For The Tribune Papers

In his 1899 book, The River War, the young Winston Churchill, expanding upon his adventures in Egypt and the Sudan, had this to say about Islam:

“How dreadful is the curse that Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy…Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it…No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science…the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as the civilization of ancient Rome.”

Contrast this to the words of Britain’s current Prime Minister, Tony Blair, shortly after the American tragedy of 9-11:

“Islam is a peace-loving, tolerant religion. Many of the world’s religions, indeed including Christianity, draw from the same spiritual heritage. We share the same values, and the same respect for the sanctity of human life.”

Two weeks later on BBC News, echoing the Prime Minister and in line with European Union policy, Labor MP and Home Office Minister, John Denham, promised to eradicate the “cancer of Islamophobia” and declared that “the real Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and understanding.”

Blair recently bragged that:

“The ethos of this country is completely different from thirty years ago. The courts recognize racial offenses in a way that was inconceivable then. We have the most comprehensive panoply of anti-discrimination legislation in the world.”

Reading between the lines, it appears that free speech has been one of the first casualties of the new multiculturalist Britain. One cannot help but wonder whether someone quoting Churchill on Islam on the BBC today would be prosecuted under Blair’s new political-correctness laws.

As popular as Blair’s multiculturalist version of Islam is in today’s largely post-Christian British society, the Koran, the teachings of Muhammad, 1400 years of history, and current events around the world flatly contradict it. Churchill’s blunt realism was much better informed than Blair’s politically correct idealism.

Prime Minister Blair, the British Parliament, and the leadership of the European Union might consider these verses of the Koran before sacrificing Western civilization to the economic ideals of globalism:

58:5 “Those who resist Allah and His Messenger will be crumpled to dust, as were those before them; for we have already sent down clear signs and the unbelievers (including Jews and Christians) will have a humiliating penalty.”

21: 11 “How many were the populations we utterly destroyed because of their inequities, setting up in their place other peoples.”

5:33 “The punishment for those who oppose Allah and his messenger is: execution or crucifixion or the cutting off of hands and feet on opposite sides or exile from the land.”

9: 29 “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and his apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of truth (Islam) even if they are people of the book (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizya (a special tax on unbelievers to humiliate and disgrace them) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”

But perhaps they will be comforted by this quote by Ayatollah Khomeini explaining Jihad and the ultimate peace of Islam:

“Those who study Jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world: all the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation.”

Britain is now entering the intermediate phase of Muslim conquest. Muhammad himself introduced a strategic concept for Jihad called Dar al Sulh. This allows a deceptive period of peaceful coexistence until Muslims can build enough strength to overcome their neighbors or hosts. Once Muslims are in a superior position, they may offer their hosts the usual choice of conversion, highly-taxed and humiliating semi-slavery, expulsion, or death.

The Muslim attitude toward treaties is similar. They may be readily broken to further the cause of Islam. Muhammad taught that whatever advances the cause of Allah is truth and righteousness. Unfortunately, liberal academics and their political disciples consistently deceive themselves by ignoring the obvious teachings of the Koran and the words and example of Muhammad. There is no such thing as multiculturalism in an Islamic State.

Immediately after the July 7, 2005, London bombings in which 52 people were killed, The Daily Telegraph completed a survey of British Muslims. They found that 25 percent sympathize with the motives of the terrorists, and six percent were bold enough to tell the survey team that the bombings were “fully justified.” Considering Britain already has an estimated Muslim population of over 1.5 million, that statistic translates into 90,000 potential terrorists of whom about 60,000 are over the age of sixteen. Although the British Army is reputed to be the best trained in the world, this could present a major challenge to civic order. Nearly 32 percent of British Muslims agreed with the statement that “Western society is decadent and immoral and Muslims should seek to bring it to an end.” This last statement is consistent with the teachings of the Koran. There is no distinction in Islam between government and religion, and all non-Muslim societies and even secularized Muslim societies, are considered decadent. The remedy demanded by the sovereignty of Allah is an Islamic State under Islamic Law. Islamic Law (Sharia) is authoritative over all aspects of life—religious, economic, social, personal, and cultural issues, including even the arts.

In one sense, Jihad is already escalating in Britain. Crime rates are soaring, and there are now areas of London, the Midlands, and Yorkshire which are not safe for non-Muslims of whatever race. Furthermore, it is evident that a Muslim Fifth Column is already well entrenched in British politics. Otherwise, the Labor and Tory parties would not be groveling to please the Imams.

It is important to make some distinctions in the Muslim community in Britain as well as in most other parts of the world. Secularized Muslims, of which there are many, seldom feel much passion or call to Jihad or the remaking of every society into an Islamic society governed by the Sharia. Like most Western secularists they are pursuing their own prosperity and personal security. The zealots in Islam are the fundamentalists. But Muslim fundamentalists are not some small group of outcasts with a distorted interpretation of the Koran. They are the historic mainstream that take the Koran and the teachings of Muhammad seriously, including Jihad and the denigrated status of women.

Jihad, or Holy War against all unbelievers, has always been an understood sixth addition to the Five Pillars of Sunni Islam and is one of the Seven Pillars of Shia Islam. The problem for the West is that fundamentalist Islam is exploding, most notably among second generation European Muslims. Many formerly secular Muslims are studying the Koran and the Hadiths (the words and example of Muhammad) and are embracing anew the traditional fundamentals of Islam. This does not bode well for the peace of Jerusalem or London, which some are now referring to as “Londonistan.”

Yet under the banner of multiculturalism and the false liberal dogma that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, British and European leaders are undermining the pillars of their own civilizations and the very foundations of liberty.

The situation in Britain and all of Europe is ominous. In June of 1940 Churchill rallied the British people against the threat of Nazi invasion and tyranny with these words:

“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.”

A new battle for Britain and all of Europe has already begun, and the very survival of Western civilization and the principles of liberty together with their underlying Christian heritage are in the balance. Will political fifth columns and political-correctness laws prevent the defense of Western civilization? Will Britain, Europe, and the United States see the danger in time and take action?

Recently Blair bragged that Britain had the strongest laws in Europe to prevent ethnic and religious prejudice. This was a positive way of saying that free speech on many subjects is no longer tolerated. Critics of Islam and related immigration policy are now subject not only to persecution but prosecution. Britain’s Tory Party seems only too glad to acquiesce to this blind folly. At a time of great national crisis, Britain finds itself intellectually and morally disarmed, bound by the chains of government enforced multiculturalism and the false dogma that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance that poses no threat to Western values, parliamentary democracy, public order, and national security.