By Sunny Hundal
June 2, 2008 11:00 AM
Courtesy Of The Guardian
A few years ago the Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips wrote a blog in which she said that "only a strong indigenous faith has the capacity to resist Islamisation [of Britain and Europe]." Various bloggers including myself responded by pointing out the idiocy of her idea.
The other week Bishop Nazir-Ali essentially said the same thing. It might simply be deja vu but I sense something more is afoot, so bear with me.
In an article for a new conservative magazine, Standpoint, which will compete with the Spectator, Daily Mail and Telegraph for Melanie Phillips-style-froth about how our country is going to the dogs and "dhimmitude" is everywhere, the bishop said that radical Islam was moving in to fill the void created by the decline of Christianity since the "social and sexual" revolution of the 1960s.
I'm not going to bother going to into detail as to why this theory is hilariously bad. In brief: the decline of Christianity in Britain has been going on for longer than that; radical Islam is on the decline in Britain and worldwide; that the values (free speech, civil liberties, human rights) that the magazine wants to defend from the Islamists make it difficult to return to a society of Christian deference and a closed, conservative outlook.
In fact, the type of society Nazir-Ali wants isn't far from the utopia that conservative Muslims want to develop, except it's a different religion. So what exactly is going on here? Well, two things.
First, British Muslims are being used as a proxy in a wider battle. The likes of Melanie Phillips, Nazir-Ali, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph cannot stand modern Britain and its apparently decadent and immoral value system. They wish we could turn back the clock, as many social conservatives do. But they've been losing this battle for decades.
Along comes Muslim suicide bomber who also wants to recreate a closed, conservative, religious society, and in the ensuing panic over brown people with weird-sounding names, the Christian fundamentalists have hit upon a brilliant plan. They want to use Islam as the lightning rod to convince lapsed Christians that unless they become more religious, society around them will collapse from the Muslim onslaught.
Back in that blog, Melanie Phillips actually said: "The Islamists, whose shrewdness and perspicacity are consistently overlooked by racist European liberals who believe that Arabs and Muslims are too backward to have anything intelligent to say, are absolutely correct in their analysis of Europe as culturally decadent and too weakened by hedonism to fight for their way of life."
Apparently Europe has to develop its own Christian fundamentalists if it is to survive. I'm not sure what role British Hindus and Sikhs play in this; maybe they could supply their own fundamentalists (there's a fair few floating around) or pass the popcorn while watching the big fight.
Nazir-Ali's point isn't that different. If British civilisation is to survive then we must ape Muslim religious zeal. The amusing thing is, this narrative was also true before 9/11 when the Daily Mail published a two-page spread celebrating (or lamenting?) that British Muslims were more British than white people. The Daily Mail would love white Britons to become more socially conservative like British Muslims - whether it does so by demonising them or celebrating them is irrelevant. You have to admire the irony.
To a certain extent, the Muslim Council of Britain seems to have realised it is being used to promote an agenda and declined to comment in Standpoint's carefully planned media coverage, forcing the press to use the rent-a-quote Ramadhan Foundation for a token "outraged" Muslim commentator.
But there's another agenda to all this too:
Deeply hurt that he was passed over in favour of Rowan Williams for the Archbishop of Canterbury's job, Nazir-Ali is playing the classic wedge tactic that anyone trained in leftist politics would spot a mile off.
He needs a strong media profile and his repeated comments in the media, usually involving Muslims, guarantee him that. The rightwing papers also hate Rowan Williams for his easy-going liberal Christian ways and are only too happy hail him as the new messiah.
He also needs to build a support base; media attempts to define him as a "talisman for hardline evangelicals" can only go so far. He has been busy on this front too.
Last week, for example, he backed a motion by the Church of England's General Synod member Paul Eddy on evangelising other faiths (but focusing on Muslims to guarantee headlines). Paul Eddy just happens to be a PR consultant who has worked with the purity ring campaign and Christian Concern for our Nation. Remember CCFON from the Channel 4 documentary on Christian fundamentalists?
The following then becomes obvious: Trying to provoke a fight over whether the Anglican Church should evangelise British Muslims is also a wedge tactic.
Church leaders would no doubt be concerned at how this is being framed and who is proposing the motion, but by not getting full backing Nazir-Ali and friends can claim the Church establishment is weak in the face of British Muslims. It's the Socialist Workers Party at Church, basically.
If Bishop Nazir-Ali can get Britain to become more religious, he'll be happy. If he can out-manoeuvre Dr Rowan Williams and the CoE liberal Christians with help from the power-hungry CCFON, Daily Mail and Telegraph, that would be a sweeter victory. Muslims would be well-advised to stay out of the crossfire as much as possible.
But the biggest irony is that, like far-left politics, all this sectarianism will only weaken the CoE further. Even if after all the in-fighting Bishop Nazir-Ali manages to pull it back to the glory days of hell-fire and brimstone, he will only ensure the Church of England becomes even more irrelevant in modern Britain. The Christian soldiers they're praying for aren't likely to arise anytime soon, Muslims or no Muslims.
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