Melanie Phillips offers her take on the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a transatlantic flight:
“Who can be surprised? After all, this is ‘Londonistan’ – the contemptuous term coined by the French security service back in the Nineties as they watched Britain become the central hub of Islamic terrorism in Europe.
“Radicals flocked to the UK, attracted by Britain’s toxic combination of criminally lax immigration controls, generous health, education and welfare benefits and the ability to perpetuate their views through the British veneration of the principle of free speech.
“Despite 9/11, the 2005 London Tube and bus attacks and the dozens of other Islamist plots uncovered in Britain, the astounding fact is that Islamic extremist networks are still allowed to flourish in Britain, largely through the obsession of its governing class with multiculturalism and ‘human rights’…. Not only is no action taken against extremist mosques and madrassas, but many British universities have been turned into terrorism recruitment centres…. Last year, a poll by the Centre for Social Cohesion found – horrifyingly – that almost one in every three Muslim students in the UK said that killing in the name of religion was justified, with one third also in favour of a worldwide Islamic caliphate, or empire, based on Islamic sharia law…..
“The Government is funnelling money into extremist Islamist groups, and even employs Islamist radicals within government as advisers on – wait for it – ‘combating Islamic extremism’. All in all, Britain’s defences against radical Islamism now resemble nothing so much as one giant hen-house over which a pack of ravenous foxes has been placed in charge.
“The root cause of this madness is that British ministers and officials refuse to accept that what they are facing is religious fanaticism. They insist that Islamic extremism and terrorism have got nothing to do with Islam but are rather a ‘perversion’ of Islam. And they believe that the antidote to this is ‘authentic’ Islam – which they then use taxpayers’ money to promote. But what they fail to grasp is that ‘authentic’ Islam is currently dominated by a deeply politicised interpretation which promotes holy war to conquer ‘infidels’ and insufficiently pious Muslims.”
But Mel has a solution. What is required is “an end to the increasing toleration of Islamic sharia law as the effective jurisdiction in Muslim areas, which so badly threatens in particular the safety and well-being of women, homosexuals and converts from the faith. It means giving no quarter to the Muslim Council of Britain and all the other organisations and individuals who support Islamic extremism but are currently wooed by Whitehall. It means outlawing Hizb ut-Tahrir…. None of these things is currently being done. Instead, radical Islamism is being appeased on the grounds that Muslims must not feel targeted in any way….
“The urgent question now has to be asked how many other Islamic terrorists in Britain are, like the quiet, studious, privileged Abdulmutallab, also lurking beneath the radar. For in the defence of Western society against militant Islam’s war of conquest, the activities of the Christmas Day bomber show that once again Londonistan is the weakest link in the chain.”
Update: A post on the fascist Stormfront website links to Phillips’ article with the comment “Rather good summary, I thought”.