Sunday, May 13, 2007

David Cameron's new policy.....hug a Jihadist

David Cameron has spent two days with a Muslim family in Birmingham and writes about his experience in the Observer. The article is entitled: "What I learnt from my stay with a Muslim family"....not much it seems.

Amongst other things, he says that we shouldn't use the world 'Islamist' as it's offensive to Muslims. (I'm not quite sure what kind of word were supposed to use instead).

And whilst he praises faith schools and argues that integration is essential for building social cohesion he then contradicts himself by arguing:
...the third step in promoting integration is to ensure there's something worth integrating into. 'To make men love their country,' said Edmund Burke, 'their country ought to be lovable.' Integration has to be about more than immigrant communities, 'their' responsibilities and 'their' duties. It has to be about 'us' too - the quality of life that we offer, our society and our values.

Here the picture is bleak: family breakdown, drugs, crime and incivility are part of the normal experience of modern Britain. Many British Asians see a society that hardly inspires them to integrate. Indeed, they see aspects of modern Britain which are a threat to the values they hold dear - values which we should all hold dear.

To argue that there is nothing to integrate into is precisely the kind of argument that the Islamists (sorry David) use. Muslims are not the only people offended by family breakdown, drugs, crime and incivility. Society is also made up of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews and Christians, both black and white who are just as offended, but they have still integrated, because they want to buy into a society that gives them freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the freedom to choose how they live their life. It's not a freedom you get in any Islamist society.

David Cameron then ends his article by saying...
Asian families and communities are incredibly strong and cohesive, and have a sense of civic responsibility which puts the rest of us to shame. Not for the first time, I found myself thinking that it is mainstream Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of life, not the other way around.
So what are you proposing David? That we all convert to Islam?

The problem with Britain is not multiculturalism, but bi-culturalism. There are the Christians, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, moderate Muslims, Atheists, Gays etc...who are prepared to tolerate each other on the one side and the Islamists who are opposed to everyone else on the other.