A Lethal Obsession by Robert S. Wistrich

Author:Robert S. Wistrich [Wistrich, Robert S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-58836-899-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Multiculturalism, by reversing long-accepted notions of truth and falsehood, victim and victimizer, has aggravated this moral paralysis, playing into the hands of the Muslim victim culture. As many Muslims genuinely believe themselves to be under attack by the West (especially from America and Israel) and threatened by a gigantic conspiracy, terrorism can all too easily be rationalized as a legitimate act of “self-defense.” Since minorities cannot by definition (in the multiculturalist dispensation) be held responsible for vile acts such as suicide bombings, it must be the fault of those who are now the targets of their vengeance.29 Thus the satanization of Jews and Christians serves to avoid any individual or group accountability from Muslims for their own actions.

In Parliament, the media, academia, the churches (especially the Anglican Church), and among intellectuals and public opinion makers, every conceivable excuse has been found to explain away acts of Islamist terrorism.30 In this one-sided discourse, interfaith dialogue (especially between Christians and Muslims) has tended to blur rather than clarify the issues. True, more recently, there has been some questioning of multiculturalism in Britain, especially in the wake of the July 2005 terrorist atrocities on and under the streets of London. There has also emerged a growing realization at the highest political level of the need to assert the core values of identity, integration, and cohesion more strongly.31 In October 2006, the leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw, publicly revealed that he had asked veiled Muslim women in his Blackburn constituency to show their faces when they came to see him. The head scarf had suddenly become an issue in multicultural Britain—not only because of terrorism and fundamentalism but as a symptom of concern as to whether a formerly easygoing approach toward integrating ethnic communities is still working.32 A number of commentators have pertinently observed, for example, that multicultural policies are an obstacle to the formal learning of English. They prevent integration, heighten intercommunal tensions, and reinforce the ghettoization of Asian Muslims into separate enclaves with high unemployment and increased social alienation.33 After the July 7, 2005, bombings in London, broadcaster Kenan Malik wrote that “Britishness had come to be defined simply as a toleration of difference,” with no political or moral center. This was a consequence of the multiculturalist ideology that had accentuated social fragmentation in an increasingly “tribal Britain.” Among British Asians a siege mentality had emerged that “makes the Muslim communities more inward-looking and more open to religious extremism.”34

During recent years, the Anglican Church in Britain has been especially receptive to Muslim concerns and sensitivities in the framework of mul ticulturalism and multifaith initiatives. At the theological level, Anglicanism—while gradually uprooting itself from its Judaic heritage—has begun to stress—in the words of Margeret Brearley—“the shared journey of Christians and Muslims.”35 Anglican clergy have been especially keen to distance Islamist terrorism from any association with the Muslim religion.36 At the same time, Anglican anti-Zionism has become very influential, constantly vilifying Israel for its so-called intransigence and arrogance. The Reverend Stephen

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.