So, 30p Lee (Lee Anderson) is in the news lately, he made a jibe about Sadiq Khan, the Lord Mayor of London, who he claimed was in league with "Islamists". A right old barney has erupted and poor old Lee has lost the Tory whip as a result, his critics claiming that his comments were "Islamophobic" and "racist". Now, I'm certainly no fan of 30p Lee but I don't know if he is a racist and him making a remark about "Islamism" doesn't help illuminate the answer to that question in any way, shape or form; especially since Islam isn't a race!
The lefty progressives at the BBC may well be getting their knickers in a right old twist over this but back in the real world "Islamism" is a political movement and, as are all political movements, is an idea and, unlike people, has no "rights" at all and can be criticised completely legitimately. The question that should be aimed robustly and squarely at Lee (but I am yet to hear from our media outlets) is, what evidence does he have or what linkages can he show that suggests his comment is true? I for one would be very interested to know if Khan has links to Islamists, in much the same way that I'd like to know if Rees-Mogg has links to the Elders of Zion. It's simply a matter of public interest, a matter whose illumination would greatly help people vote accordingly.
There is a big lie and/or delusion sitting at the core of this argument, many liberals in this country seem to (deliberately?) confuse religion (as per scripture) with culture (i.e. WRT to a regional and/or temporal implementation of the religion) and then again with people (who interpret and action, or not, the cultural derivation). As Sam Harris once said, "Islam, i.e. what it literally says in the holy books, is the motherlode of bad ideas". From the perspective of "Western Values" this is obvious. In the West, since the Enlightenment, we have evolved ideas and values around equality (of sexes for example), freedom of speech, justice and tolerance that in extreme Islamic countries, if broken, can still be punishable by death. The values codified in Abrahamic texts are not compatible with modern Western, or British values, to claim otherwise is asinine. Of course if you could rewind the clock a couple of centuries then the "Christian culture" prevalent in the middle-ages would be utterly familiar to hardcore "Islamists" today, i.e. more sudden violent death than you could shake a stick at! Islamists are simply people that wish to spread some literal version of Islam throughout the globe, usually accompanied by the threat of violence, it's not as if the "message" makes any sense after all. Fortunately we no longer live in the middle-ages and most people in the "West" have no desire to return to those "dark ages", Islamic, Christian or otherwise.
We are lucky that the majority of people in "Muslim cultures" don't follow their religion literally, there are variations of course, much in the same way that the vast majority of people in "Christian cultures" don't follow theirs either. Then you have people who, especially when living outside of their original culture have a tendency to assimilate to whatever culture they wish to thrive in, again, this is an obvious and natural Human condition and has been happening for centuries. The problems tend to arise when particular cohorts of immigrants are numerous enough to become "ghettoised" and because of this don't assimilate at all, retaining many of the "literal" edicts and dogmas of their original culture, this is especially noticeable when there are large differences between core values, like how homosexuality is dealt with or how Women are treated or how far people can go in criticising or lampooning any religion or political idea.
There is certainly a debate to be had in this country around this topic of "cultural ghettoization" when it comes to certain places and events, for example the grooming gangs in Rochdale or the drug gangs in Tower Hamlets or the racist chants outside Parliament. We either stand up for our values or we don't, personally I value the enlightenment far too much to see it wither on the vine at this late stage, I don't want literal Islamic values implemented here any more than I want literal Christian values implemented here, and that means Islamists who hide behind "Islamophobia" and use faux "offence" as a way of shutting down much needed discourse on these matters should be exposed.
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