Twenty years ago my attitudes, along with the attitudes of many others towards Islam were very different. Like many Britons I saw Islam as ‘just another religion’, no different from Anglicanism, Catholicism, Judaism or whatever. The presence of Islam in my area was no more or no less a threat to me and mine than anything else or any other belief system. I could go down the pub with my mates, go to work and do all manner of things and not give Islam a second or even a first thought. I was disturbed when Muslims were attacked because they were Muslim, because it reminded me of motiveless attacks on other groups in the past To go back even longer than 20 years ago I recall that I marched against the National Front when they were seen as a threat in the area that I lived.
How things have changed. Although I would still turn out to march against the mad and genuine fascists of the NF and similar groups, my attitudes to Islam have changed beyond recognition. Over the years I’ve come to see the true and ugly face of Islam. I’ve seen it in the first and second attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, the bombing of embassies and the murder of British and allied troops. I’ve seen British tourists slaughtered on beaches by Islamic psychopaths and was caught up in the problems caused by the 7/7 attacks on London’s public transport system.
Back in 1996 if someone had come up to me and told me that someone had burned down my local mosque, I would probably have put my hand in my own pocket and contributed to the rebuilding fund or condemned the attack. Now, after seeing and learning about the true violent, aggressive, arrogant nature of Islam my views are very different, and I would say far more realistic. Although I still do not condone or encourage attacks on mosques, as they can be counter-productive because it gives Muslim grievance mongers something to whine about, I’m highly unlikely these days to contribute towards any mosque rebuilding project. In fact such has been the shift in my attitudes towards the ‘religion of rape, murder and corruption’ that I’d be far more likely to contribute to the alleged arsonists legal fighting fund, provided of course that the attack had resulted in no deaths.
Twenty years ago a friend who had travelled and worked extensively in the North of England told me that my take it or leave it, live and let live attitude to Islam was wrong, and that Muslims were causing all manner of problems in many Northern towns and cities. As I was involved in interfaith and other left-leaning community groups at the time, to my great and lasting shame I didn’t believe him. I dismissed his opinion as paranoid, ‘racist’ even, after all I knew plenty of ‘nice’ Muslims who didn’t rape or murder, community leaders who didn’t bully women into voting one particular way and were not a threat to me and mine. I naively thought how could those like friendly Mr Mohammed in the shop or caring Mrs Khan at the interfaith group have anything to do with some of the dark horrors that my friend was telling me all about? Now I know better, oh how I know better.
In the two decades that have elapsed since what I now refer to as my ‘lost weekend of leftist foolishness’ I’ve learned many difficult lessons, but probably the most challenging thing to learn is that Islam, no matter how big a smile it paints on itself, is a threat. I’ve learned that it’s not ‘racist’ to criticise Islam and that being ambivalent towards Islam puts in danger many of the people and things that I care about. My family, my LGBT friends, my nation and the right to speak freely on matters of concern, are just some of the things that are placed in peril by taking a live and let live attitude towards Islam. I’ve come to understand that supporting Islam and Muslims even as part of a general ‘kumbayah’ mental laziness, is no different in ultimate effect from putting a loaded gun to my head or the heads of those I love and pulling the trigger.
There are some attitudes that I had back then which have not dimmed or been changed by the passage of time. I still, for instance, believe that it is not the colour of a person’s skin that is important but the content of their character, but I can no longer take the path of dishonesty (even though such dishonesty is easier and more comforting) and say that all political and religious ideologies are the same. They are plainly not. Socialism is also not an antidote to fascism, it’s just another form of nasty often deadly authoritarianism, and Islam is most definitely not a religion of peace.
My path from not caring about Islam to being an active opponent of it has been long and convoluted. I believe that it is a path that has been walked and is also being walked by many, many other people who find that like me, they cannot reconcile Islam and freedom. It’s right that we recognise Islam as being different and it is imperative that we see Islam for the threat that it is. I used to mock the naivety and foolishness of the pre-WWII Peace Pledge Union as being idiots who stuck their heads in the sand and failed to see the danger posed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Now I find that I’m in the position where I mock my younger self for taking the path of least resistance and surrendering to ‘group think’ when it came to Islam.
The hard and difficult lesson that the decades have taught me is that Islam is not compatible with Western free societies, and that it’s not for us to change to be compatible to Islam, or accommodate Islamic mores, but for Islam to change to be compatible with us. I’m deeply ashamed of my former ambivalent attitudes to Islam, and I see now very clearly how George Orwell was correct when it came to the subject of pacifism when he said that pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. Orwell’s words could equally be applied to those who appease or accommodate Islam in that they are assisting the enemy and are the handmaidens of Islamic fascism.
I don’t want to have my children or grandchildren look back at my life and say ‘there went a person who turned a blind eye to Islamic fascism in order to feel virtuous’, I really don’t. I want my descendants to look back and say ‘my father or my grandfather learned the truth about Islam and fought for the freedom that I have today’.
I stand and fight against Islam because the alternative is far worse than not fighting. I also fight in order to undo some of the damage that I may have done in the past by my grievously unrealistic view of Islam. Like many others I can now see that with a keen clarity that Islam an ideology that wants me dead, my wife dead, my children dead and my country dead.
Rise up against Islam, speak up against it, you have nothing to lose but your future servitude and probably a whole lot to gain.
