Frederick Forsythe on Islam

Frederick Forsythe, novelist and columnist for the Daily Express, makes the point that when the IRA were bombing Britain the British did not turn on the many thousands of Irish living amongst them because they recognised that it was the extremists and not the majority of Irish that were responsible. The Irish joined in denouncing the extremists.

The difference between then and now is that as soon as we mention Islam in even a small but well deserved negative way then their own "useful idiots" indignantly pop up and attack us with calls of islamophobia and racist. The silence of the moderates is deafening and only adds to the impression that in fact all Muslims are the same:

THE two self-styled spokesmen of the Muslim community who laid into the Bishop of Rochester did themselves and Islam in Britain no favours.

The Ramadhan Foundation and the Islamic Society of Great Britain claimed again that anyone criticising even the most extreme proponents of the poison that beyond any doubt exists inside the Muslim “umma” in our country is criticising all Muslims. This is simply not true and one suspects these “spokesmen” secretly know it.

Bishop Nazir-Ali of Rochester made absolutely plain that he was referring to the extremists and to suggest no such maniacs exist is ludicrous. We all know they do and sensible, peace-loving Muslims who want to live in harmony with the rest of us know it also.

These spokesmen would be wise to study the relationship of the broad masses of non-Irish people inside England with the resident Irish through the 30 years when the IRA was shooting, bombing and maiming innocents right here in England. We never turned on the whole Irish community because its genuine leaders made plain they had no time for the IRA and all its violent works.

The leaders of “moderate Islam” in the UK have simply lost control of their own ultra-extreme faction

The IRA killed and were themselves killed: they were tracked, ambushed and arrested. They were denounced from Parliament and pulpit. But the true Irish leaders in Britain never screamed that we, the natives, had turned on all the Irish. They recognised that our denunciations only referred to the murderous fanatics – and they added their own denunciations as well.

I say this with deep regret. There is a growing belief among the secularists, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and Jews, who despite all the fuss still make up 95 per cent of the British people, that the leaders of “moderate Islam” in the UK have simply lost control of their own ultra-extreme faction.Read it all>

(cross posted with CommonSense)