Radical Islam in the UK

Recently, the British news program, Channel 4 news, did an investigation of the elements of radical Islam being preached in mainstream, popular mosques in the UK. They had a young Muslim journalist go in with a hidden camera, and the program can be viewed here.

The show, "Dispatches", has an article on the investigation here. In their own words:

Dispatches has investigated a number of mosques run by high profile national organisations that claim to be dedicated to moderation and dialogue with other faiths. But an undercover reporter joined worshippers to find a message of religious bigotry and extremism being preached.

If you think that they're being oversensitive or exaggerating, just watch the video. They mention a few examples of the kinds of things you'll find there:

"An army of Muslims will arise," announces one preacher. Another preacher said British Muslims must "dismantle" British democracy - they must "live like a state within a state" until they are "strong enough to take over."

The Dispatches reporter attends talks at mosques run by key organisations whose public faces are presented as moderate and mainstream - and finds preachers condemning the idea of integration into British society, condemning British democracy as un-Islamic and praising the Taliban for killing British soldiers.

The investigation reveals Saudi Arabian universities are recruiting young Western Muslims to train them in their extreme theology, then sending them back to the West to spread the word.

Saudi-trained preachers are also promoted in DVDs and books on sale at religious centres and sermons broadcast on websites. These publications and webcasts disseminate beliefs about women such as: "Allah has created the woman deficient, her intellect is incomplete", and girls: "By the age of 10 if she doesn't wear hijab, we hit her," and there's an extreme hostility towards homosexuals.

And on and on. As I said, look to the video for the filmed examples; these guys were literally caught with their pants down. They were recorded talking about beating women, killing "kuufars" (non-Muslims), and calling Jews "pigs" who ought to be slaughtered. Then, when interviewed publicly about the recordings, they just presented some fluff about how the quotes were taken out of context, or how they had picked and chosen the most extreme sounding speeches, while ignoring the ones on toleration.

I'm not one to take an argument uncritically, particularly when presented in the form of a documentary. But I find it very difficult to believe that there was any context that would have made those speeches sound ok.

Much of the documentary focuses on one big mosque in Birmingham, Green Lane Masjid. The front page of its website currently protests its portrayal in the documentary. It states that the Dispatches team was just trying to propagate a stereotype about Muslims. It states:

Dispatches failed to adequately differentiate between the application of Islamic Shariah in an Islamic State and its application within a minority Muslim community in modern day Britain

It continues:

Dispatches further failed to distinguish between those individuals who work with us and those with no connection to our organisation who expressed views that we may not agree with.

It concludes by talking about how they have a great track record of "good community relations and peaceful co-existence with all sections of the wider community".

You may have noticed that it takes no time at all to address any specific thing that they do disagree with. All it offers is the following sentence in the last paragraph:

We also unequivocally condemns all forms of extremism and terrorism, regardless of the perpetrators.

Which to my mind is rather ambiguous. If you are an extremist, what exactly do you believe constitutes extremism?

"Undercover Mosque" has long segments of Imams in Green Lane mosque stating that they disagree with the action of terrorists, but that Osama bin Laden is much closer to their perspective, and their heart, than any "kuufar". They argue that women are inferior to men, that homosexuals ought to be murdered, and that the wicked Jews are less than human.

Green Lane's press release does not state that it disagrees with any of this. All it does is state that those views were presented by people that they "may not agree with".

Let me state what it is that I think. I think that they do agree with it, wholeheartedly. I think that they felt safe saying what they said because they did not know there was a camera there and because they have long been able to hide behind multicultural jargon whenever anyone has pointed a finger at them.

I do not know where one would find a clip of this, but it is my recollection that the first response from a Muslim organization in England after the July 7th bombings was not "this is a terrible thing that happened", but "this will be used as yet another an excuse to discriminate against Muslims!" As I said, it was a statement I saw made on the television, and I can't locate the clip. You may disregard that bit if you prefer--but I'm simply explaining why I believe what I believe.

I do not pretend to know how pervasive the radical Islam that Dispatches documented is in the UK, or Europe in general. I can point to several people who have taken a look at the subject. All I can say is I advise watching the video--then you may perhaps be persuaded, as I am, that it is too important a subject to ignore.

Once more, that video can be viewed here. It is also broken up into several parts on YouTube.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Be sure to check it out.