many intelligent people reject belief in any gods or religions and do not lack morality as a consequence. The lesson should be made crystal clear, religion is not genetic, if people follow the religion of their parents that cannot be because all the separate religions are true. It is a logical certainty that at least many, if not most or even all people who follow the religion of their parents have put their faith in something which is to some degree at least wrong.

And if a confused child holds her hand up and says “Please sir what do I believe?” The answer should come back loud and clear – I don't know, you tell me, you tell your parents too, and if you're not sure what you believe just say so, that's a valid answer and if it's true it's a better answer than any lie pretending to be faith.

If parents don't want their children exposed to comparative religion in school they can withdraw them. Not from the class. Not from the school. From the country.

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