“Muslim courts will always remain 'subservient' to English law, Jack Straw declared last night.” -- from this news article
Jack Straw can say this will "never" happen and sit back on his woolsack -- yes, so can he, and so could any man who happened to be Lord Chancellor, but will this "never" really "never" happen? If the number of adherents of Islam in the United Kingdom steadily increases, as has happened all over the lands of Western Europe, then of course, inexorably, the Shari'a will be applied, and a weakened and diminished non-Muslim population will be unable to put up resistance.
This should not be hard to grasp. Demography turns out to be, in this respect as in so many others, destiny. It is up to the intelligent Infidels to grasp this in time, instead of remaining complacent and even taking heart from such a remark as that made by Jack Straw. They can quietly come to the conclusion that they have no obligation to turn their country into something it was not meant to be, because in a fit of colossal absentmindedness or criminal negligence (choose one or both), they allowed into their lands those who carried undeclared in their mental baggage not only an alien, but a permanently hostile creed, and one whose effects can be seen in any of the lands where Islam dominates and Muslims rule.
Westerners, including the citizens of the United Kingdom, have both a right and a duty to defend the civilizational legacy that they inherited, one that could not have for one minute been created under Islam. This is what they inherited. This is what, however ungrateful they may at present appear to be, they have to learn about, and comprehend the circumstances of its creation over time, and why it is worth preserving. Even if they cannot add their mite, and few can, they can at least prevent others from gnawing away at it, causing it to crumble, or even, as with the Bamiyan Buddhas, blowing it all up.
For a sampling of what historians think of Jack Straw, consult an article entitled “Your view of history is bunk, academics tell Jack Straw” by Michael Paterson. Straw is quoted as saying that “a lot of the problems that we are having to deal with now - I have to deal with now - are a consequence of our colonial past."
Straw on the Subcontinent: "India-Pakistan - we made some quite serious mistakes. We were complacent with what happened in Kashmir, the boundaries weren't published until two days after independence. The consequences are still there."
Straw on Afghanistan: "We played less than a glorious role over a century and a half."
Straw on the Arab-Israeli conflict: Britain’s role was "not entirely an honourable one".
Note Straw's remark that Britain’s role in the Israeli-Arab conflict was “not entirely an honourable one." Jack Straw is not here referring, you can be sure, to the British administration of Mandatory Palestine, which was entirely intent on betraying the solemn commitments that Great Britain had made to the League of Nations in order to become the Mandatory power, and was in fact bent on not fulfilling the League of Nations' promise to create the Jewish National Home. The only exceptions in Mandatory Palestine itself (there was Wyndham Deedes in London) were Orde Wingate (expelled from Palestine because he actually believed in helping the Jews learn how to defend themselves from Arab attack), and earlier, Col. Richard Meinertzhagen (see the "Diary" of Meinertzhagen).
No, what the ill-informed Jack Straw is referring to is the nonsensical and baseless Arab insistence that certain promises were made to them that the British betrayed. This is completely false. The Hussein-Macmahon correspondence, which was thoroughly studied by Elie Kedourie, shows exactly what "promise" was made by the British -- none. The "promise" made by MacMahon 1) could not bind the British government, and the Arabs understood this perfectly; and what is more important, 2) explicitly excluded the territory of what became Mandatory Palestine from its purview -- as MacMahon kept insisting and finally, fed up with Arab misstatements, set out clearly in a letter to the London Times in late July 1937. This can all be found in Elie Kedourie's article on the MacMahon-Hussein correspondence (see the collection of articles "Islam in the Modern World").
Straw is a former National Union of Students leader. He does not know the history of Great Britain. He only knows the standard caricature history of the Empire, and of figures such as Palmerston. Somehow the Foreign Office has kept him from reading Kedourie and J. B. Kelly both. If he did, he would save himself from a great deal of error.
And if he studied Islam, what is actually in the texts, and what every great Western historian of Islam, and of Jihad, has written about it (he can find representative examples in the anthology "The Legacy of Jihad"), and what Muslim jurisconsults themselves have written (ditto), he might change his tune. But he won't, because he will not study, will not learn. Don't confuse the Jack Straws of this world with history.
Idiots rule. Straw is a fool. Historians know it. Visitors to Jihad Watch know it. When will enough people in England know it?
Frederick Forsyth thought Jack Straw was a hypocrite:
“Disproportionate”?
By Frederick Forsyth
(London) Daily Express
August 11, 2006
It must surely be true that the level of lies and hypocrisy that a society can tolerate is in direct proportion to the degeneration of that culture.
Personally I am not particularly pro or anti Israel, pro or anti Arab or pro or anti Islam. But I do have a dislike of myth, hypocrisy and lies as opposed to reality, fairness and truth.
Watching the bombing of Lebanon it is impossible not to feel horror and pity for the innocent civilians killed, wounded or rendered homeless. But certain of our politicians, seeking easy populism and the cheapest round of applause in modern history, have called the Israeli response “disproportionate”. Among these politicos are Jack Straw and that master of EU negotiations William Hague.
That accusation can only mean: “disproportionate to the aggression levelled against them”. Really? Why did the accusers not mention Serbia? What has Serbia got to do with it? Let’s refresh our memories.
In 1999 five Nato air forces – US, British, French, Italian and German – began to plaster Yugoslavia, effectively the tiny and defenceless province of Serbia. We were not at war with the Serbs, we had no reason to hate them, they had not attacked us and no Serbian rockets were falling on us.
But we practically bombed them back to the Stone Age. We took out every bridge we could see. We trashed their TV station, army barracks, airfields and motorways.
We were not fighting for our lives and no terrorists were skulking among the civilian population but we hit apartment blocks and factories anyway. There were civilian casualties. We did not do it for 25 days but for 73. We bombed this little country economically back 30 years by converting its infrastructure into rubble. Why?
We were trying to persuade one dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, to pull his troops out of Kosovo, which happened to be (and still is) a Yugoslav province. The dictator finally cracked; shortly afterwards he was toppled but it was his fellow Serbs who did that, no Nato.
Before the destruction of Serbia, Kosovo was a nightmare of ethnic hatred. It still is. If we wanted to liberate the Kosovans why did we not just invade? Why blow Serbian civilians to bits?
Here is my point. In all those 73 days of bombing Serbia I never heard one British moralist use the word “disproportionate”.
The entire point of Hizbullah is not to resolve some border dispute with Israel; its aim is to wipe Israel off the map, as expressed by Hizbullah’s master, the crazed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. That aim includes the eradication of every Israeli Jew; i.e. genocide.
Serbia never once threatened to wipe the UK off the map or slaughter our citizens, yet Straw, in office in 1999, and Hague, leading the Conservative Party, never objected to Serbia being bombed.
As an ex-RAF officer I am persuaded the Israelis fighter pilots are hitting civilian-free targets with 95% of their strikes. These are the hits no TV network bothers to cover. It is the 5% that causes the coverage and the horror: wrong target, unseen civilians in the cellar, misfire, unavoidable collateral casualties. Unavoidable?
Israel has said I effect, “If you seek to wipe us out we will defend ourselves to the death. You offer us no quarter, so we will offer none to you. But if you choose intentionally, inadvertently, or through the stupidity of your government to protect and shelter the killers among yourselves then with deepest regret, we cannot guarantee your exemption.”
Yesterday we Brits learned that certain elements in our society had tried to organise a mass slaughter of citizens flying out of our airports. We will have to take draconian measures against these enemies in our midst. Will Messrs Hague and Straw complain our methods are disproportionate? Not a chance. Now that, dear readers, is blatant hypocrisy.
Frederick Forsyth, by the way, was one of only two Western writers to report truthfully on the war in Biafra. The other was Renata Adler, in her excellent reporting for The New Yorker.. Neither, of course, used the word "Jihad" (as Colonel Ojukwu did in his Ohiara Declaration). Neither was familiar with Usman dan Fodio and the Jihad in West Africa that lasted from 1804 to 1810. But they did know that the Biafrans deserved support. They did know that Egyptian Muslim pilots strafed, at will, helpless Ibo (or Igbo) villages. They knew a lot. And they also knew that the entire Western world was determined not to help Biafra, because of grotesque considerations such as "Nigeria is Africa's largest black nation so we can't let it break up, no matter what that means for the Ibos."
We knew where Straw stood when he came out screaming after Yassin was graced by a salvo from an IAF helicopter gunship.
"And if he studied Islam, what is actually in the texts, and what every great Western historian of Islam, and of Jihad, has written about it (he can find representative examples in the anthology "The Legacy of Jihad"), and what Muslim jurisconsults themselves have written (ditto), he might change his tune."
You assume he hasn't studied Islam - his actions do not discount the fact that he may be well versed in the ways of the Jihad ..there are after all : electoral considerations , the issue of tolerance , societal harmony considerations , ideological blinkering , his comfort zone, guilt issues and of course soothing whispers by trusted Muslim confidentes.....there again you did say "might".
We have to look at why Jack Straw is saying this.
It is because his socialist government's duplicitous attempt to smuggle in sharia law by the back door without consulting the British population is now hurting them... so he is now trying to appease the very people he cynically ignored and stabed in the back - everyday British voters.
Jack Straws chief problem is that BNP (Britains ONLY counter-Islamic party) is rapidly gaining votes and mainstream public support. BNP is now set to gain at least 2 MEPs in the comming European elections.
So if you hate BNP, you can blame Jack Straw for implementing sharia. But if, like me, you think islamization and cultural jihad are by far the most important issues in British and European politics today I suggest you join BNP, vote for them and make sure mainstream Britsh parties ae punished for their shameful stance on Islam, sharia and mass Islamic immigration.
Robert.
You might be gratified to know that the upper house of our parliament, the house of lords has just refuted the governments attempts at making sharia courts an integral part of our legal system, stating that they are legally incompatible with human rights legislation, particularly with reference to equality of the sexes.
Thank heavens for the lords!
Hugh writes:
"Jack Straw can say this will "never" happen and sit back on his woolsack -- yes, so can he, and so could any man who happened to be Lord Chancellor, but will this "never" really "never" happen?"
Actually, with great respect, I think you are wrong about something this once. Jack Straw is not Lord Chancellor and does not sit on a woolsack in the House of Lords.
He is Minister of Justice (a newly created post), an MP and member of the House of Commons. I do not write thus out of any desire to defend Straw, merely to say I believe this is his role.
George Orwell once expressed, rather wisely, that one should always beware of countries that had a Ministry of Justice and a Ministry of Culture on the grounds that such countries invariably had neither justice nor culture.
Good Evening Moris 2.
Your comments about the undesirability of a Ministry of Justice are spot on. The hearts of those of us who worked for the old Lord Chancellor's Department sank when we heard what we were to become.
Jack Straw is officially Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. He does not have all the duties of the Lord Chancellor in times past - some of them have devolved onto the Lord Chief Justice. And he takes very little interest in those duties. But Lord Chancellor he remains.
The first in modern history to be a current MP, not a Judge, not a barrister and not a Lord.
However as one of his first actions in post was to order job cuts, and experienced officials who knew how things should be done when done properly were no longer desired, I took the retirement package and my garden looks the better for it.
Esmerelda Weatherwax
are you by any chance the same person as the 'Granny Weatherwax' who used to post here, two or three years ago?
Because i've been exploring the archives and her posts are always worth reading.
Good Morning Dumbledoresarmy. Are you well yourself?
Yes, its still me. I have learnt a lot from Hugh and the others and now write regularly here .
Dear Esmerelda
I am so glad to hear you are well. Since I recalled your mentioning that you had been treated for breast cancer at some point in the past, I had been worrying, just a little.
I am well also (turning 45 tomorrow) - and still steadily bringing my parish priest up to scratch on jihad and related topics - the awful story of Anila and Saba in Pakistan, sent to him in successive links over a couple of months, opened his eyes, I think.
Yes, I have visited the 'New English Review' website on occasion, and have seen your byline there.
Are you still involved with your parish church and supporting the Barnabas Fund and Anglicans For Israel?
God bless you - and God bless and save the Three Kingdoms (Scotland, England, Wales).
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU ! ! !
:-)
Thank you very much for the birthday greeting, Esmerelda.
I had a pleasant birthday. My husband gave me a copy of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book 'Infidel' as a present.
Then I spent the day at a large university library on the other side of town, peacefully reading - James Parkes on the history of the land of Israel, which I had read before, but I wanted to doublecheck some passages which I hadn't copied out as clearly as I should have done; and a book that Our Hugh has been recommending on different occasions, Walter Clay Lowdermilk's 'Palestine: Land of Promise'. Any book that Hugh recommends is always good and this one was most interesting: I took copious notes and will probably end up posting choice excerpts here as occasion arises.
Meanwhile, the older children minded the younger ones, and my husband attended an all-day rehearsal of 'Rock Nativity' (a version of the Nativity story: book and lyrics by David Wood, music by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent) in which he is singing Simeon and a Wise Man.
When the rehearsal finished he picked me up and we got a decadent cheesecake on the way home.
Best of all, to finish off the day, it is raining...here in Australia the sound of rain on the roof tends to make people feel happy.
I'm glad you had a good day.
Infidel is very interesting and a lot to take in.
Take care