All we really need to do

Minette Marrin writing in the Times of London has a long and impressive list, quoted by Andrew Stuttaford at The Corner, of the myriad measures the British government must take to squelch Islamic extremism in Britain. The list triggers further thoughts about what we really need and want.

Silence all imams who break the law in their preaching with incitements to violence (the government’s record has been abysmal). Monitor all mosques; refuse visas to foreign imams who speak poor or no English (the government lost its nerve over this, as over so much). Control and monitor imams visiting prisons (the Prison Service is so shambolic that it is impossible to know whether all its 130 or so visiting imams have been security vetted). Segregate Islamist prisoners in jail (this is done in the best prisons but is out of control in the rest). Isolate radical Islamist prisoners (this is against the Human Rights Act). Stop them having internet access (not all prisons do). More widely, recognise that the problem now lies with “self-radicalisation” in suburban front rooms. Stop the creation of [state-funded] religious schools (Blair sold the pass on this). Monitor madrasah schools. Restrain the practice of importing brides and bridegrooms in arranged marriages from the Third World (this is well known to inhibit integration, but the government abolished the “primary purpose” rules preventing such marriages, presumably for electoral advantage); this could be done by following the Danish example of strict entry requirements and a minimum age of 24, which enables young people to choose more freely. Spend much more money monitoring young dual-passport Britons’ trips to Pakistan and deport them for attending training camps…Teach schoolchildren the facts about conditions in Muslim countries (as opposed to right-on grievances about the “black hole of Calcutta”). Teach them what happens in jails in Muslim states, compared with what has happened in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay. Teach schoolchildren and young adults what sharia involves; stop listening to the so-called representative bodies of British Muslims, not least the Muslim Council of Britain. Require the government to reveal the names and CVs of its advisers on Islamic affairs. Censor the violent Islamist recruitment sites on the internet… But all this is too little, too late. How can one not feel a furious, frustrated rage at the betrayal of our civilisation and our safety?

Now, as I read this incredibly involved and challenging action plan for all the things that must be done to keep down Muslim extremism, adding up to the constant surveillance and evaluation and control of almost every activity of (it seems) virtually every Muslim in Britain, an endeavor that would of necessity absorb a major part of the energies of that nation for all future time, the subversive but inevitable thought comes to me:

WOULDN’T IT BE A LOT EASIER JUST TO MAKE THEM LEAVE?

Does that sound too blunt, too extreme? But tell me honestly, reader, which would YOU prefer: to manage and monitor the Muslims forever, or just not have them around?

With apologies to Bob Dylan, here, for the salvation, safety, and sanity of Britain and the whole Western and non-Muslim world, is the way we ought feel about the Islamic world:

I ain’t lookin’ to compete with you,
Beat or cheat or mistreat you,
Simplify you, classify you,
Deny, defy or crucify you.
All I really want to do
Is be far away from you.

I ain’t lookin’ to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up,
Analyze you, categorize you,
Finalize you or advertise you.
All I really want to do
Is be far away from you.

I don’t want to meet your kin,
Make you spin or do you in,
Or select you or dissect you,
Or inspect you or reject you.
All I really want to do
Is be far away from you.

I don’t want to fake you out,
Take or shake or forsake you out,
I ain’t lookin’ for you to feel like me,
See like me or be like me.
All I really want to do
Is be far away from you.

- end of initial entry -

Karen in England writes:

Of course it is much simpler and cheaper to deport Moslems to their native lands. Whilst there are Moslems living in the West, we can never be certain that they are benign and harmless.

Keep up the attacks on Spencer and others. Don’t get demoralised by their cheap insults. Just keep going.

LA replies:

It’s just like what I’ve said about terror-supporting or dangerous Muslim regimes in the Mideast such as Iraq: It would be so much cheaper to have a three-week invasion once every five years than to occupy the country forever.

Occupying the country for ever is analogous to “managing” the Muslims here; invading once every five years is analogous to kicking them out of here.

Thanks for bucking me up. There really is an intention on some people’s part to cast me as some kind of freak or pest so that I will be isolated and intimidated. Sounds almost Soviet-like!

Jeff in England, who is a counterculturalist and a former radical leftist, writes:

Well it’s better than some recent Dylan. However, forgetting my own mixed feelings on the subject, I would leave the removal option alone. It is steps ahead of the immigration restriction option and has zero chance of happening at this point. In addition it loses credibility for you. I’m not saying that your opinion is mad, I’m just saying it is certainly not on the table as of now and it is a waste of time talking about it.

LA replies:

It creates a different world of thought, Jeff. It opens up new vistas.

Don’t be so conservative!

LA continues:

Also, my thought is not as way out as it seems, it proceeds logically and commonsensically out of this whole debate. Britain has been extremely tolerant of the Muslim extremists and their sympathizers for years and has begun to realize that it now has a full-bore declared enemy within its borders. Responding to this newly perceived danger, it’s tried this half-hearted measure and that, but none of them really work. So Minette Marin gets serious and says, if we’re truly going to suppress this Muslim extremism in our midst, here are all the things we must do, and we must be deadly serious about doing them. And she is right. But when you look at her astounding to-do list, you realize it’s a recipe for some kind of hyper-managed security state, in which Muslims would have to be watched over every second to prevent their feared jihadism from breaking out. And then you realize, if THIS is the only way to make ourselves safe from domestic Muslim extremism, this is insane, it’s not doable.

So, if laissez faire doesn’t work, and coddling them doesn’t work, and monitoring them is an insane Orwellian prospect, then that leads to the conclusion that there is NO way to make this work. These Muslims just don’t belong here. Once people start to have that thought, then (as impossible and impracticable as it seems to Jeff) new possibilities and approaches will start to open up that never would have occurred to them before.

A prominent author and Islam critic writes:

Dylan reference is spot on, kudos!

Alec H. writes:

When I hear people lamenting the situation but unwilling to contemplate remedies, I just interject: “They don’t belong here.”

Amen to what Karen said (“keep going”). Make the cinders dance.

A well known conservative writer who has dealt seriously and in depth with what to do about Islam wrote:

Larry, I gotta say, the Dylan thing is a stroke of genius.

LA replied:

Thanks much.

Does this mean you’re moving toward Separationism?

The writer replied:

It means I like the song-parody.

I also think there’s a lot to be said for separationism, but I’m not there … not yet, at least.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 07, 2007 11:58 PM | Send