In Londonistan: How Britain Created a Terror State Within (London: Gibson Square, c. 2007), Melanie Phillips detailed how she thought “Britain is even now sleepwalking into Islamization,” blithely ignoring the “pincer attack from both terrorism and cultural infiltration and usurpation” daily changing the very nature the nation (#68). For many years Phillips was an acclaimed reporter and columnist—“a darling of the left”—for the Guardian, probably the leading leftist newspaper in England, “the paper of choice for intellectuals, the voice of progressive conscience, and the dream destination for many, if not most, aspiring journalists.” Her disillusionment with the Left began when she honestly followed the evidence while researching and writing articles on a wide variety of subjects—immigration, education, environmentalism, marriage and family, feminism, multiculturalism, health care, Israel and foreign affairs.
Though only nominally Jewish, Phillips found (to her surprise) that her colleagues on the Guardian branded her as a Jew who could not deal dispassionately with Israel. Indeed, anything but a pro-Palestinian stance was anathematized by Britain’s leftists, who routinely equate Israelis with Nazis! “The more I read,” she wrote in her autobiography, Guardian Angel, “the more horrified I became by the scale of the intellectual and moral corruption that was becoming embedded in public discourse about the Middle East—the systematic rewriting of history, denial of law and justice and the corresponding demonization and delegitimisation of Israel.” Indicative of this process is the widespread sale and use of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a vicious anti-semitic work popular among the Nazis) and Hitler’s Mein Kampf in the Muslim world. Pondering this phenomenon, she concluded—wisely, I think—that “Israel represents not a regional dispute but a metaphysical struggle between good and evil. That is why the cause of Palestine is key to the Islamists’ demands” (#2661).
Half-a-century ago many European intellectuals embraced Antonio Gramsci, the Italian communist who urged his readers to abandon violent revolution while launching a “long march” through various societal institutions—schools, churches, judicial systems, media outlets, law enforcement and charitable organizations. “This intellectual elite was persuaded to sing from the same subversive hymn -sheet so that the moral beliefs of the majority would be replaced by the values of those on the margins of society, the perfect ambience in which the Muslim grievance culture could be fanned into the flames of extremism” (#2768). What needed, above all, to be replaced was the Mosaic code, the Judeo-Christian morality fundamental to Western Civilization. In many ways, the struggle now taking place is between the adherents of two books—the Bible and the Koran! Inasmuch as they simply cannot be reconciled there is little hope for reconciliation between their believers.
Hostility towards Israel was accompanied by lock-step support for the Palestinians and Islamic residents in England. For decades the British have welcomed immigrants of all sorts, asking no questions and offering them “a galaxy of welfare benefits, free education and free health care regardless of their behavior, beliefs or circumstances” (#912). Multitudes of Muslims thus arrived determined to preserve their traditions while enjoying England’s standard of living. While recurrently aroused by terrorist attacks such as the subway bombings in 2005, neither politicians nor public (eased along by a very proper English tolerance and political correctness) pay serious heed to the cultural currents transforming significant sections of their country. Trying to win over the hearts and minds of immigrant Muslims, naively convinced that “moderates” will support the nation that welcomed them, few Englishmen grasp Islamic extremism. By “defining ‘extremism’ narrowly as supporting violence against Britain, it makes the catastrophic mistake of treating the aim of Islamizing Britain as an eccentric but unthreatening position and not one to be taken at all seriously” (#84). The so-called “moderates” in Islam, Phillips thinks, are hardly moderate at all. Yes, they condemn terrorist attacks, but they simultaneously deny such attacks have any roots in “real” Islam, “denying what was a patently obvious truth that these attacks were carried out by adherents of Islam in the name of Islam” (#2011).
The Islamizing process is markedly evident throughout English society. In the schools, teachers are pressured to present Islam in an positive manner, becoming agents of propaganda and indoctrination rather than truthful understanding. Unable to distinguish between truth and lies, the ordinary Brit easily swallows pro-Muslim pronouncements that lack historical credibility and set forth misleading “mythology, distortion and libels” (#2453). Underwriting this process, oil-rich Saudi sheiks have poured enormous sums into educational institutions—establishing “chairs” in universities, building elementary school facilities, publishing various pro-Islamic materials. “Schools have ceased to transmit to successive generations either the values or the story of the nation delivering instead the message that truth is an illusion and that the nation and its values are whatever anyone wants them to be. In the multicultural classroom, every culture appears to be taught except Britain’s indigenous one. Concern not to offend minority sensibilities has reached the risible point where piggy banks have been banished from British banks in case Muslims might be offended” (#470). “This moral inversion has been internalized so completely that the more Islamic terrorism there is, the more hysterically British Muslims insist that they are under attack by ‘Islamophobes’ and a hostile West. Any attempt by British society to defend itself or its values, either through antiterrorist laws or the reaffirmation of the supremacy of Western values, is therefore denounced as Islamophobia, as even use of the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ is regarded as ‘Islamophobic’” (#492). Importantly, Phillips says, the multicultural assault on distinctively English ways results from “a repudiation of Christianity, the founding faith of the nation and the fundamental source of its values, including its sturdy individualism and profound love of liberty” (#1748).
Police are discouraged from enforcing English law in Muslim communities lest they be charged with Islamophobia, and a growing number of policemen (hired to pacify the strident doctrines of ethnic diversity) are simply jihadists committed to the ultimate triumph of their faith. Judges, more committed to “human rights” and “transnational progressivism” than England’s common law traditions, seek to impose multicultural values. The Association of Muslim Lawyers now calls for the “formal recognition of a Muslim man’s right under Sharia law to have up to four wives” (#2366). Step-by-step, “Sharia law is steadily encroaching into British institutions. In February 2008 the Archbishop of Canterbury caused a furor when he declared that Muslim families should be able to choose between English and Islamic law in marital and family issues. But the fact is that Britain is already developing a parallel sharia jurisdiction in such matters, with blind eyes turned to such practices as forced marriage, cousin marriage, female genital mutilation and polygamy, indeed welfare benefits are now given to the multiple wives of Muslim men” (#158).
In England today mosques attract more attendees than Christian churches which, have largely replaced “the fundamental doctrines of Christianity” with the “worship of social liberalism. The Church stopped trying to save people’s souls and started trying instead to change society. . . . Miracles were replaced by Marx” (#3197). Facing an ideology (Islam) determined to destroy Christianity, the Church in England capitulated in hopes of surviving as an emasculated but comfortable institution. So London now serves as a center for Islamic study, featuring scores of research and educational institutions with newspapers and publishing houses distributing radical Islamic materials throughout the world. Christian pastors and evangelists face prosecution if they make comments critical of Islam since “Islamophobic” speech is banned in England. Though he recently seems to have altered some of his views, Prince Charles once suggested he be known as a “defender of faith” rather than the ‘Defender of the Faith!” He seemed to have concluded his nation is no longer Christian and is now truly multi- religious. Amazingly enough, “the Church of England has been in the forefront of the retreat from Judeo-Christian Christian heritage” (#512)—it’s on its knees, not before the LORD but before Islamic intimidation, and the Church of England’s prostration rather painfully illustrates the plight of England today, says Phillips.
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