Muslims call for 'no-go' CoE bishop to resign
It's hard to predict what number the band will play, but one thing is sure: the curtain's been raised. The Telegraph reports:
Religious groups have demanded the resignation of the Bishop of Rochester after he claimed that Islamic radicals had turned parts of Britain into "no-go" areas for non-Muslims. The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali wrote in The Sunday Telegraph that fundamentalism had made some communities hostile to Christians and those from other faiths.
But Mohammed Shafiq, from the Ramadhan Foundation, said: "Mr Nazir-Ali is promoting hatred towards Muslims and should resign."
Mark Steyn was the canary in the coal mine. Now that the gas has reached the main gallery the problem is now whether to inhale or hold their breaths. Having gone so far to appease the most menacing of its multicultural menagerie the politically correct class must now decide whether to fish or cut bait.
The virtues of cutting bait are already apparent to the Great and the Good. Problem? We ain't got no steenkin' problem? Fear? Yes we're afraid -- afraid of hurting other people's feelings. They can tell that to the Royal Marines, if they don't abolish them first.
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "I don't think that view is factually correct. I'm not sure where these no-go areas are, I don't recognise that description."
But Bishop Goddard said that Christians, who are outnumbered in many parts of Blackburn, were frightened that their ideas could be misinterpreted by other faiths and seen as a form of oppression.
"It is not fear that there is going to be retaliation but it is a fear that you get it badly wrong and cause hurt to others of integrity of other faith you did not intend," he told The Daily Telegraph.
Neither the Islamic outrage against Bishop Nazir Ali's observation nor the precipitate retreat of the nation's cultural elite before their wrath should come as a surprise. Anybody could have predicted that. But in abandoning any pretense of leadership the Great and the Good have left the direction of events up for grabs. They've gone and hidden among their bottles of chardonnay and musty furniture. This little squall around the Bishop of Rochester is of no consequence. What's really significant is the possibility there is no one left who is bold enough to man the tiller.
posted by wretchardthecat at 1/06/2008 06:10:00 PM
35 Comments:
Some money quotes from a November 5, 2006 interview with Archbishop Nazir.
He accuses them [Muslims] of double standards in their view of the world for propagating a ‘dual psychology’ in which they sought both ‘victimhood and domination’.
Muslim demands can never be met because ‘their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims... and always wrong when Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists’
‘Given the world view that has given rise to such grievances, there can never be sufficient appeasement and new demands will continue to be made.’
'We are dealing with not just a faith, but with a well-defined political ideology.'
The Bishop of Rochester is one of the few serious figures in the Church of England who sincerely believes that British values have developed from the Christian faith and its vision of personal and common good. He states: ‘After they were clarified by the enlightenment they became the bedrock of our modern political life. These values need to be recovered to help us to inculcate the virtues of generosity, loyalty, moderation and love.’
[emphasis added]
Nazir-Ali has Islam's game all figured out and the Muslims are squealing bloody murder.
It's going to be a lot more pleasant watching the news after all these doom and gloom alarmists are purged.
Besides, Steyn had that funny accent.
If Eurabia don't see it as a problem, no reason why we should either.
"the politically correct class must now decide whether to fish or cut bait"
In addition to an 'American Way' there's a 'European Way', and it was on display in the 1930's. Far from being decisive while there is still time, the 'European Way' is to pretend that nothing demanding an inconvenient moral effort has occurred until the enemy have actually battered down the gates.
Here we go again.
William Hague's line, by the way, is priceless - a gem of aristocratic disdain.
Just as with Germany in the early 1930's, a firm signal from a united European alliance that aggression could only lead to defeat would have been enough to avert a fight. Instead, Muslims in Europe are given (as the Germans were) new reasons every day to believe they may emerge the winners against a weak and divided opponent.
If the chattering classes in Europe had set out deliberately to provoke a bitter and costly conflict with Muslims, they could hardly have chosen a more effective way than this.
Wretchard,
You should have entitled the blog: "Muslims call for 'no-go' CoE bishop to go"
nomenklatura: Far from being decisive while there is still time, the 'European Way' is to pretend that nothing demanding an inconvenient moral effort has occurred until the enemy have actually battered down the gates.
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
— Winston Churchill —
I do not support the loss of one American life toward rescuing europe.
Again.
The fact that the "great and good" of the UK and Europe can no longer steer the ship of state does not mean that they're about to let anyone else put their hands on the tiller.
The multiculturati of the political classes have no intention of relaxing their hold or altering their policy of appeasement. I suspect that his Grace of Rochester will be gone, eased out within six months by whispers and maneuvers in the corridors and chambers of power. Those who arrange it may even tell themselves they did it for his own good, to keep him from suffering the fate of Theo Van Gogh.
Perhaps they can force the Bishop out, but that will leave a total loss of legitimacy and very likely ultimately lead to some sort of coup in the end.
Too many people with too much to lose and too many opportunities.
One can wonder, what sort of position a man might make for himself as the savior of the nation. Why, that champagne might even be his. Cromwell came to that conclusion.
Easing out the Bishop, or forcing him out, will prove him right. Catholic Britain (likely a certainty now) is likely to react.
What about the great mass of the people? The 58 million non-Muslims who outnumber the 2 million Muslims? Who might do anything?
Wiskey 199: "What about the great mass of the people? The 58 million non-Muslims who outnumber the 2 million Muslims? Who might do anything?"
Sarcasm on.
Under current law they must first convert to Islam, so they may defend themselves without being subject to various codes about the criminality inherent in acts of self defense.
Sarcasm off.
nomenklatura said,
"In addition to an 'American Way' there's a 'European Way', and it was on display in the 1930's."
Yeah, but who gets to play the Jew this time? Christian/Atheist, or Muslim?
The Jews, BTW, should take note and get the hell out of Dodge.
Wadeusaf -- why believe history always replays always the same way?
Is not the experience of the US in Afghanistan radically different that that of the USSR?
Gates of Vienna has a link to the story at the Daily Telegraph. Commenter after commenter lists the cities that are no-go:
* Accrington
* Blackburn
* Bradford
* Burnley
* Coventry
* Dewsbury
* Glasgow
* Keighley
* Oldham
* Reading
* Rusholme
* Slough
* Tower Hamlets
* Walthamstow
This is a conflict already forced. As Dalrymple observes in "Life at the Bottom" the government has already made itself irrelevant since 1990 or thereabouts by ceding public safety as a core duty. When power is ceded someone grabs it.
Now the Muslim minority is using their protected status to inflict misery upon the majority of the population. Like perhaps the Cossacks of the Tsars. This makes them the enemy of the people (in a real, day-to-day sense).
How will the people respond?
By violence in kind. As Glenn Reynolds notes, reward violence and you get more of it. No-go areas are open invitation to burn down mosques. Someone can always be found to do such things and communal violence is the nature of most peoples and places. Native criminal organizations which will be pushed out would be the main suspects -- those men are no stranger to violence and of course the police fear them rather than the other way around.
The populace of course can be relied upon to protect their "protectors" since the Police abandoned that more than a decade ago.
The last, best hope to avoid violence was Brown after the latest Jihadi bombing/flaming car incident to condemn Jihad and call on Muslims to police their own "or else" and jail great swaths of suspects and shut down mosques to draw "red lines" for Muslims.
That has not been done and now every Christian in the UK has been put on notice that Muslims (a tiny minority of the population still) with the government tend to make their practice of religion and way of life untenable until they convert to Islam.
This is not a recipe for calm but invitation for a coup. In most places it would have happened and only the dim memory of an efficient and responsive government has kept that from happening.
It will not happen overnight. But the conflict seems now to have it's flashpoint and I assume some further Muslim provocation and show of force coupled with supine government groveling and elite groveling will provoke one. Or natives rioting.
Given the amount of daily violence and drunken-ness and debauchery and delight in violence for it's own sake among both working and middle class Britons (the soccer hooligans abroad are middle class people who can afford to go to Rome and scream obscenities and fight for hours) it would not shock me to see in the aftermath of some appalling Muslim provocation to see Mosques burned down -- with Muslims in them.
More than 20,000 middle class Britons descending upon the Continent to get drunk and fight and for no other reason, either, are a fearsome mob in the making. So too the maudlin and emotional response to Diana.
What number will the band play? I dunno, but I suspect their name in London is Dr. Phibes' Clockwork Wizards; in the Middle East, The Alexandrian Quartet. Just think, horrible horrible deaths all round, and you'll have the ambiance.
If Hague "doesn't recognise that description," perhaps he ought to lead a band down Tower Hamlets way playing something diverse, say, The Cure's "Killing An Arab," and see if he gets the picture. Or maybe "Hatikvah" if he doesn't want to be negative.
To quote a certain MP at the time of the Spanish Disturbance...
"England is going to the dogs."
Wretchard, have you a smaller scale version of your Third Conjecture that covers the...removal of Muslims from European countries? I wonder if Jean Raspail's Le Camp des Saints has taken root.
Certainly the problem is no longer a question of sinking a half dozen ships...but even if it's too little too late I cannot see them going without any fight at all.
Whiskey_199: So too the maudlin and emotional response to Diana.
Gadfrey, W_199! Hit the nail head, why don't you? If Britain could rally to the cause of counter-jihad with even a lousy 1% of Diana Princess of Wales' mourners, this would have all been over yeaterday. Quite a searing indictment against the Britons, no?
"Everything is Wonderful"
More Migrants, Please!
More Rosey News for the Brits:
UK living standards outstrip US
---
Always the rosiest just before the fall, which the pound and real-estate are preparing to do in earnest.
There is a wonderful set of ironies at play. Nietzsche and Marx paved the way for the postmodernists by killing God (and the rule set for how different people can live together) so that little bands of uneducated barbarians can twist into knots the epistemology of the new self-appointed gods, the university educated elites, by simply claiming that since no culture is better than any other that the elites have to live the way the barbarians tell them to.
Up pops an ancient Church guy (Benedict at Regensburg - Bishop Michael) to say that maybe society should be using intellect and reason to examine the current rule set, and the elites immediately tighten the knots lest the barbarians be hampered in their effort to make greater fools of the elites.
I don't know how this turns out but it's fun to watch.
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary...
That Shadow business, does that mean he's a leader of the Tories, or that he is consider unsubstantial and ineffective? Or both?
We'll if you were hoping that merely kicking labor out would change things in Britain, Billy Hague pretty well scotched that. Talk about out of touch and proud of it.
Bishop Nazir sounds of Arab Heritage, or at least from the Middle East. If Christians thought that would give him immunity they are wrong. He becomes "a race traitor." An apostate to the Left if not to Islam.
Yes, it sounds as Sir Winston was right:
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory…”
If the UK continues on it current path it will be vary unpleasant in the end. As for Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, his truthful words are unbearable to most Muslims. Further playing both the victim is sheer taqiyya. He will be their target.
Wiskey_199 notes the UK cities that are no-go:
* Accrington
* Blackburn
* Bradford
* Burnley
* Coventry
* Dewsbury
* Glasgow
* Keighley
* Oldham
* Reading
* Rusholme
* Slough
* Tower Hamlets
* Walthamstow
This quite disturbing. I hope it proves untrue – but I doubt it.
I was hoping this would not turn into a religious war but I think it has. Dividing the enemy will be very difficult if not impossible. That will make winning much harder.
I hope someone has a reasonable strategy of success. If not the UK is doomed.
I guess Mr. Lincoln had it about right:
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States..."
Dar al Islam, Dar al Harb. Whatever choice Europe makes will have consequences far, far beyond its borders.
That list is an absolute joke. Anyone who knows anything about Britian knows those cities are anything but no-go areas. Now there may be a neighborhood or two, I don't know but to say that Glascow is a no-go zone to non Muslims is just plain silly.
Look at Tower Hamlets. For those who don't know anything about London, it includes Canary Warf, one of the largest central business districts in the world. I go there fairly often and have yet to see any signs of it being a no-go zone. I have worked on some several very posh residential towers in that area and I'm pretty skeptical that any of the local Banglideshis who live in Tower Hamlets have anywhere near enough cash to buy up enough of the units to make them an Islamic no-go zone.
If there really are Islamic no-go neighborhoods then they should be pretty easy to find and people should march through them à la the Orange Men in Belfast to exert each citizen's right to march on any street in the nation.
As resident Marxist Kevin avoids the issue with a soliloquy on the meaning of "is."
The issue is, or should be, the proper reaction of the British government to immigrant minorities who intend to dominate rather than assimilate. The reaction to Bishop Michael's comments points to the greater problem - that the critical issue cannot even be discussed in the public square and that any British citizen who dares raise it should be silenced and punished.
You gotta' love the irony that it's only God People that speak out against the authoritarian suppression of ideas and free discussion.
This sorry state of affairs is not going to reverse itself unless and until the elites of Europe and our country get beyond the post-modernist mentality and actually see some value in studying what is actually in Islamic scripture, hadith, and law. While they are at it, it would be helpful if they had a prior, solid foundation in Christian scripture and theology (as an accurate, fair basis of comparison).
We are in or currently disadvantaged position because of sloth, animosity for our received civilization and its religious traditions, and a moral ineptitude that lends itself to an easy reversion to the line of least resistance. I believe that most people do not go along with the core of the Leftist hatred of our civilization, but do slide into a lazy, unexamined acceptance of the watered-down lite-socialism that paves the way for the multi-culti nonsense.
Why is it that when I read this story, all I can think of is T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men"?
Seems pretty appropriate to me.
One term that has not been defined in this discussion --- and its open-endedness contributes to the debate --- is that pesky phrase "no-go zone."
Bishop Nazir's use of the term must be regarded as true to the extent that it means a conspicuous non-Muslim may expect generally to be discriminated against, given surly service or none in Muslim businesses, taunted vocally or intimidated by Muslims on the streets who refuse to yield or otherwise behave rudely.
A "no-go zone" does not have to mean that any non-Muslim venturing in will be beheaded, flayed, or otherwise murdered; it means that the Muslims dominate the streets, the businesses, the schools, the traffic. It means that the Muslims have made it clear that police investigations into crimes and suspected criminals will only be allowed to proceed with the cooperation and close supervision of the local Muslim leaders. It means that criminal investigations of beatings and deaths by violence for Muslim women will be strongly resisted and defied every step of the way. It means that the inquiries by authorities into the truancy of Muslim schoolage girls will be resisted, protested, and finally forced to stop.
For those in this comment stream claiming that the Bishop's description is wrong, I would allow that whole cities are unlikely to have become "no-go zones," but that if substantial neighborhoods of those cities have become places in which a non-Muslim is made to feel unwelcome, it's legitimate to list the City by name.
Kevin,
You were making sense until you compared the global jihad, expansion of sharia law, encroachment of theocratic despotism beginning in the Seventh Century to the freaking minor Irish tiff. Good lord you people are a one-note outfit. There aren't "1.what is it this week? billion (Irish) Muslims" all waiting to explode, or whatever the latest threat entails.
Sometimes it's better to use the terms of the opposition. Sharia law is the law in parts of Britian according to certain imams, muftis, and sheiks, oh my. What are you going to do about it?
Probably think that's just fine. Which leaves you with sharia as a source of law now and into the future. Which is disaster in the long term, but it may not affect you personally.
The Irish don't travel a medieval legal system wherever they go.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 01/07/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
hdgreene: Bishop Nazir sounds of Arab Heritage, or at least from the Middle East.
The Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali:
Michael James Nazir-Ali (born 19 August 1949) is the Pakistani-born 106th and current Bishop of Rochester in the Church of England. He holds dual Pakistani and British citizenship.
ledger: I was hoping this would not turn into a religious war but I think it has. Dividing the enemy will be very difficult if not impossible. That will make winning much harder.
This has always been a religious war. It is only the West that refuses to recognize this. As to dividing the enemy—while Islam may not be entirely monolithic—what use is there in slivering off some 0.00001% of moderate Muslims? Especially so, when they will likely be contaminated with taqiyya spewing jihadis. This task is "very difficult if not impossible", because Islam would not have it any other way.
Far too few people understand that this conflict is an all-or-nothing proposition. This one is for all the marbles. We had best begin to act that way of face up to how little we value our own way of life.
whiskey_199 said "Easing out the Bishop, or forcing him out, will prove him right. Catholic Britain (likely a certainty now) is likely to react."
Nazir is Church of England, not Catholic, as the article says. Given the known pro-Islamic position of the Archbishop of Canterbury, it is quite possible that Nazir will be sanctioned or forced out for his "intolerant" views. See:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/018107.php
Churchill: "If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
Of course, the difference between Churchill and today's EUK elites is that the latter don't seriously believe that Islamic supremacists are inclined toward and/or capable of subjugating their countries, or at least subjugating the elites themselves (and to hell with everyone else). They're playing the Islamic supremacists for useful idiots to serve the elites' power ambitions, blissfully unaware that the supremacists are doing the same with them.
One of these days, one side or the other is going to find out the hard way that they were the real useful idiots. Somehow I doubt the Islamic supremacists will be that side.
tvdog -- It was an ironic play on the sad fact that most Christians in Britain are either Catholics or Evangelicals converting from CoE which is nearly dead.
Catholic Britain used to describe the place before Henry VIII. Now it's indicative of what Tony Blair has become.
Kevin -- you are not a blonde woman who is threatened by rape by Muslim men.
You are not a church-goer on Sunday assaulted.
You are not a woman just going about her business who must don the head scarf or face rape/assault. At the least cries of "whore."
In short you are fool. Those who are not wealthy Marxists (the only kind, really) and actually LIVE in those places have named them.
There is a huge amount of latent resentment and violence in ordinary english folk.I,m not sure what will trigger it but i,ve a feeling it will start to manifest itself in the next couple of years.a work friend of mine has just moved from her home in manchester as she was afraid for hger safety after being spat on by men as she walked to the shops...a small incident repeated many times imagine...iF my wife..then trouble would already have happened.
That scorn of a people for other races, the knowledge that one’s own is best, the triumphant joy at feeling oneself to be part of humanity’s finest – none of that had ever filled these youngsters’ addled brains, or at least so little that the monstrous cancer implanted in the Western conscience had quashed it in no time at all.
In this curious war taking shape, those who loved themselves best were the ones who would triumph.
They see right through you. For them, white skin means weak convictions. They know how weak yours are, they know you’ve given in.
Something else, strange but true: he was looked on as the model of the free, objective thinker. He would have been shocked and surprised to learn that he was, in fact, a captive of fashion, bound by all the new taboos, conditioned by thirty years of intellectual terrorism.
The rats won’t give up that last cheese called “The West” until they’ve devoured it to the very last crumb. Big and thick as it is, that will take them some time. They’re at it even now.
from "The Camp of the Saints"
Wiskey_199, did you miss the sarcasm?
The same situation, with just a little less religious involvement and a lot less hype can be said to describe NYC under Mayor Dinkins.
It will be rougher in Europe, Sweden especially, to put it right, but the same basic and fundamental steps that are used to unseat any gang infested rats nest can be applied regardless of age or religious affiliation. It is what is working in Iraq, and what will eventually win out in Pakistan and probably in Afghanistan as well, with some differences in each case.
Wahabbi teachings were invited into Europe and into the rest of the world by folks thinking it was Islam, instead of a sick and foul offshoot. Wahabbi have the advantage of teaching some very wealthy sheiks kids, and keeping other kids off the streets and out of trouble.
There is a better way, and a way proven to work, to stem the tide of fanatic behaviors.
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