Inside Britain’s Conservative Party: An Islamist Fifth Column?
From the desk of A. Millar on Wed, 2008-10-22 10:11
These are the words of the Conservative Muslim Forum, in its report, An Unquiet World: A Response [pdf]. It may be a rhetorical question, but having spent some time looking at this organization, I can say that I have very grave concerns about it, and about its influence on the Conservative Party, and, by extension, on British politics.
The Conservative Muslim Forum has been criticized by Melanie Phillips and by the Center for Social Cohesion, among others, particularly over the above named report, which warns the party against “a pro-zionist attitude,” and states that, “facing a nuclear armed Israel, Iran appears to have legitimate reasons for seeking nuclear weapons for defensive purposes” And it calls for:
a revision of the history syllabus in schools. Any revised compulsory history syllabus needs to give full recognition to the massive contribution that Islam has made to the development of Western civilisation. Historically the recognition of this contribution has been suppressed because in the past control of the educational system rested with the Christian churches which saw Islam as a competitor.
The report also states that foreign preachers who reject (i.e., denounce) democracy should not be prevented from entering the UK, and that while the authors disagree with his views, “Yusuf al-Qaradawi is considered a leading scholar by many Muslims, including other Muslim scholars.” There is no mention of his endorsement of terrorist bombings in Israel, etc.
The nature of the Conservative Muslim Forum can be further gleaned from its own website, which prominently features sections on halal food and Islamic finance. (Clearly integration is not the aim of this organization.)
More troublingly, however, the forum links to Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., which has only a limited number of books for sale. Among them, though, is Shariah: Islamic Law by Abdur Rahman, described on the Ta-Ha’s website as, “A must for every Muslim household.” (Moderates would no doubt disagree.) And there is also a section on women, and how they should behave under sharia law.
A three-volume book, entitled, Izhar-ul-Haq: The Truth Revealed by M. Rahmatullah Kairanvi, is described as a, “thoroughly researched response to the Christian offensive against Islam in India. These three volumes lucidly review the authenticity of the Bible and succinctly summarise the main errors, distortions and contradictions in and between the Old and New Testaments of the King James Version. Furthermore, the doctrine of the Trinity is refuted.”
Disturbingly, Dajjal: The Anti Christ by Ahmad Thomson, is also on sale. I can’t say I have read this book, but, notably, the cover of image is of the eye in the triangle of the US dollar bill, the favored symbol of lunatic conspiracy theorists everywhere. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a few web searches was all it took to uncover that the book is a conspiracy theory about Jews and Freemasons, in the tradition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And, it became quickly apparent to me that those discussing this book were Islamists, not moderate Muslims. But, that should come as no surprise.
I have mentioned Thomson before, but it will be worth recalling that he has called the Holocaust a “big lie,” has stated that Hitler was financed by Zionists, and believes that Muslims are obliged to live in an Islamic caliphate. His opinions have left him largely disgraced in mainstream politics, from what I can tell. And in an op-ed piece entitled, ‘To allow Islamists to direct the post-7/7 debate was a disaster,’ Conservative MP, Michael Gove, himself singled out Thomson as one of several “Islamists” employed by the government to, supposedly, combat extremism, and remarked on “the folly of such a strategy.” And, yet, now this same folly is being perpetuated by the Conservative Party. The radicalism of Thomson enters British politics through the back door.
For, while Gove has been an outspoken opponent of sharia law, his work can only be undermined by the existence of the Conservative Muslim Forum, and, I would suggest, has been undermined by party leader David Cameron, perhaps because of advice the latter has received from the forum. We should recall that when the reclassification of Britain’s formerly illegal sharia courts became known in the middle of September, Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (which governs Britain’s sharia courts) said:
We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.
Where did this idea come from? While I cannot say for certain, of course, a speech by David Cameron, entitled, ‘Extremism, individual rights and the rule of law in Britain,’ airs exactly this possibility. It was given six months before the reclassification of Britain’s sharia courts (at a time when no-one seemed to be considering such a possibility), and in response to Rowan William’s comment that sharia in Britain was unavoidable.
The few references to the speech I found on the web, describe it as a denunciation of multiculturalism and sharia law. And Cameron does indeed condemn “state multiculturalism” as “a wrong-headed doctrine that has had disastrous results.” He also says that groups cannot “exempt themselves wholly or partly from the jurisdiction of English courts and opt into a parallel jurisdiction.” But Cameron’s speech is inherently contradictory, its theme being both “One law for all” and “minorities rights.”
While ruling out sharia as a parallel legal system, then, David Cameron would appear to have endorsed – if not encouraged – sharia law, as currently formulated in Britain, when he said:
If he [Rowan Williams] was saying that it's fine for two Muslims to agree a contract in line with the principles of Sharia law, but under the ultimate jurisdiction of English law – then that can happen today. English law and English courts already allow individuals, by mutual consent, to settle private disputes in many ways, including informal religious arrangements. Currently under our law, it is possible to enter into a contract and have it arbitrated under Sharia or other law – such as a Jewish Beth Din – and the English courts will enforce the judgment as long as it is does not fly in the face of our core legal principles.
Reflecting on Cameron’s speech, he appears to have been justifiably nervous about the emerging of a separate, parallel sharia system, which would take away women’s and children’s rights, and lead to the abuse of women, and young women in particular (e.g., through forced marriage). It can be construed that Cameron hinted that the system of sharia courts, with their judgments enforced by British high courts, would be acceptable to him, and to a Conservative government, because any judgment by a sharia court would, in this situation, need to be in accord with the principles of British law. If this interpretation is correct, it would seem likely that Cameron viewed the introduction of this arrangement as a way of fending off calls for a full-blown, parallel sharia system, but, if so, he was mistaken. A radical form of Islam is on the rise in Britain. It is facilitated by sharia courts, and, in my personal opinion, by the Conservative Muslim Forum.
(Note: In October, the Conservative Party attacked the Labour government’s young Muslim advisory group, as another example of its “divisive state multiculturalism.” Why is the Conservative Muslim Forum any different?)
Posts
