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| Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. |
The ideology behind Lee Rigby's murder
is profound and dangerous. We must take on this extremism.
There is only one view of the murder of
Lee Rigby: horrific.
But there are two views of its
significance. One is that it is the act of crazy people, motivated in this case
by a perverted idea about Islam, but of no broader significance. Crazy people
do crazy things. So don’t overreact.
The other view is that this act was indeed horrible; and that the
ideology which inspired it, is profound and dangerous.
So of course we shouldn’t overreact. We
didn’t after 7 July 2005. But we did act. And we were right to. The actions by
our security services will undoubtedly have prevented other serious attacks.
The ‘Prevent’ programme in local communities was sensible.
The new measures of the Government seem
reasonable and proportionate.
However we are deluding ourselves if we
believe that we can protect this country simply by what we do here. The
ideology is out there. It isn’t diminishing.
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| Pisslam is deadly-serious and nearly-blind. |
Consider the Middle East. As of now,
Syria is in a state of accelerating disintegration. President Assad is brutally
pulverising communities hostile to his regime. 80,000 at least have died. The
refugees now total over 1 million. The internally displaced are over 4 million.
Many in the region believe that the Assad intention is to ethnically cleanse
the Sunni from the areas dominated by his regime and then form a separate state
around Lebanon. There would then be a de facto Sunni state in the rest of
Syria, cut off from the wealth of the country or the sea.
The Syrian opposition is made up of
many groups. The fighters are increasingly the Al Qaida affiliated group Jabhat
al-Nusra. They are winning support, and arms and money from outside the
country.
Assad is using chemical weapons on a
limited but deadly scale. Some of the stockpiles are in fiercely contested
areas.
The overwhelming desire of the West is
to stay out of it. This is completely understandable. But we must also
understand: we are at the beginning of this tragedy. Its capacity to
de-stabilise the region is clear. Jordan is behaving with exemplary courage,
but there is a limit to the refugees it can reasonably be expected to absorb.
Lebanon is now fragile as Iran pushes Hizbollah into the battle. Al Qaida is back trying to cause carnage in
Iraq and Iran continues its gruesome meddling there.
To the South in Egypt and across North
Africa, Muslim Brotherhood parties are in power but the contradiction between
their ideology and their ability to run modern economies, means that they face
growing instability and pressure from more extreme groups.
Then there is the Iranian regime, still
intent on getting a nuclear weapon, still exporting terror and instability to
the West and the East of it. In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is facing awful
terror attacks. In Mali France was fighting a pretty tough battle.
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| Muslim rioters in Maungdaw near Bangladesh. |
In many of the most severely affected
areas, one other thing is apparent: a rapidly growing population. The median
age in the Middle East is in the mid-20s. In Nigeria it’s 19. In Gaza where
Hamas hold power, a quarter of the population is under 5.
When I return to Jerusalem soon, it
will be my 100th visit to the Middle East since leaving office, working to
build a Palestinian State. I see first-hand in this region what is happening.
So I understand the desire to look at
this world and explain it by reference to local grievances, economic alienation
and of course “crazy people”. But are we really going to examine it and find no
common thread, nothing that joins these dots, no sense of an ideology driving
or at least exacerbating it all?
There is not a problem with Islam. For
those of us who have studied it, there is no doubt about its true and peaceful
nature. There is not a problem with Muslims in general. Most in Britain will be
horrified at Lee Rigby’s murder.
But there is a problem within Islam - from the adherents of an ideology
which is a strain within Islam. And we have to put it on the table and be
honest about it. Of course there are Christian extremists and Jewish, Buddhist
and Hindu ones. But I am afraid this strain is not the province of a few
extremists. It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction
between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal,
open minded societies. At the extreme end of the spectrum are terrorists, but
the world view goes deeper and wider than it is comfortable for us to admit. So
by and large we don’t admit it.
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| A Saudi-funded mosque burning in Burma's Meikhtilar. |
This has two effects. First those with
that view think we are weak and that gives them strength.
Second those within Islam - and the
good news is there are many – who actually know this problem exists and want to
do something about it, lose heart. All over the Middle East and beyond there is
a struggle being played out. On the one side, there are Islamists who have this
exclusivist and reactionary world view. They are a significant minority, loud
and well organised. On the other, are the modern minded, those who hated the
old oppression by corrupt dictators and who hate the new oppression by
religious fanatics. They are potentially the majority, but unfortunately badly
organised.
The seeds of future fanaticism and
terror, possibly even major conflict are being sown. We have to help sow seeds
of reconciliation and peace. But clearing the ground for peace is not always
peaceful.
The long and hard conflicts in Afghanistan
and Iraq have made us wary of any interventions abroad. But we should never
forget why they were long and hard. We allowed failed states to come into
being. Saddam was responsible for two major wars, in which hundreds of
thousands died, many by chemical weapons. He killed similar numbers of his own
people.
The Taliban grew out of the Russian
occupation of Afghanistan and made the country into a training ground for
terror. Once these regimes were removed, both countries have struggled against
the same forces promoting violence and terror in the name of religion
everywhere.
Not every engagement need be military;
or where military, involve troops. But disengaging from this struggle won’t
bring us peace.
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| A Pisslamist head-chopper in a street of London. |
Neither will security alone. We
resisted revolutionary communism by being resolute on security; but we defeated
it by a better idea: freedom. We can do the same with this. The better idea is
a modern view of religion and its place in society and politics. There has to
be respect, and equality between people of different faiths. Religion must have
a voice in the political system but not govern it.
We have to start with how to educate
children about faith, here and abroad. That is why I started a Foundation whose
specific purpose is to educate children of different faiths across the world to
learn about each other and live with each other. We are now in 20 countries and
the programmes work. But it is a drop in the ocean compared with the flood of
intolerance taught to so many.
Now, more than ever, we
have to be strong and we have to be strategic.
(Political Islam or PISSLAM is much, much more dangerous totalitarian system than Communism and the British Fabian Socialists like Tony Blair who basically let the PISSLAM rooted in Britain by allowing mass immigration of stone-aged Muslims from third world countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh are now openly admitting their mistakes.
Following is what Sun newspaper reported of PISSLAMists' plan to destroy Britain from within by creating a Muslim population explosion like the one happening for decades in Bangladesh.
Muslim hate fanatics plan to take over Britain by having more babies and forcing a population explosion, it has been revealed. The swollen Muslim population would be enough to conquer Britain from inside, they claim.
Fanatics told a meeting of young Muslims on the anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity, that it would then be easy to impose Sharia law on the population, the Sun newspaper reported. Speaking at a meeting in London, Anjem Choudary, right-hand man of exiled preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed, said: "It may be by pure conversion that Britain will become an Islamic state. We may never need to conquer it from the outside.")
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