Islamophobia

In recent weeks there have been two prominent examples of what some people in Britain term ‘Islamophobia’. The first involved a woman on a London bus shouting to two identifiably Muslim women that they should ‘go back to their own country.’  She goes on to call them ‘Fucking Isis bitches’. The whole ugly scene was recorded by another passenger and widely trailed around the internet, subsequently leading to a woman’s arrest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfQryY7Jvy4 The second incident was also filmed on a passenger’s phone and took place on a London bus a few days later.

Why do leftists care more about Muslims than they do about Jews? If that sounds confrontational, consider this: this week, the Met Police released the latest hate-crime figures for London. They show that offences against Jews have risen by 93% over the past year, while offences against Muslims have risen by 70%. And guess which story the BBC, Guardian and Independent, those voices of the British liberal conscience, have chosen to flag up? Yep, the 70% hike in Islamophobic attacks, not the nearly 100% hike in anti-Semitic offences. The BBC's headline is 'Islamophobic crime in London "up by 70%"'. The Guardian's is 'Hate crimes against Muslims soar in London'. The Indie opts for 'Hate crimes against Muslims in London "up by 70%"'. What about the crimes against Jews?

The Times today reports that leading Muslim clerics in the UK are warning that 'religious sectarianism is on the rise in Britain's Muslim community and threatens to spill over into violent crime and terrorism'.  An investigation by the paper 'found a sharp but largely hidden rise in sectarian tensions between the minority Shia community and the dominant Sunni groups'. I must say that I am shocked - really shocked - by this.  Like everyone else, I had always assumed that if you allowed very large numbers of people with totally different beliefs into this country then in no time they would be down the local pub and fully integrated loyal members of the Women's Institute and their local Anglican church.

Let’s put the question very bluntly: do British Muslims affirm British values, or are they outsiders to our way of life? Or, even more bluntly: can we trust them? It is important that we learn to answer this question with nuance, and not in a self-righteous and simplistic way. A week before the Tunisian carnage, David Cameron implicitly raised the question, when he said that too many mainstream Muslims were equivocating, seeming to condone Islamic State and to disparage the West –this 'paves the way for young people to turn simmering prejudice into murderous intent', he said. His comments, and his planned counter-extremism bill, were strongly condemned by commentators, and also by his former party chairperson Sayeeda Warsi.

With one week to go, are the Conservatives back on track to being the biggest party? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss the state of the election campaign with one week till polling day and which party has the momentum. Fraser and James have also interviewed Boris Johnson in the magazine this week, who reveals his concerns about inequality — is this the opening salvo for his leadership campaign? Based on Boris’s comments, Tim Montgomerie and Ryan Bourne also debate the future of conservatism and what ideas the next Tory leader might embrace in his or her manifesto. Is finding a different role for the state a core part of this?

In the 1970s, there was a big difference between bullies and cry-babies. Your mum would have preferred you to hang around with the latter, but sometimes the former had a twisted charisma so strong that you found yourself joining in the taunts of ‘Onion Head! ’ at some poor unfortunate creature sporting a cranium of a somewhat allium caste. After a bit, of course, if you had anything about you, you realized what a knob you were being and went off to sample the more solitary, civilized pleasures of shoplifting and reading Oscar Wilde with the bedroom curtains closed. But you could be certain, as you festered in your pilfered Chelsea Girl vest, that bullies were bullies and cry-babies were cry-babies and never the twain would meet.

Like you, I suspect, I have been terribly worried these last few weeks over the plight of 15-year-old Amira Abase. Amira fled the country on 17 February in order to take up an exciting and challenging position as an in-house whore for the vibrant and decapitating warriors of the Islamic State somewhere in Syria, probably Raqqa. She travelled with two like-minded school friends from the local caliphate of Bethnal Green and not much has been heard of her since. We wring our hands in anguish at the fate which might have befallen this girl. It is of course commendable that she, along with so many other fervent young British Muslim women, should wish to become a jihadi bride. What kind of life would she be forced to endure in the Islamophobic hell of the United Kingdom?

It seems that the laughably misnamed ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’ did not like my last piece. Indeed the Khomeinist organisation has written to complain to my editor.  Here is their letter: Dear Sir, I note that Douglas Murray's article published on your website yesterday has several points of concern. Most pressing is the fact that he suggests that the charity wing of IHRC organised the Islamophobia Awards. You are providing your readers will [sic] false information as this is not the case. I trust you will therefore make the correction immediately by removing all references to IHRC as a charity in the context of this article, which is all about the Islamophobia Awards.

I have always treated the ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ event with the scorn it deserves. Not least because each year this fantasy prize for a fantasy concept is run by a British Khomeinist organisation laughably named the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission.’  The nominees include anybody opposed to the agenda of Islamic extremists, including Muslims.  Of course each year, whilst laughing at it, those of us who are regular nominees also regard it as being to our great good fortune that the IHRC is a British charity operating in the United Kingdom rather than an Islamic charity operating in an Islamic country.  If the latter were the case then rather than laughing at the IHRC every year, those of us who it annually attacks would be hanging from cranes.