The mainstream media, notably LBC and Sky News, have splashed quite heavily on the story of the letters sent to 1,000 British mosques asking them to do a bit more to root out jihadists and other extremists. These letters from Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, asked Imams to help tackle Jihadism and assist in integrating those Muslims who had become alienated from British society.

As expected this, relatively unintrusive and indeed very polite approach, to Imams by the Secretary of State was denounced by various Islamic groups. Like nearly every other similar exhortation to the Muslim community to do something about its nutters, spokesmen from the Islamic community whine about how ‘divsive’ it all is and how ‘Islamophobic’ it is to ask the Muslim community to do something about its nutters. This is normally followed up by an appearance on the news of everyone’s least favourite mendacious grievance-mongering taqiyya artist, to say that Muslims, not those who Muslim nutters have murdered, are the ‘real victims’ of a ‘backlash’.

It is gobsmacking that someone like Mr Pickles, with the position he holds, should so naïve as to think that writing handwringing letters to just half of Britain’s 2,000+ mosques, will do anything at all to avert the threat to us all from Islamic Jihad. As if those who are motivated to kill by Islam would be dissuaded from chopping off a police officers head just because their Imam got a letter from Mr Pickles. It is beyond belief that the Secretary of State could think that this empty gesture, which will probably be ignored by many Imams, especially the more Islamofascist ones.

Writing letters to Imams who might be turning a blind eye to extremism is not taking action against extremism, it is merely an attempt to give an impression that something is being done. It is depressing to see a senior government minister speaking in such a supplicating way to those who may support or enable an enemy that takes the lives of too many of our own citizens and those who are citizes of our allies overseas.

Here’s the Sky News version of this story with my comments in plain text:

“Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has written to over 1,000 mosques in Britain urging them to do more to root out extremists – but the move has been branded divisive by some Muslim leaders.

In the letter, Mr Pickles stressed he was “proud” of the way Muslims in Britain had responded to the terror attacks in Paris, but there was “more work to do”.

Mr Pickles is correct in saying that more needs to be done to root out extremist Islam, but a pleading letter is not going to cut it. The forcible closure of mosques where hate and sedition is preached or tolerated would be more like it, not a letter that will be filed in the wastepaper basket. I also don’t know what Muslims have to be ‘proud’ of after the Paris Jihad attacks? Do we have to give them all a little prize or a pat on the head just because a Muslim has not yet chopped off a police officers head or indulged in a bit of vehicular Jihad? Are we now rewarding Muslims for not suffering from ‘Sudden Jihad Syndrome’?

There are fears about the spread of terrorism after the Paris attacks that left 17 people dead and the arrest of more than two dozen people in anti-terror raids in Belgium, Germany and France.

There are always fears of terrorism when Islam is around. How could anybody not fear terror from an ideology that has had 25,000+ terror attacks carried out in its name since September 11^th 2001?

Mr Pickles insisted Whitehall could not combat jihadist ideology alone and Imams must explain to young people what it means to be British. 

Mr Pickles must have a strong, but in my view misplaced, sense of ultimate human goodness if he expects Imams to take him up on this. Does Mr Pickles honestly believe that a Imam who supports Jamaat e Islaami or who is an import from some rural backwater in Pakistan will cooperate with his department or with the authorities? Of course they will not.

“You, as faith leaders, are in a unique position in our society. You have a precious opportunity, and an important responsibility: in explaining and demonstrating how faith in Islam can be part of British identity,” he said in the letter, also signed by communities minister Lord Ahmad

Waffle,utter meaningless waffle, with a side order of bilge. I’ve seen a lot of Islam over the years and I’m wracking my brains here to think how this ideology can be a part of British identity. I’ve met plenty of Muslims who interpret their religion to fit in with British values but that is not what Islam itself is. The ‘values’ of Islam such as the acceptance of extreme misogyny and hostility to our own values, including the hard-won rights to freedom of speech, do make the ideology of Islam incompatible with the values adhered to by the rest of us.

“We believe together we have an opportunity to demonstrate the true nature of British Islam today.

Ha, ha, ha! Does Mr Pickles jest? Over the last decade or so the average Briton has seen plenty, some would say too much, of Islam demonstrating its true nature. We’ve had mass deaths in terror attacks, soldier butchered in the street, and the shocking mass rapes of non-Muslim girls and young women in Muslim dominated areas. We’ve also been given the opportunity to experience Islamic electoral corruption and Islamic evangelists being given virtually free access to our children’s schools and how did we ever do without seeing women entombed in mobile canvas prisons?

Yes we know all about the true nature of Islam.

“There is a need to lay out more clearly than ever before what being a British Muslim means today: proud of your faith and proud of your country.

More nice but waffly words that will more than likely fail to hit their target.

“We know that acts of extremism are not representative of Islam; but we need to show what is.”

A brief look around the world will show dozens of example of the followers of Islam being peaceful in their own particular way. Let’s face the truth here, Islam has a lot of murderous fraggles and it is not Quakers raping their way round British towns or Methodists who are slaughtering people en masse in Nigeria or Anglicans killing polio eradication workers, it’s Muslims who are doing this. The extremism that we keep getting told is purely a minority sport in Islam, certainly seems to be widespread and have a lot of participants.

Mr Pickles also sought to reassure the leaders that he had been in touch with police chiefs “to make sure they are providing the support that mosques need” – a concern that some imams expressed in recent discussions.

Support in what many may ask? Support in rooting out the violent nutters or helping Imams defend Islam from legitimate criticism.

But the letter immediately drew criticism from some Islamic leaders.

Harun Khan, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “We will be writing to Mr Eric Pickles to ask that he clarifies his request to Muslims to ‘explain and demonstrate how faith in Islam can be part of British identity’.

“Is Mr Pickles seriously suggesting, as do members of the far right, that Muslims and Islam are inherently apart from British society?”

As you can see, as is normal where Islam is concerned, here come the whiners. Islam has often gone out of its way to preach disgust at Britain and its values. Britain welcomed Muslims but unlike almost any other group, they have some of the worst records for assimilation, unless the assimilation takes the form of claiming welfare benefits of course. A society can afford to make space for small groups who wish to live separately or who choose which aspects of soceity to engage with, such as Haredi Jews, but what a society cannot afford is a separatist ideological grouping such as Islam which is not only hostile but is violently hostile as it has so often shown.

This letter from Mr Pickles is a pointless and I predict ultimately fruitless exercise. The Jihadists will continue to plot our destruction, corrupt Muslim councillors will continue to advance Islam at our expense and it is laughable to see such a weedy response to the dangerous problems posed by Islam and Jihadism.