An early taste of what promises to be a ripe piece of dhimmitude* in tomorrow's report by the 'Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia'. The researcher for this commission, Hugh Muir, writes in today's Guardian about the appalling depredations suffered by Muslims in Britain:

'For among Britain's Muslims resentment runs deep, and little wonder. Consider for a moment the cumulative effect of the war in Iraq (hundreds killed, thousands injured), the discriminatory use of anti-terrorism laws (over 600 arrests, 100 charged, convictions in single figures), the disproportionate use of stop and search (an increase of 41% in the number of people of "Asian origin" stopped in 2001-02), the continuing discrimination in housing (41.7% of Muslim children in overcrowded households), employment (average earnings among Pakistani and Bangladeshi men just 68% of that earned by non-Muslims), education (the number of Pakistani and Bangladeshi students achieving five A to C GCSE passes below the national average) and health (30% of Bangladeshi men say their their health is poor).'

This is victim culture gone mad with a (literal) vengeance. For this whole ludicrous list of grievances can be accounted for by either the measures taken by the west in defence of itself (and of dissident Muslims) against Islamist fascism, or by poverty and disadvantage which is as much due to the requirements or constraints of Muslim culture as anything done by the host community.

Nevertheless, the host community is being blamed for institutional 'Islamophobia', which fiction supposedly justifies Muslim 'resentment'. Thus the Muslim community is to be excused all responsibility for what is being done in its name against a society which instead must take the blame for, and therefore implicitly be accused of causing, the attacks upon it.

Now this commission is calling for a law outlawing religious discrimination. The intention is clear -- to make it illegal to tell the truth about Islamist extremism. For as the Muslim Council of Britain repeatedly informs us, it is Islamophobic even to refer to 'Islamic' violence. So it would presumably wish to make illegal, for example, the report in yesterday's Sunday Times which chillingly informed us that, according to a Home Office analysis:

'...there may be between 10,000 and 15,000 British Muslims who “actively support” Al-Qaeda or related terrorist groups. These numbers appear to draw on intelligence, opinion polls and a report that 10,000 Muslims attended a conference held by Hizb ut-Tahir, described by the Home Office as a “structured extremist organisation”, last year. Although less than 1% of the Muslim population, the sheer size of the actual “pool” of potential Al-Qaeda recruits — those who go to meetings to express their support — represents a stark warning about the extent of the threat.'

Now although this is only a fraction of the Muslim community, most of whom are entirely peaceful and law-abiding, 10-15,000 is a hell of a lot of people in this country to support a terrorist war of religious conquest against it and the rest of the west. It presents a danger the likes of which this country has never seen before and which it plainly hasn't got the first idea how to confront. Yet according to Muir's commission, it would appear that even to say such a thing is 'Islamophobic'.

And while, as I have said, most Muslims would abhor such violence, it also remains the case that their community has done nothing to rid itself of the sources of the contagion. Indeed, even its so-called 'moderate' spokesmen are anything but. As the current Jewish Chronicle reports, the Muslim Council of Britain's secretary-general Iqbal Sacranie likened Israel to the Nazis when he said: 'No amount of military force and assassinations will bring about a Final Solution to the "Palestinian problem" ' and condemned Israel's 'murderous leadership', 'Zionist brutality' and the 'ethnic cleansing of Palestine'.

He said: 'What we are seeing is a creeping genocide of the Palestinian people. It is palpably clear that the Israeli campaign is calculated and deliberate. Most of the Palestinian children killed in recent days bore the marks of sniper bullets to their heads'. And if all that isn't enough to qualify as incitement to join the jihad in Israel at the very least, the MCB also offered condolences to the family of the leading Hamas mass murderer Abdul Aziz al Rantissi after he was killed by the Israelis, and described the founder and chief strategist of that genocidal outfit Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as 'the renowned Islamic scholar'. Thus the voice of Muslim moderation in Britain.

The attempt to suppress proper concern about such utterances and developments is entirely sinister. But we should not be surprised at its provenance. For the chairman of the commission is none other than Dr Richard Stone. This is the same Dr Stone who played a particularly chilling role as a member of the Macpherson inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence, which by damning the police as institutionally racist not only vilified and defamed decent police officers up and down the country for thought crime but has had the effect of paralysing police effectiveness to this very day.

Anyone who wants to know more about Dr Stone's understanding of individual freedom should read chapter two of the Civitas book on Macpherson, Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics by Norman Dennis, George Erdos and Ahmed al Shahi. This sets out the astonishing intervention by Dr Stone during the inquiry's interrogation of the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon. Sir Paul had already apologised to the Lawrences for the failures of the Met, apologised further to one of the witnesses and additionally beat his breast. None of that satisfied Dr Stone:

'It seems to me, sir Paul', he said, 'that the door is open. It is like when Winnie Mandela was challenged in the Truth Commission in South Africa by Desmond Tutu to acknowledge that she had done wrong... she just did it and suddenly a whole burden of weight, of sort of challenge and friction melted away... I say to you now, just say, "Yes, I acknowledge institutional racism in the police"... Could you do that today?'

As the book's authors observe, this was classic witchfinder territory -- the insistence that the person under arraignment confess to a sin rather than having an offence proved on the facts; and with the implication that, if the accused didn't confess not just to his sin but the sins of his whole community, he was then doubly damned. Denying the offence with which he was charged simply made that offence even more true -- even though, objectively, it was not true at all. The words Kafka, Stalinism and show trial come inescapably to mind.

People might care to reflect on this pertinent slice of recent history when reading tomorrow's commission report.

*Dhimmi Watch defines dhimmitude thus: 'Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the law that global jihadists are laboring to impose everywhere, ultimately on the entire human race. The dhimmi attitude of chastened subservience has entered into Western academic study of Islam, and from there into journalism, textbooks, and the popular discourse. One must not point out the depredations of jihad and dhimmitude; to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today.'

Posted by melanie at May 31, 2004