Islam

As ever, the headlines are more sensational than the speech, but marginally so in this case. Baroness Warsi has asserted that Islamophobia is rife and socially acceptable in Britain. It is a peculiarly crass statement for an ordinary politician to have made, but, then again, the gabbing Baroness is a very ordinary politician. Some of her speech is sensible, even unanswerable. She attacks the media and the arts for ‘the patronising, superficial way faith is discussed in certain quarters.’ Questioning faith is the natural and welcome adjunct of a free society, but specific criticism is morphing into general hostility.

When in power, authoritarian regimes can look immovable - even when, in hindsight, they turn out to have been brittle. This seems to have been the case with Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's Tunisian regime. Weeks ago, nobody would have believed that the Tunisian strongman, who has held power for more than 23 years, could have been chased from office so quickly. A diplomat friend who served in Tunis marvelled at the dictatorship, where information was so restricted that he depended on information from colleagues stationed elsewhere in the region. Ben Ali's rule was apparently total; the opposition was comprehensively suppressed and the population had little scope for expression or assembly.

This has to be the ultimate Jewish conspiracy theory story. Why have the Wikileaks disclosures been so soft on Israel? Here is Tariq Shahid from the Palestine Think Tank. I’m hoping it’s a spoof but here’s my favourite section: “Browse through all the news sources available on the latest Wikileaks revelation, and try to find even only one revelation that actually damages Israel, even though so many of the revealed documents are directly or indirectly connected to Middle East politics, and to a large extent to Israeli affairs. Did you find any document among them that either creates difficulties for the government of the Zionist entity, or even slightly embarrasses it?

Policy Exchange’s work on Islamism has been some of the most important undertaken by a think-tank in recent years. It has influenced and bolstered the thinking of brave politicians in both the last government and the current one. That’s why it is so important that Policy Exchange came off best in the libel case brought against it by North London Central mosque. The case is now over and the mosque has made, what Policy Exchange calls, ‘a substantial contribution’ towards the think tank’s costs. Policy Exchange has stated that it never meant to suggest that extremist literature was sold or distributed on the mosque’s grounds with the consent of the trustees or staff of the mosque.

There is a view, prevalent among a sizeable minority of people in this country, and particularly within the angry, fat and drunk white underclass, that one day very soon the green flag of Islam will fly above Westminster and Britain will have become a Muslim country, by stealth. This is the snarled and yet resigned reaction to every inflammatory news story printed in the popular press about Muslim-only swimming nights at local leisure centres, or councils banning Christmas, or teachers upbraided for talking about Jesus Christ in school and so on.

Al Shabaab and al Qeada are brothers in arms – Somalia is a hothouse for terror. Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5, has openly expressed his view that it is ‘just a matter of time’ until Somalia and the Yemen export terrorism to Britain’s streets. That striking statement contains one oversight: they do already. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, was trained in the Yemen and two of the 7/7 bombers were Somali. How to eradicate this threat? The legacies of Iraq and financial retrenchment have made armed intervention an absolute last resort. Counter-terrorism is essential, but well targeted aid is the easiest remedy for chaos. In a speech yesterday, Andrew Mitchell described why aid should be directed to benighted regions.

The US constitution cannot stop Pastor Terry Jones from burning 100 Korans to mark the 9th anniversary of 11 September, and neither should it – the right to free speech is absolute when within the law. But free speech comes with responsibilities. Just as it is unwise to build, with provocative intent, a mosque near the site of Ground Zero, so too for a Christian minister to burn the Koran as a publicity stunt. Such mindlessness is grossly offensive to the peace abiding majority, and it also furthers endanger US and Allied troops abroad and the population at home by inciting contemptible extremism. Common sense and the tenets of Christian faith aside, Jones should desist and be tolerant.