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Sunday, 30 June 2013
Saturday, 29 June 2013
The British government's jihad against free thought | Melanie Phillips
The British government's jihad against free thought | Melanie Phillips
The British government's jihad against free thought
Published in: Melanie's blog
By banning from the country as extremists the American anti-jihadis Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, the Home Secretary Teresa May has not only made herself look ridiculous but has sent the enemies of the United Kingdom the message that they have it on the run.
I do not support the approach taken by either Geller or Spencer to the problem of Islamic extremism. Both have endorsed groups such as the EDL and others which at best do not deal with the thuggish elements in their ranks and at worst are truly racist or xenophobic.
The result has been a serious blow to the credibility of these two writers, with particular damage being done to Spencer whose scholarship in itself is scrupulous. It has also split the defence against Islamic extremism, and handed a potent propaganda weapon to those who seek falsely to portray as bigoted extremists all who are engaged in the defence of the west against the Islamic jihad.
Nevertheless, the decision to ban this duo from Britain is unjustified, oppressive and comes perilously close to lining up the British government alongside those who wish to silence defenders of the west against the jihad, making a total mockery of Britain’s understanding of just who presents a danger to the state.
Neither Geller nor Spencer remotely presents such a danger. They intended to come to Britain to join an EDL rally in Woolwich, in the wake of the barbaric murder there of Drummer Lee Rigby by two Islamists last month.
Personally, I believe the EDL is not a respectable platform to join. Whether or not its rally is itself a threat to public order is, however, another issue. As far as is known, it is not being banned. It is only Geller and Spencer who have been banned from the country on the grounds that their presence is ‘not conducive to the public good’. The implication is that they will incite violence or disorder. But all the two of them do is criticise Islam, condemn jihadis and warn against the west’s failure to take seriously their machinations.
One may think they go too far, that some of their views are unpleasant or offensive or wrong; but that is surely no reason to ban them from the country. What on earth have we come to, after all, when the British Home Secretary is banning people on the basis that they criticise Islam and warn against jihadi violence? Is this not exactly the menacing argument mounted by Islamic extremists, that any condemnation of Islamic extremism is to be banned as ‘Islamophobic’?
Moreover, from the text of the Home Secretary’s letter to Spencer, it would appear that the reason for the the ban is that the British government is now telling people that certain interpretations of Islam are to be proscribed, even if they may be true – a truly terrifying and totalitarian development, and an open assault upon freedom of thought and expression, not to mention religious scholarship.
And if the argument is that any criticism of Islam may incite violence against Muslims, then by the same token Mrs May should ban all criticism of Israel -- on the much firmer grounds that there is a clearly demonstrated correlation between hate campaigns against Israel and attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions. Of course, that would be unthinkable. So why the double standard?
And that is what is particularly intolerable here -- that Mrs May is allowing people to run around Britain who really are stirring up hatred and worse, but who appear to be untouchable because they are Islamists. The Commentator has drawn attention to the recent entry to Britain of Muhammad Al-Arifi, a Saudi scholar who has declared that Shia Muslims are ‘evil’ and also stated that ‘...al-Qaeda leader Sheikh Oussama Bin Laden, may his soul rest in peace, did not adopt many of the thoughts that are attributed to him today’.
The government also allowed into the country Shady Al-Suleiman, the Australian cleric who has called ‘for Allah to destroy the enemies of Islam’, who has endorsed Hamas which Britain recognises as a terrorist entity, and even endorsed the killing of British soldiers, saying, ‘Give victory to all the Mujahideen all over the world. Oh Allah, prepare us for the jihad’.
Aren’t these men, who foment sectarian division and endorse terrorism, not ‘conducive to the public good’?
So why did Mrs May ban Spencer and Geller? Was it because of the petition to do so by Hope not Hate -- which misrepresented and smeared them by claiming they called all Muslims savages (they did not)? Was it in response to one of the signatories to this petition, Tony Lloyd, Greater Manchester’s Police and Crime Commissioner (who Spencer and Geller say also misrepresented what they have said) who termed them
So Lloyd is happy to meet with a group whose leader has called Israel a ‘cancerous tumour that must be removed’ and whose officials have said
Has Britain now totally lost the plot?
By banning from the country as extremists the American anti-jihadis Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, the Home Secretary Teresa May has not only made herself look ridiculous but has sent the enemies of the United Kingdom the message that they have it on the run.
I do not support the approach taken by either Geller or Spencer to the problem of Islamic extremism. Both have endorsed groups such as the EDL and others which at best do not deal with the thuggish elements in their ranks and at worst are truly racist or xenophobic.
The result has been a serious blow to the credibility of these two writers, with particular damage being done to Spencer whose scholarship in itself is scrupulous. It has also split the defence against Islamic extremism, and handed a potent propaganda weapon to those who seek falsely to portray as bigoted extremists all who are engaged in the defence of the west against the Islamic jihad.
Nevertheless, the decision to ban this duo from Britain is unjustified, oppressive and comes perilously close to lining up the British government alongside those who wish to silence defenders of the west against the jihad, making a total mockery of Britain’s understanding of just who presents a danger to the state.
Neither Geller nor Spencer remotely presents such a danger. They intended to come to Britain to join an EDL rally in Woolwich, in the wake of the barbaric murder there of Drummer Lee Rigby by two Islamists last month.
Personally, I believe the EDL is not a respectable platform to join. Whether or not its rally is itself a threat to public order is, however, another issue. As far as is known, it is not being banned. It is only Geller and Spencer who have been banned from the country on the grounds that their presence is ‘not conducive to the public good’. The implication is that they will incite violence or disorder. But all the two of them do is criticise Islam, condemn jihadis and warn against the west’s failure to take seriously their machinations.
One may think they go too far, that some of their views are unpleasant or offensive or wrong; but that is surely no reason to ban them from the country. What on earth have we come to, after all, when the British Home Secretary is banning people on the basis that they criticise Islam and warn against jihadi violence? Is this not exactly the menacing argument mounted by Islamic extremists, that any condemnation of Islamic extremism is to be banned as ‘Islamophobic’?
Moreover, from the text of the Home Secretary’s letter to Spencer, it would appear that the reason for the the ban is that the British government is now telling people that certain interpretations of Islam are to be proscribed, even if they may be true – a truly terrifying and totalitarian development, and an open assault upon freedom of thought and expression, not to mention religious scholarship.
And if the argument is that any criticism of Islam may incite violence against Muslims, then by the same token Mrs May should ban all criticism of Israel -- on the much firmer grounds that there is a clearly demonstrated correlation between hate campaigns against Israel and attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions. Of course, that would be unthinkable. So why the double standard?
And that is what is particularly intolerable here -- that Mrs May is allowing people to run around Britain who really are stirring up hatred and worse, but who appear to be untouchable because they are Islamists. The Commentator has drawn attention to the recent entry to Britain of Muhammad Al-Arifi, a Saudi scholar who has declared that Shia Muslims are ‘evil’ and also stated that ‘...al-Qaeda leader Sheikh Oussama Bin Laden, may his soul rest in peace, did not adopt many of the thoughts that are attributed to him today’.
The government also allowed into the country Shady Al-Suleiman, the Australian cleric who has called ‘for Allah to destroy the enemies of Islam’, who has endorsed Hamas which Britain recognises as a terrorist entity, and even endorsed the killing of British soldiers, saying, ‘Give victory to all the Mujahideen all over the world. Oh Allah, prepare us for the jihad’.
Aren’t these men, who foment sectarian division and endorse terrorism, not ‘conducive to the public good’?
So why did Mrs May ban Spencer and Geller? Was it because of the petition to do so by Hope not Hate -- which misrepresented and smeared them by claiming they called all Muslims savages (they did not)? Was it in response to one of the signatories to this petition, Tony Lloyd, Greater Manchester’s Police and Crime Commissioner (who Spencer and Geller say also misrepresented what they have said) who termed them
‘hate preachers – every bit as bad as those who use the name of Islam to propagate hatred’?
What an extraordinary thing to say. Geller and Spencer don’t go round calling for people to be killed, or preaching genocide or holy war, or spreading conspiracy theories and lies to foment hysteria and hatred. But when he was chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Tony Lloyd led a delegation to Gaza to meet leaders of Hamas, where he was photographed fraternally shaking the hand of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.So Lloyd is happy to meet with a group whose leader has called Israel a ‘cancerous tumour that must be removed’ and whose officials have said
‘the Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the earth, because they have displayed hostility to Allah…Allah will kill the Jews in the hell of the world to come, just like they killed the believers in the hell of this world’
and ‘...the Jewish faith does not wish for peace nor stability, since it is a faith that is based on murder: “I kill, therefore I am”... Israel is based only on blood and murder in order to exist, and it will disappear, with Allah's will, through blood and shahids [martyrs]’
– and yet he called for Spencer and Geller to be banned as ‘hate preachers’, a demand which the Home Secretary agrees was justified even as she allows real hate preachers to spread their poison around Britain.Has Britain now totally lost the plot?
Friday, 28 June 2013
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Sunday, 23 June 2013
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Sunday, 9 June 2013
Why have UAF(Useful Idiots)antifascists decided to target UKIP?
Until recently, I didn’t pay much attention to the UK’s
anti-fascist groups. I knew little more about them than that they
opposed the racialist British National Party.
BNP
The BNP’s success in 2009 (where they gained two members of
the European Parliament) seems to have been their undoing – the party
has fractured and been rocked by in-fighting ever since.
Former BNP MEP Andrew Brons was reported in the Telegraph
as saying that “80 or 90 per cent of the party’s members, activists and
former officials had left it”
According to Wikipedia, The BNP can now only boast one MEP
and two councillors. Their membership teeters on the brink at 4200. I
predict they will lose their remaining MEP in 2014.
Antifascists
British ‘antifascists’ then surely have two choices –
congratulate themselves on a job well done and retire from their
activities or go after the National Front, a party that has seen a
massive resurgence of late.
National Front
The resurgence of the National Front was stimulated by the
BNP’s 2010 decision to start accepting non-white members. It was also
flooded with BNP defectors dismayed by constant infighting. The party
has been holding dozens of street stalls across the nation in 2013 in
locations as diverse as Wigan and Swansea.
Recently however, anti-fascists seem to have taken the
bizarre decision to target the moderate UK Independence Party or UKIP
instead.
UKIP
Nick Lowles, director of Hope Not Hate said in a Huffington
post article : “Ukip is not a far right party, or even intrinsically
racist.” Former Labour MEP Glyn Ford, now the UAF’s Europe officer has
said “Ukip are not a fascist party”.
On a Channel Four news discussion in May 2013, the
well-known Anti-fascist campaigner Matthew Collins said: “They [UKIP]
are not a fascist organisation…they are very different to the BNP in a
lot of ways” Diane Abbot MP said at the United Against Fascism
conference “UKIP is obviously not a Fascist party”.
So why target UKIP?
So if we are not a fascist or far right party, why target
UKIP? I believe the answer is simple – many of these anti-fascist groups
are linked to the extreme left and militant elements within the Labour
party. While UKIP concentrated on taking donors, votes and councillors
from The Conservative party these groups said nothing.
When we started gaining support in the North of England,
much of which is traditionally Labour controlled, suddenly there were
hastily-arranged meetings held by these groups in which the main topic
of conversation was the increase in UKIP support. These actions are not
motivated by anti-fascist ideology at all. Anti-fascists are being
cynically used by extreme left politicians for no other reason than they
like their jobs and want to continue drawing in their huge salaries.
Nigel Farage & UKIP’s Eastleigh candidate, Diane James
Some facts about UKIP
Unlike the BNP, UKIP have never had a whites only member
policy. Our membership rules prevent ex-BNP and National Front members
from being members of UKIP. We have black and ethnic minority
candidates and seek to rebuild links with the commonwealth. While we do
want to reduce immigration, we don’t want a closed door or forced
repatriation.
In summary then, UKIP are being targeted unfairly for
purely party political reasons – and I would urge all genuine
anti-fascists to do their own homework on these issues instead of
relying on wealthy Labour and communist apparatchiks to tell you who to
oppose.
Saturday, 8 June 2013
UKIP MARCH INTO HORWICH AND LABOUR LACKEYS TOLD HOME TRUTHS
There is to be a by election later this month in Horwich, on Thurs 20th of June for a seat on Horwich Town Council.
And the good news coming in, is that the trade union lackeys who canvass for that EVIL organisation,The labour party is that they are having the doors slammed in there faces and are being widely being told what they really are. TRAITORS AND SCUM!!!!! By ordinary decent working class Horwich folk. Sick of the betrayal of there hopes and ambitions and nation. By a group of traitors that consider them sheep only to be dealt with at election time. While all the countries resources that should be spent on them . Have been given to foreigners and big multi national banks.
I must say that I have had the privilege of throwing there vile leaflets back in there faces and telling all four of them, (Yes they are afraid to go alone into white working class areas.) That they are scum and traitors.
But on a better news there is a UKIP candidate running for election , And I must say they are delivering a excellent leaflet that exposes the traitors actions of the Labour party. And I call on all Horwich residents to read the leaflet thoroughly , and also that they exercise there Democratic right before the Lib/Lab/Con alliance take it away for ever,and vote for the UKIP candidate.
I have uploaded the leaflet for you to view and hope very much that you consider what it says seriously.
And the good news coming in, is that the trade union lackeys who canvass for that EVIL organisation,The labour party is that they are having the doors slammed in there faces and are being widely being told what they really are. TRAITORS AND SCUM!!!!! By ordinary decent working class Horwich folk. Sick of the betrayal of there hopes and ambitions and nation. By a group of traitors that consider them sheep only to be dealt with at election time. While all the countries resources that should be spent on them . Have been given to foreigners and big multi national banks.
I must say that I have had the privilege of throwing there vile leaflets back in there faces and telling all four of them, (Yes they are afraid to go alone into white working class areas.) That they are scum and traitors.
But on a better news there is a UKIP candidate running for election , And I must say they are delivering a excellent leaflet that exposes the traitors actions of the Labour party. And I call on all Horwich residents to read the leaflet thoroughly , and also that they exercise there Democratic right before the Lib/Lab/Con alliance take it away for ever,and vote for the UKIP candidate.
I have uploaded the leaflet for you to view and hope very much that you consider what it says seriously.
Wednesday, 5 June 2013
Rowan Williams and Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady | Melanie Phillips
Rowan Williams and Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady | Melanie Phillips
Published in: Melanie's blog
You've really got to hand it to Dr Rowan Williams, the erstwhile Archbishop of Canterbury – he's got a sense of timing to die for.
Five years ago, he set off a cultural earthquake when, as head of the Anglican Communion, he made a speech in the Royal Courts of Justice in London in which he welcomed the 'inevitable' accommodation of Islamic sharia law in the UK.
At no stage, neither then nor subsequently, did he ever indicate that he regretted the intellectual fatuity and legal and theological shallowness of this suicide note for Britain's ancient culture. Nor the deep shock felt by many that the country's principal Christian prelate was cheerfully willing on the Balkanisation of Britain and the destruction of its foundational democratic principle of 'one law for all'. Nor even that he understood this was the import of what he had said.
Now, some ten days after the barbaric murder in Woolwich, south London of Drummer Lee Rigby at the hands of Islamic fanatics quoting the Koran, Dr Williams looks set to repeat his triumph.
In what promises to be a high-profile event in the lawyers' Temple Church in London – which for some reason has taken a lead in promoting sharia in the UK – Dr Williams will today help launch a new book, Islam and English Law, published by Cambridge University Press.
According to the pre-launch blurb, the book will ask:
However, given that the contributors to this book are
If so, then Dr Williams will doubly deserve his place in the pantheon of ridicule savaged by Douglas Murray in his dazzling new book, Islamophilia, which I am delighted to be publishing today as the latest title from my new electronic imprint, emBooks, in response to the Woolwich atrocity and its aftermath.
Islamophilia is not about terrorism. It is not about Islam. It is not about Muslims. It is instead about those utterly ridiculous public figures -- including movie stars, literary giants, pop idols, army generals, bishops, museum curators and politicians -- in whom an epidemic loss of cultural nerve and the terror of losing their reputation in fashionable circles has made them victims of the debilitating affliction of Islamophilia. The book is laugh-out-loud funny. It is also jaw-dropping. And it is tragic.
This little firecracker fulfills my aim when I launched emBooks last month – to provide a platform for writers of talent and integrity to describe the world as it is, not as some people would like to remake it. My hope is thus to get right away from the polarisation and caricatures of so much political and cultural life, and reclaim instead the true, decent, rational centre ground of western society from those who have hijacked it.
I hope lots of people will join me.
Five years ago, he set off a cultural earthquake when, as head of the Anglican Communion, he made a speech in the Royal Courts of Justice in London in which he welcomed the 'inevitable' accommodation of Islamic sharia law in the UK.
At no stage, neither then nor subsequently, did he ever indicate that he regretted the intellectual fatuity and legal and theological shallowness of this suicide note for Britain's ancient culture. Nor the deep shock felt by many that the country's principal Christian prelate was cheerfully willing on the Balkanisation of Britain and the destruction of its foundational democratic principle of 'one law for all'. Nor even that he understood this was the import of what he had said.
Now, some ten days after the barbaric murder in Woolwich, south London of Drummer Lee Rigby at the hands of Islamic fanatics quoting the Koran, Dr Williams looks set to repeat his triumph.
In what promises to be a high-profile event in the lawyers' Temple Church in London – which for some reason has taken a lead in promoting sharia in the UK – Dr Williams will today help launch a new book, Islam and English Law, published by Cambridge University Press.
According to the pre-launch blurb, the book will ask:
- 'Is sharia law compatible with the European Convention of Human Rights?
- Should English law give greater recognition to Islamic custom and practice?
- Should freedom of speech be restrained to protect Muslims' sensibilities?
- Can Muslims be full members, in good conscience and without qualification, of our pluralist society?'
'…what changes, if any, to legal provision and practice will narrow division between the UK's communities, promote understanding and accommodation – and, to improve the protection offered to them all.'
Well, I suppose it's possible that the book – along with Dr Williams -- will answer that last question by saying: 'Stop sharia now'. Such an answer would certainly bring relief to the many thousands of British Muslims who want to live in freedom and security under democracy, equal human rights and 'one law for all'.However, given that the contributors to this book are
Abdullahi An-Na'im, Mashood Baderin, Marion Boyd, Nicolas Bratza, Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, Ian Edge, Khaled Abou El Fadl, David Ford, Robin Griffith-Jones, Mark Hill, Stephen Hockman, Sydney Kentridge, Christopher McCrudden, Dominic McGoldrick, Tariq Modood, Nicholas Phillips, Tariq Ramadan, Albie Sachs, Shaheen Sardar Ali, Prakash Shah and Rowan Williams,
I'd guess that the answer to the questions listed under the bullet-points above might be mostly 'yes', 'yes', 'yes' and 'yes'.If so, then Dr Williams will doubly deserve his place in the pantheon of ridicule savaged by Douglas Murray in his dazzling new book, Islamophilia, which I am delighted to be publishing today as the latest title from my new electronic imprint, emBooks, in response to the Woolwich atrocity and its aftermath.
Islamophilia is not about terrorism. It is not about Islam. It is not about Muslims. It is instead about those utterly ridiculous public figures -- including movie stars, literary giants, pop idols, army generals, bishops, museum curators and politicians -- in whom an epidemic loss of cultural nerve and the terror of losing their reputation in fashionable circles has made them victims of the debilitating affliction of Islamophilia. The book is laugh-out-loud funny. It is also jaw-dropping. And it is tragic.
This little firecracker fulfills my aim when I launched emBooks last month – to provide a platform for writers of talent and integrity to describe the world as it is, not as some people would like to remake it. My hope is thus to get right away from the polarisation and caricatures of so much political and cultural life, and reclaim instead the true, decent, rational centre ground of western society from those who have hijacked it.
I hope lots of people will join me.
About Melanie
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She is best known for her controversial column about political and social issues which currently appears in the Daily Mail. Awarded the Orwell Prize for journalism in 1996, she is the author of All Must Have Prizes, an acclaimed study of Britain's educational and moral crisis, which provoked the fury of educationists and the delight and relief of parents.
Read full biography
Read full biography
Books
Rowan Williams and Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady | Melanie Phillips
Rowan Williams and Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady | Melanie Phillips
Published in: Melanie's blog
You've really got to hand it to Dr Rowan Williams, the erstwhile Archbishop of Canterbury – he's got a sense of timing to die for.
Five years ago, he set off a cultural earthquake when, as head of the Anglican Communion, he made a speech in the Royal Courts of Justice in London in which he welcomed the 'inevitable' accommodation of Islamic sharia law in the UK.
At no stage, neither then nor subsequently, did he ever indicate that he regretted the intellectual fatuity and legal and theological shallowness of this suicide note for Britain's ancient culture. Nor the deep shock felt by many that the country's principal Christian prelate was cheerfully willing on the Balkanisation of Britain and the destruction of its foundational democratic principle of 'one law for all'. Nor even that he understood this was the import of what he had said.
Now, some ten days after the barbaric murder in Woolwich, south London of Drummer Lee Rigby at the hands of Islamic fanatics quoting the Koran, Dr Williams looks set to repeat his triumph.
In what promises to be a high-profile event in the lawyers' Temple Church in London – which for some reason has taken a lead in promoting sharia in the UK – Dr Williams will today help launch a new book, Islam and English Law, published by Cambridge University Press.
According to the pre-launch blurb, the book will ask:
However, given that the contributors to this book are
If so, then Dr Williams will doubly deserve his place in the pantheon of ridicule savaged by Douglas Murray in his dazzling new book, Islamophilia, which I am delighted to be publishing today as the latest title from my new electronic imprint, emBooks, in response to the Woolwich atrocity and its aftermath.
Islamophilia is not about terrorism. It is not about Islam. It is not about Muslims. It is instead about those utterly ridiculous public figures -- including movie stars, literary giants, pop idols, army generals, bishops, museum curators and politicians -- in whom an epidemic loss of cultural nerve and the terror of losing their reputation in fashionable circles has made them victims of the debilitating affliction of Islamophilia. The book is laugh-out-loud funny. It is also jaw-dropping. And it is tragic.
This little firecracker fulfills my aim when I launched emBooks last month – to provide a platform for writers of talent and integrity to describe the world as it is, not as some people would like to remake it. My hope is thus to get right away from the polarisation and caricatures of so much political and cultural life, and reclaim instead the true, decent, rational centre ground of western society from those who have hijacked it.
I hope lots of people will join me.
Five years ago, he set off a cultural earthquake when, as head of the Anglican Communion, he made a speech in the Royal Courts of Justice in London in which he welcomed the 'inevitable' accommodation of Islamic sharia law in the UK.
At no stage, neither then nor subsequently, did he ever indicate that he regretted the intellectual fatuity and legal and theological shallowness of this suicide note for Britain's ancient culture. Nor the deep shock felt by many that the country's principal Christian prelate was cheerfully willing on the Balkanisation of Britain and the destruction of its foundational democratic principle of 'one law for all'. Nor even that he understood this was the import of what he had said.
Now, some ten days after the barbaric murder in Woolwich, south London of Drummer Lee Rigby at the hands of Islamic fanatics quoting the Koran, Dr Williams looks set to repeat his triumph.
In what promises to be a high-profile event in the lawyers' Temple Church in London – which for some reason has taken a lead in promoting sharia in the UK – Dr Williams will today help launch a new book, Islam and English Law, published by Cambridge University Press.
According to the pre-launch blurb, the book will ask:
- 'Is sharia law compatible with the European Convention of Human Rights?
- Should English law give greater recognition to Islamic custom and practice?
- Should freedom of speech be restrained to protect Muslims' sensibilities?
- Can Muslims be full members, in good conscience and without qualification, of our pluralist society?'
'…what changes, if any, to legal provision and practice will narrow division between the UK's communities, promote understanding and accommodation – and, to improve the protection offered to them all.'
Well, I suppose it's possible that the book – along with Dr Williams -- will answer that last question by saying: 'Stop sharia now'. Such an answer would certainly bring relief to the many thousands of British Muslims who want to live in freedom and security under democracy, equal human rights and 'one law for all'.However, given that the contributors to this book are
Abdullahi An-Na'im, Mashood Baderin, Marion Boyd, Nicolas Bratza, Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, Ian Edge, Khaled Abou El Fadl, David Ford, Robin Griffith-Jones, Mark Hill, Stephen Hockman, Sydney Kentridge, Christopher McCrudden, Dominic McGoldrick, Tariq Modood, Nicholas Phillips, Tariq Ramadan, Albie Sachs, Shaheen Sardar Ali, Prakash Shah and Rowan Williams,
I'd guess that the answer to the questions listed under the bullet-points above might be mostly 'yes', 'yes', 'yes' and 'yes'.If so, then Dr Williams will doubly deserve his place in the pantheon of ridicule savaged by Douglas Murray in his dazzling new book, Islamophilia, which I am delighted to be publishing today as the latest title from my new electronic imprint, emBooks, in response to the Woolwich atrocity and its aftermath.
Islamophilia is not about terrorism. It is not about Islam. It is not about Muslims. It is instead about those utterly ridiculous public figures -- including movie stars, literary giants, pop idols, army generals, bishops, museum curators and politicians -- in whom an epidemic loss of cultural nerve and the terror of losing their reputation in fashionable circles has made them victims of the debilitating affliction of Islamophilia. The book is laugh-out-loud funny. It is also jaw-dropping. And it is tragic.
This little firecracker fulfills my aim when I launched emBooks last month – to provide a platform for writers of talent and integrity to describe the world as it is, not as some people would like to remake it. My hope is thus to get right away from the polarisation and caricatures of so much political and cultural life, and reclaim instead the true, decent, rational centre ground of western society from those who have hijacked it.
I hope lots of people will join me.
About Melanie
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She is best known for her controversial column about political and social issues which currently appears in the Daily Mail. Awarded the Orwell Prize for journalism in 1996, she is the author of All Must Have Prizes, an acclaimed study of Britain's educational and moral crisis, which provoked the fury of educationists and the delight and relief of parents.
Read full biography
Read full biography
Books
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
Tommy Robinson EDL speech Newcastle May 2013 Woolwich responce
Tommy Robinson Speech to the EDL at Newcastle over the brutal murder at Woolwich
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
The End Of Britain A Financial View
A superb video from money week on the end of our nations economy , and the reasons why .
we at Horwich nationalists recomend to all ,
1st buy a Bible, it,s all in there.
2nd Buy silver
3rd Get out of London and the major ethnically cleansed areas of our nation.
we at Horwich nationalists recomend to all ,
1st buy a Bible, it,s all in there.
2nd Buy silver
3rd Get out of London and the major ethnically cleansed areas of our nation.
Friday, 10 May 2013
Obamastan | Melanie Phillips
Obamastan | Melanie Phillips
Fort Hood, Benghazi, the Boston bombings, Iran/Syria, Israel. The pattern is unmistakeable; the danger to America is exponentially increasing; the scandal is deepening into something nearer to a national crisis.
The Obama administration is playing down the Islamist threat to the US and the free world, empowering Islamists at home and abroad, endangering America and betraying its allies -- and covering up its egregious failure to protect the homeland as a result of all the above, while instead blaming America for its own victimisation.
What is coming out in the Benghazi hearings would be jaw-dropping if it had not been apparent from the get-go that the administration failed to protect its own people in the beseiged American mission where Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff were murdered in 2012, then lied about the fact that this was an Islamist attack, and then covered up both its failure and its lie. (Apparent, that is, to some -- but not to the American media, most of which gave the Obama administration a free pass on the scandal in order to ensure the smooth re-election of The One).
But the administration has form on this -- serious, continuing form. After the Fort Hood massacre in 2009, in which an Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas shouting ‘Allahu akhbar’, not only was it revealed that his radicalisation and extremist links had been ignored but the Department of Defense and federal law enforcement agencies classified the shootings merely as an act of ‘workplace violence’.
Weeks after the Boston marathon terrorist atrocity, there is still no explanation of why the FBI did not act against the Tsarnaev brothers, despite having had one of them on their books as a dangerous Islamic radical after a warning from Russian intelligence; and why, as the House Homeland Security Committee heard yesterday, the FBI didn’t pass on their suspicions about the brothers to the Boston police.
Even now, the US authorities are playing down or even dismissing Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s extremist Islamic views. Whether or not the brothers had links to foreign extremists is still unclear. But what is bizarre is the authorities’ belief that if they did not have any such links, they cannot have had any religious motive.
Despite evidence such as Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s outbursts at a Boston mosque, where he denounced clerics' references to Thanksgiving and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as ‘contrary to Islam’, the brothers were described by Philip Mudd, the former Deputy Director of National Security at the FBI and the former Deputy Director of the Counterterrorist Centre for the CIA, as merely ‘angry kids’. Mudd told Charlie Rose:
The wilful and perverse refusal to acknowledge the religious nature of this holy war -- and worse, to lay the blame for such terrorism on the the society that is its victim -- is what lies behind the Benghazi scandal.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearings this week produced testimony from Gregory Hicks, the former deputy to the murdered Ambassador Stevens, that was simply devastating for the Obama administration and its former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton -- who infamously erupted, under questioning last January about the nature of the attack,
After the attack, the Obama administration claimed that it had resulted from a protest that had got out of hand over an anti-islam YouTube video. But Mr Hicks testified that it was known from the start that it was a jihadi attack which had nothing to do with that video. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Meanwhile, from the beginning of this affair there have also been persistent questions about quite what the US mission was actually doing in Benghazi. Now the Washington Times has reported this:
This is a President who, by persisting with the charade of negotiation with Iran over its race to manufacture its nuclear bomb, has allowed it to become the dominant power in the region.
That is why Iran’s puppet Assad, who has just accrued hundreds of Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists to help him win his bloody civil war, has been able to slaughter more than 80,000 Syrians and use chemical weapons against them -- while Obama himself may have ineptly armed al Qaeda inside Syria. For the Washington Times report goes on:
The Benghazi attack was not just appalling in itself; nor was there merely almost certainly a catastrophic failure by the Obama administration to protect its people, and then a mighty cover-up of that failure. Benghazi also serves as a symbol of America’s tragic abandonment, under the Obama administration, of its historic mission to protect life and liberty both in its own homeland and in the free world.
Welcome to Obamastan.
The Obama administration is playing down the Islamist threat to the US and the free world, empowering Islamists at home and abroad, endangering America and betraying its allies -- and covering up its egregious failure to protect the homeland as a result of all the above, while instead blaming America for its own victimisation.
What is coming out in the Benghazi hearings would be jaw-dropping if it had not been apparent from the get-go that the administration failed to protect its own people in the beseiged American mission where Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff were murdered in 2012, then lied about the fact that this was an Islamist attack, and then covered up both its failure and its lie. (Apparent, that is, to some -- but not to the American media, most of which gave the Obama administration a free pass on the scandal in order to ensure the smooth re-election of The One).
But the administration has form on this -- serious, continuing form. After the Fort Hood massacre in 2009, in which an Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas shouting ‘Allahu akhbar’, not only was it revealed that his radicalisation and extremist links had been ignored but the Department of Defense and federal law enforcement agencies classified the shootings merely as an act of ‘workplace violence’.
Weeks after the Boston marathon terrorist atrocity, there is still no explanation of why the FBI did not act against the Tsarnaev brothers, despite having had one of them on their books as a dangerous Islamic radical after a warning from Russian intelligence; and why, as the House Homeland Security Committee heard yesterday, the FBI didn’t pass on their suspicions about the brothers to the Boston police.
Even now, the US authorities are playing down or even dismissing Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s extremist Islamic views. Whether or not the brothers had links to foreign extremists is still unclear. But what is bizarre is the authorities’ belief that if they did not have any such links, they cannot have had any religious motive.
Despite evidence such as Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s outbursts at a Boston mosque, where he denounced clerics' references to Thanksgiving and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as ‘contrary to Islam’, the brothers were described by Philip Mudd, the former Deputy Director of National Security at the FBI and the former Deputy Director of the Counterterrorist Centre for the CIA, as merely ‘angry kids’. Mudd told Charlie Rose:
‘They may be disenfranchised. They may have had a bad experience at school. They may not have friends, and they say, “Look, we want to do something.” This tactic of terrorism is a tactic of the 21st century. I don’t necessarily think these are real jihadi terrorists. I think they’re angry kids.’
You really do have to pinch yourself. How in heaven’s name can a guy like Mudd, with his background in so-called intelligence, possibly come up with anything quite so stupendously shallow? It is precisely such angry, isolated, disturbed kids who are vulnerable to Islamist preachers who target, groom and manipulate them -- whether in person or through the internet -- to believe that ‘Islam is the answer’ and that they are its soldiers engaged in holy war against the unbelievers.The wilful and perverse refusal to acknowledge the religious nature of this holy war -- and worse, to lay the blame for such terrorism on the the society that is its victim -- is what lies behind the Benghazi scandal.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearings this week produced testimony from Gregory Hicks, the former deputy to the murdered Ambassador Stevens, that was simply devastating for the Obama administration and its former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton -- who infamously erupted, under questioning last January about the nature of the attack,
‘What difference, at this point, does it make?’
Well, Mr Hicks has started to provide the answer. Despite repeated calls for more security to combat the clear threat of jihadi attack on the US mission, Mrs Clinton’s State Department had farmed out its security to none other than a jihadist group. When the fatal attack started, Mr Hicks vainly appealed for fighter jets to buzz the besieged compound. As the Times (£) reported:‘When a team of four special forces troops were about to leave Tripoli, at Mr Hicks's request, their leader had to stand them down because he was not cleared by senior military chiefs to travel. Mr Hicks said the furious officer told him: “This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has shown more balls than someone in the military.”’
Disingenuously, the Pentagon says in response that no forces could have arrived in time to mount a rescue. But there was more lethal testimony from Mr Hicks.After the attack, the Obama administration claimed that it had resulted from a protest that had got out of hand over an anti-islam YouTube video. But Mr Hicks testified that it was known from the start that it was a jihadi attack which had nothing to do with that video. The Wall Street Journal reported:
‘Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Tripoli, recalled his last conversation with Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who told him, "Greg, we're under attack." Mr. Hicks said he knew then that Islamists were behind the assault. In other words, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's public claim at the time that an anti-Islam YouTube video spurred the assault was known inside the government to be false when she and White House spokesman Jay Carney said it.
‘Mr. Hicks said he briefed Mrs. Clinton that night, yet the father of victim Tyrone Woods says she later told him that the YouTube video maker would be “prosecuted and arrested” as if he were responsible for Benghazi. Stranger still, Mr. Hicks says Mrs. Clinton's then chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, ordered him not to give solo interviews about the attack to a visiting Congressional delegation.’
Mr Hicks further claims that he was instructed by officials not to talk to congressional investigators, and then demoted after he asked why senior Clinton aides had blamed the attack on a video protest. Again, officials have denied his claim of demotion. But the cat is now out of the bag. The Times (£) reports that an e-mail has surfaced revealing that senior State Department figures — including Ms Clinton — knew within 24 hours that the group responsible for the Benghazi attack was linked to Islamic terrorists.Meanwhile, from the beginning of this affair there have also been persistent questions about quite what the US mission was actually doing in Benghazi. Now the Washington Times has reported this:
‘A U.S. intelligence official tells Inside the Ring that the hearing and congressional inquiries have failed to delve into what the official said is another major scandal: CIA covert arms shipments to Syrian rebels through Benghazi.
‘Separately, a second intelligence source said CIA operations in Libya were based on a presidential finding signed in March 2011 outlining covert support to the Libyans. This source said there were signs that some of the arms used in the Benghazi attack — assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades — ended up in the hands of the terrorists who carried out the Benghazi attack as a result of the CIA operation in Libya.
‘The unanswered questions — that appear unasked by most congressional investigators — include whether the CIA facility in Benghazi near the diplomatic compound and the contingent of agency officers working there played a role in the covert transfer through Turkey of captured Libyan weapons or personnel to rebels fighting the Bashar Assad regime in Syria.
‘“There was a ship that transported something to Turkey around the time Ambassador Chris Stevens met with a Turkish diplomat within hours of his murder,” the official said. “Was the president's overt or covert policy to arm Syrian rebels?”’
Was it indeed. If it was, then Benghazi might turn out to be yet another and particularly terrible example of the damage Obama has wrought upon the security of America and the free world.This is a President who, by persisting with the charade of negotiation with Iran over its race to manufacture its nuclear bomb, has allowed it to become the dominant power in the region.
That is why Iran’s puppet Assad, who has just accrued hundreds of Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists to help him win his bloody civil war, has been able to slaughter more than 80,000 Syrians and use chemical weapons against them -- while Obama himself may have ineptly armed al Qaeda inside Syria. For the Washington Times report goes on:
‘The official said congressional investigators need to ask whether the president indirectly or directly helped bolster al Qaeda-linked terrorists in the Jabhat al-Nusrah front rebel group in Syria and whether the CIA ran guns and other weapons captured in Libya to the organization.
‘“Every troubling Middle East-Southwest Asia country — Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and now maybe Syria — where the Obama administration made a significant policy push has gone over to Islamists that are now much more hostile to the United States,” the official said.’
Precisely.The Benghazi attack was not just appalling in itself; nor was there merely almost certainly a catastrophic failure by the Obama administration to protect its people, and then a mighty cover-up of that failure. Benghazi also serves as a symbol of America’s tragic abandonment, under the Obama administration, of its historic mission to protect life and liberty both in its own homeland and in the free world.
Welcome to Obamastan.
Friday, 26 April 2013
THE LIBERAL DELUSION
THE LIBERAL DELUSION
From the Liberal Delusion.com
From the Liberal Delusion.com
Chapter One
Is western society based on a
mistake? Fundamental to any society is its understanding of human
nature. It shapes our worldview and explains other people’s behaviour.
It affects attitudes and practices on a whole range of issues including:
interpersonal relations, the upbringing and education of children,
family policy, welfare, economics and penal policy. Our understanding of
human nature is crucial, yet we rarely - if ever - discuss it. Since
the 1960s the dominant view of human nature in the west has been a
liberal one. The word ‘liberal’ is hard to define - a bit like nailing
jelly to a wall. Nevertheless, here goes ! The word ‘liberal’ comes from
the Latin ‘liber’ meaning free. Freedom lies at the heart of
liberalism: free love; freedom from rules, regulations and restraints;
freedom from external authority; freedom of thought; freedom from
superstition and ignorance; freedom from oppression, hierarchy and
privilege; freedom from the past and tradition.
In practice it has led to: the liberalisation
of the laws on drinking alcohol, gambling, divorce and abortion, a
sexually promiscuous society, economic liberalism with free markets and
deregulation, and the ending of censorship. I hope it is clear that I am
not using the word ‘liberal’ in any party political sense, but rather
indicating a mindset and worldview. In other words ‘liberalism’ with a
small ‘l’, not a capital ‘L’. Most liberals are decent
well-meaning people, who are rightly concerned about fairness and social
justice. Also in the past liberals played a positive role in fighting
social and racial prejudices. However these positive aspects should not
prevent criticism of liberal ideas in the present.
The belief in freedom rests on an unspoken
assumption – the goodness of human nature. If we are good, it makes
sense to increase freedom, because we do not need restrictions, rules,
morality or religion. Freedom will not be abused; our natural goodness
will prevent this. Therefore we can liberalise laws and adopt liberal
attitudes, and no harm will come. So maximising freedom assumes human
nature is essentially good. I believe this assumption is mistaken. In
this book I aim to show that it is contradicted by recent scientific
discoveries, by the insights of Freud and Jung, by the evidence of
history and by the experience of social workers.
Our view of human nature has changed over
time. For thousands of years Judeo-Christian societies were based on the
Bible. In the story of the Garden of Eden God forewarned Adam and Eve
not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They
ignored the warning and ate the forbidden fruit. As a result, they were
driven out of the Garden. This allegory stands for the
imperfection of human nature and the reality of evil. In religious
jargon - we are sinners. This does not mean we are wholly bad – in the
Middle Ages the word ‘sinner’ was used in archery for an arrow that fell
short of its target. We are imperfect - not totally depraved. On this
understanding children are sinners too and need to be disciplined and
socialised by parents and the community, so they can become productive
members of society. Also parents are wiser and more experienced than
children, and so should be respected. In the words of Thomas Sowell, the
leading African American philosopher, “Each new generation born is in
effect an invasion of little barbarians, who must be civilised before it
is too late.”[4] In this tradition stands the 17th century English thinker Thomas Hobbes, who regarded human beings as self-centred, and saw conflict as endemic in social life.
This Biblical view of a flawed human nature
was challenged around 300 years ago in the Enlightenment, which turned
traditional notions upside down. For example Rousseau claimed children
are born wholly good, but later their families and society warp them. In
his own words, “Man is born happy and good, but society corrupts him
and makes him unhappy.”[5]
On his theory children are pure and innocent, whereas parents and
society have been corrupted, so children are morally superior to adults.
It follows that parents should respect their children who are leading
us to a better world. These Enlightenment ideas partly explains our
present reluctance to discipline children. Child-rearing and education
have fundamentally altered over the last hundred years. We have gone
from a strict, authoritarian approach, to ‘progressive’ ideas and
child-centred learning. One contributor to this trend was the founder of
Summerhill school - A. S. Neill, who believed children are “naturally
wise and good.”[6]
So they should be given the maximum amount of freedom, and never be
disciplined. He represents an extreme form of liberalism, but his and
other ‘progressive’ ideas have seeped into the educational system,
resulting in some secondary schools that are marked by ill-discipline
and anarchy. In Britain today school councils of pupils
have been set up, which in some cases have even appointed teachers. A
friend of ours teaches 4 and 5 years olds at a local primary school. She
has found recently that more and more of the children starting at the
school are aggressive, assertive, disobedient and very difficult to
control.
In 2010 Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology
at Kent University, wrote “A substantial group of parents have given up
disciplining their kids altogether…. Powerful cultural pressures are
making parents uncomfortable disciplining their children.”[7]
Parents have abandoned ‘tough love’ and try instead to be friends with
their children. These ideas have empowered children and enfeebled
teachers and parents, whose authority has been called into question.
Their confidence in disciplining children has been undermined. Parents
no longer feel able or willing to tell their children what to do. It
seems now that children teach parents, rather that being taught by
parents. As a result many children grow up knowing few boundaries, which
often leads to unruly youths and anti-social behaviour. The riots in
English cities in August 2011 are a stark illustration of this.
Also on this theory, criminals are
essentially good, but have been warped by society, and so should be seen
as victims of society, rather than offenders. This has affected our
penal policies and the treatment of criminals. I helped run Victim
Awareness courses in a local prison. At the end of one session, a group
leader said that one of her group had been born very poor in Jamaica and
wanted to make money – not unreasonably. He figured the best way was to
run drugs into England. He did not have a British passport, so he had
to use a fake one – not unreasonably. As a result he was now serving
time for drug running. The group leader said we should think of him as a
victim, not a wrongdoer. Additionally the prisoners in their
cells have televisions, set-top boxes, computers and game consoles. They
wear their own clothes; cook their own food; and a new block is being
built with en-suite showers. One prisoner said to me - with no prompting
on my part - “It’s like Butlins in here mate.”
However the liberal understanding of human
nature has been contradicted by science, according to Steven Pinker, who
is Professor of Psychology at Harvard. He argues that recent scientific
discoveries relating to evolutionary psychology and genetics -
including the Human Genome Project - have undermined the belief in
inborn goodness. They have revealed a flawed human nature. He wrote,
“Genetics and neuroscience show that a heart of darkness cannot always
be blamed on parents and society.”[8]
In other words: the human capacity for evil is inborn. Pinker claims
these discoveries undermine the worldview of many intellectuals. In his
own words, “They eat away at the cherished assumptions of modern
intellectual life.”[9]
Pinker rejects the idea of Richard Dawkins and others that the
end-product of evolution is altruistic and unselfish human beings.
Dawkins argues that blackbirds feed a cuckoo chick in their nest,
because they are programmed to feed their own chicks, but their brains
‘misfire’ so they feed other chicks in their nest as well. He believes
human brains misfire in a similar way, and as a result we love everyone,
not just our kin. Pinker rejects this as nonsense. His stark conclusion
is: “In a nutshell: Hobbes was right, Rousseau was wrong.”[10]
Far from mankind being innately good, Pinker gives a list of inherited
human defects, including: the primacy of kinship; limited sharing within
human groups; universality of violence, dominance and ethnocentrism;
self-deception about our own wisdom and fairness; and a moral sense
warped by kinship and friendship.[11] If Pinker is right, then the idea that men and women are born good is unscientific and mistaken.
Liberal thinking was also rejected by Freud,
who saw the mind as an arena of conflict between our conscious and
unconscious minds, and between the superego (the conscience) and the id
(the instincts such as the sex drive). Powerful forces in our
unconscious minds have an influence on our thinking and behaviour of
which we are unaware. Jung went further. He dismissed the notion of
inborn goodness as nonsense. He held that an understanding of our flawed
nature was necessary for us, but we are resistant to the truth. He
wrote: “The jungle is in us, in our unconscious, and the
psychologist who tries to expose the blind spot faces a thankless task.
The human mind carefully refrains from looking into itself.”[12]
And “All that nonsense about man’s inborn goodness, which has addled so
many brains after the dogma of Original Sin was no longer understood,
was blown to the winds by Freud, and the little that remains will, let
us hope, be driven out for good by the barbarism of the twentieth
century.”[13] [Original sin is religious jargon for the idea that we are born imperfect and sinful, rather than innately wise and good.]
Criticism of liberal values has also come
from the youth worker and pamphleteer Shaun Bailey. He grew up in a
deprived inner city part of London and set up a charity called
MyGeneration, which works with disadvantaged youngsters. His background
is in the West Indian community of west London, where he was brought up
by a single mother on a council estate. He claims liberalism harms the
poor, “The more liberal we have become, the more the poor have
suffered.”[14]
He describes the outcome of liberal policies as: a lack of discipline
in schools; the erosion of marriage; the subversion of parental
authority; encouraging free love and casual sex; fostering dependency;
and the relaxation of the laws governing drugs and alcohol. He accuses
the middle-class liberals of living their lovely lives in leafy suburbs
unaware of the damage their policies cause to working class communities.
History too provides plenty of evidence of human evil. The 20th
century showed the ugly side of mankind: the slaughter in the trenches
in World War One; the deaths of over 120 million under communism - 50
million in the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1953, 70 million peacetime
deaths under Mao, plus those who died in the killing fields of Cambodia
and elsewhere.[15]
These deaths are in addition to the 6 million victims of the Holocaust.
Everyday there are news stories of murder, violence and war.
Anthropologists have found that most primitive societies are violent and
conflict-ridden, thus confirming human nature is flawed. So the
evidence against the belief in innate human goodness comes from science,
psychology, history, anthropology and social workers.
Despite all this evidence liberalism has not
merely survived, it has become dominant in western societies. This is a
puzzle. Why does it persist in the face of so many objections, and the
evidence of human evil in history? The answer, I believe, lies in its
emotional appeal. In his book The God Delusion Richard Dawkins
exemplifies this, writing, “I dearly want to believe we do not need
policing - whether by God or each other – in order to stop us behaving
in a selfish or criminal manner.”[16]
This is sentimental and unscientific. It is based on ignorance of human
psychology and history. It may be easy to think mankind is good, if you
have been brought up by loving parents in a nice area and led a
sheltered life. Your fundamental assumption is - unselfishness and
kindness are normal. You may be surprised by reports of child abuse,
domestic violence and murder, as well as bloodshed in other parts of the
world, but you regard these as exceptions. One self-styled liberal said
to me, “To be frank I live in a middle-class bubble. I’m not really
aware of what goes on in poor communities.”
Many people are deeply wedded to their
utopian worldview. They resist any questioning of it. We prefer to think
of ourselves as wise, rational and virtuous, rather than flawed,
self-centred and fallible. It is nice to think that other human beings
are essentially good. I remember discussing the topic with a nice old
lady, who lived in a village in the Chilterns. She told me she would be
depressed if she thought other people were unkind and bad; she preferred
to believe in human goodness. She said to me, “I don’t want to
believe that mankind is flawed.” Was she a seeker after truth or
someone who had found her comfort blanket? T. S. Eliot wrote, “Humankind
cannot bear very much reality.”[17]
However there is a problem with the rose-tinted and optimistic view of
human nature: it can lead, for example, to a failure to socialise and
discipline children, and then the outcome can be anti-social behaviour.
Whereas if you accept reality, you can take steps to deal with the
problems. But haven’t some societies been too strict and disciplined?
Yes, that is true. However the abuse does not remove the use. Just
because some societies have been too disciplinarian, does not mean there
is no place for discipline.
It was in the 1960s that a liberal and
progressive consensus came to dominate British society. The Labour Home
Secretary Roy Jenkins claimed a liberal society was a civilised one.
However, looking round Britain today, ‘civilised’ is not always the word
that comes to mind. Our society is marked by binge drinking, broken
families, a growth in violent crime and a decline in trust. We have
taken sexual liberation too far and have the highest rate of teenage
pregnancies in Europe. As Jung observed, humanity only thrives when
spirit and instinct are in harmony, “Too much of the animal distorts the
civilised man, too much civilisation makes sick animals.”[18]
We have gone from the Victorian society’s denial of sex, to one that is
obsessed by sex: from the dominance of the superego, to the triumph of
the id. Our phoney understanding of Freud believes that we
should never deny our sexual urges, and that any thwarting of our sexual
instincts will result in neurosis.
My attempts to discuss these ideas with liberal friends have met with very limited success. In his book Liberalism and its Discontents,
the distinguished American historian Alan Brinkley wrote of, “An
unwillingness or inability of many liberals to look sceptically or
critically at their own values and assumptions.“[19]
I have often met a refusal to engage with the evidence and the
arguments. Steven Pinker has also encountered opposition and personal
abuse. Those who challenge the liberal hegemony have been called
‘fascist’ or ‘Nazi’. Pinker wrote, “Part of the responsibility of
intellectuals is not to trivialise the horror of Nazism by exploiting it
for rhetorical clout in academic cat-fights. Linking people you
disagree with to Nazism does nothing for the memory of Hitler’s victims,
or for the effort to prevent other genocides.”[20]
So is this book a straight-forward attack on
liberalism? No. It is not as simple as that. There are some areas where I
believe liberals are right. I acknowledge that some liberalism is
necessary and beneficial. Few would want to go back to the restrictions
of the Victorian era or live under a despot. There was also
a need to free us from a negative attitude to sex. Liberals are right
to be concerned about inequality and to fight for social justice. There
still remain great inequalities and their campaign for greater fairness
deserves support. I welcome the undermining of the class system, the
greater opportunities open to women, and the improved treatment of
racial and sexual minorities – the decriminalising of homosexuality is
an obvious example. However some liberals seem to think that they have a
monopoly of caring. Thomas Sowell, the leading African-American
philosopher, commented “Liberals assume that if you don’t accept their
policies, then you don’t care about the people they want to help.”[21]
There is, I believe, a downside to
liberalism. Freedom has often turned into selfish hedonism. We have
neglected other values: the importance of social cohesion, of duties,
obligations and responsibilities to others. We have lost ideals of
self-restraint and self-discipline. So my argument is not that all
liberalism is bad, but rather that in many areas we have become too
liberal; that the liberal pendulum has swung too far. Liberty has become
licence. Liberalism is like cholesterol: there are good and bad sorts.
Therefore we urgently need to evaluate the positive and negative aspects
of liberalism, and to discard those which harm society. In the next
chapter I present the evidence against the belief in the goodness of
human nature from science, anthropology, psychology and history.
[15] The figure of 51million in the case of the Soviet Union and Soviet Russia see Norman Davies book Europe(London Pimlico 1997) based on the work of Robert Conquest and Roy Medvedev (Appendix III) and the figure of 70 million under Mao see Mao: the Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (London Jonathan Cape 2005)
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