Mick Hartley

The Usual Suspects

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Mick Hartley

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he fascist that he’s objecting to, but I doubt it. Somehow the the actual articulation by a Western leader of the fact that there are Islamic groups bent on terror is presented as an insult to all Muslims. A responsible Muslim leader might admit that such, regrettably, is the case, and that it’s a fact that causes shame to all decent Muslims. But that’s not what we get from Bunglawala. Instead we have a man capable only of seeing the faults of the West, of non-Muslims, but entirely unable – or unwilling – to see any faults within the Muslim community on whose behalf he claims to speak. In the face of a Western culture that’s often only too willing to see its own faults and assume that non-Westerners are always the oppressed – well, it’s an echo chamber. Those who know that they’re always right because Allah ordained it, allied with those who’ve been taught that all the current ills of the world are the fault of the West….

And this kind of overexcitable “us and them” rhetoric? We’re talking here about people who blow up planes and tube trains, people who glorify in mass murder. Terrorists. Of course they’re the enemy.

Update: more Muslim spokesmen:

British Muslim groups have written to the prime minister calling for “urgent” changes to UK foreign policy.

In an open letter they say British policy is putting civilians at increased risk in the UK and abroad.

The letter, signed by three Muslim MPs, three peers and 38 groups, also points to the “debacle” of Iraq and the UK’s stance over the Middle East crisis….

MP Sadiq Khan, who signed the letter, said British foreign policy was seen by many as unfair and unjust.

“Whether we like it or not such a sense of injustice plays into the hands of extremists,” he said.

“As moderates we will do all we can to fight extremism. We hope the government will join us in this, not just by changing the rules on hand luggage, but by showing itself as an advocate for justice in the world.”

So, we do what we can to combat extremism (ie mutter the occasional, “Yes, I condemn terrorism”) if you conduct British foreign policy according to Muslim requirements. And if there are more terrorist attacks, we’ll know who to blame. Which looks to me to be a case of moderate Muslims not so much confronting the extremists as hiding behind them.

Comments

  1. Richard Avatar
    Richard

    Good dissection, Mick. The pity of it is that Bunglawala’s is not untypical of this type of thinking – in fact it is difficult to find any Muslim who is capable of dissecting the multiple tropes in an article such as this. Meanwhile, the Graun continues to dredge up more and more Muslim “activists” to stir up the stoppers on its increasingly deranged CiF site.
    The central fallacy in such arguments is subtle, Muslims and the left (including the MSM) are skating around it, and it goes like this. We are supposed to accept that the fact that Iraq arouses passions in Muslims to the extent of endangering British citizens proves some political point, viz. the Iraq War is wrong. I would say that rather it panders to our (and their) own moral cowardice. And those who smugly reiterate this “root cause” (mostly because Blair will not publicly accept it – which for some reason really riles the Today Programme) seem to completely miss the moral issue that it is irrelevant how many people think something if it is wrong in principle. Jihad would be a good example of this.
    Another way of making the point that they seem to wish to avoid is to invert it. Suppose that a major terror attack succeeded in Britain, and a gang of British thugs got hold of an Imam and hung him from a lamp-post in revenge. No doubt Nick Griffin would say “Of course I condemn such actions, but given the provocation it was inevitable”. I can imagine the irritation of the “Liberals” at the sneaking (perhaps more than sneaking) suspicion that Griffin approved of such behaviour, while verbally condemning it, as any good propagandist would. Such is my irritation at both Muslims and liberals citing Iraq, and the suspicion that a little voice inside them is saying “I told you so”, or even “serves Blair bloody right” (and never mind the real victims). At least Yasmin Alibai-Brown had the candour to confess to such sentiments.
    It illustrates another rather nasty streak in human nature: that some would rather see good people suffer in order to make a political point. As in the remark of Zhivago to Strelnikov: “your point, their village”.

    Reply
  2. Eamonn Avatar
    Eamonn

    Sometimes he gets it wrong, but sometimes he gets it right:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4787119.stm
    “But Mr Howells denied there was a “rational connection” and said “no government” formulates policy based on a perceived risk from terrorists.
    There are many issues which incite people to loath government policies but not to strap explosives to themselves. Mr Howells told BBC News 24 the letter’s comments were “facile”.
    I hope this is the first of many criticisms of the letter from muslims.

    Reply
  3. Bob-B Avatar
    Bob-B

    The line that ‘the West regards the spilling of Muslim blood as being of little importance’ is an interesting one. For the likes of Bunglawala ‘the spilling of Muslim blood’ is ‘of little importance’ when it is other muslims who are doing the spilling. Darfur is of no interest and sunnis and shiites killing each other in Iraq and elsewhere is of no interest. It seems that they are animated much more by hostility to infidels than by sympathy for their fellow muslims.

    Reply
  4. Juan Golbladl Avatar
    Juan Golbladl

    The point these “community leaders” will get to when pushed is that UK foreign policy is unfair to Muslims, that it is somehow “Islamophobic” to support the Iraqi and Afghan government, to fight Hezbollah and to continue to mount an effective counter-terrorism effort.
    They can’t just call for a change to foreign policy on the grounds that some people react badly to it, as that doesn’t respond to the obvious defence put up by Howell (and remarkably few others w/i the govt but a few more outside it like our esteemed host here).
    So this second line of defence will be unveiled any day now, I’m sure. But it is rather a harder point to make.

    Reply

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