[UPDATE: Greetings again to VFR readers. My comments on Mr. Auster’s latest sally can be found toward the bottom of the comments field here.]
Al-Ghurabaa, the successor to the Omar Bakri jihadist group in Britain, Al-Muhajiroun, has been plastering the country with the sticker above (thanks to Kasper). Here is a letter to them about the stickers, and their response:
Your Letter:
Dear Sir/Madam,
As a British citizen proud of the freedoms this nation allows me I was not impressed by your A5 flyers posted all over Bethnal Green this morning titled ‘Islamic Values V British Values’.
By all means promote the value of your religion but please do not slander and insult British values.
By plastering these cheap posters on public spaces insulting my way of life you make me feel more not less negative to Islam and its values.
If you are an honest person with charitable values as you claim, I hope you will repremand those responsible for poorly plstering this antagonistic flyer in a public area, causing offence to myself and probably many other British citizens.
Kind regards,
peace be with you
Tom
Our Reply:
Thank your for your Letter.
Of course, although we understand from your letter that you disliked our sticker, we cannot stop doing whatever we can to better the British society for all of us, including you, me and everyone else. This cannot be done without to change the British Culture, removing all the British Values and teaching the people the Islamic Values. We must continue to discuss and debate this issue openly, especially in light of the British Governments recent arrogant efforts to push corrupted values and enforce this “britishness” that has already caused so much corruption and trouble in this country and abroad.
If it wasn’t for the man-made way of life in britain, we would never have seen such high levels of crime, rape, alcoholism, homosexuality, adultery, theft, burglary, exploitation and terrorism in the UK and the world today! Why should we put up with all of this and so much more corruption in the society? Rather we must continue to struggle and change the British way of life and introduce and teach the Islamic Values to all, so that all the people in Britain can flourish.
Abdul Ilaah
Webteam
www.alghurabaa.co.uk
It’s an important question, first articulated by Country Joe and the Fish: what are we fighting for? I recently had an unpleasant exchange with a commentator who believes we must fight to uphold the “whiteness of the West.” I believe that idea is as repugnant as the one proffered by Al-Ghurabaa: that all Britain (and, by extension, the West) stands for is “crime, rape, alcoholism, homosexuality, adultery, theft, burglary, exploitation” and so on. We are not fighting for white supremacism and we are not fighting for debauchery. We are fighting for the values of Western civilization — values that have become universal outside the Islamic world, and which are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Among those values that are challenged by jihadists today are the equality of dignity of all people, the freedom of conscience (and thought, and inquiry), the nobility of artistic expression (including music and the representation of the human form), and the freedom, which is based on the Judeo-Christian idea of the dignity of the human person, to change religions or profess no religion. These things and others from the same Western tradition are worth defending: Al-Ghurabaa is setting up a false opposition — which is, of course, just what they want to do.