Terrorists Exploiting Britain

With so much information at our fingertips, how is it that so much political commentary can be so incomplete? Take this recent Telegraph article, which asks “How Britain became the Yemen of the West.”

The article concerns itself with those–few–British people who export terrorism. The article is, naturally, not concerned with the people who export the principles of the Magna Carta, the Enlightenment, or the Church of England. So, in an article setting out to explore “How Britain became the Yemen of the West,” one might expect a discussion of immigration.

Large numbers of Muslims would not likely have spontaneously appeared in England, were it not for mass immigration. The exportation of militant Islam from England depends, to some degree, on the importation into England of devotees of the Religion of Peace. Yet, not a single word in the Telegraph article mentioned immigration or demographic change.

It’s not as if the Telegraph is unaware of the immigration debate. In fact, just a few days later, a different Telegraph writer explored this notable topic, “Tory MP claims Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech was right.” A respected member of Parliament expressed the view–shared by countless commentators and political figures–that the late British politician Enoch Powell was correct to warn of the problems associated with mass immigration.

Powell’s 1968 speech is widely known as the most controversial speech in modern British history. Now dubbed the “Rivers of Blood” speech, Powell warned of the unrest that would occur if large numbers of foreign-born people who rejected British culture were admitted to that nation. Powell said of England, “We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre . . . As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood.’”

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Powell’s speech, and the issues it raised, has been a source of endless fascination and debate in England. An entire 2008 BBC documentary was devoted to the speech and its legacy.

The immigration debate in England has intensified in recent decades, for most of the reasons Powell foretold. The 7/7 bombings, widespread Shariah indoctrination in schools, and the slaying of Lee Rigby give credence to concerns about “Londinistan.”

Now, England is reeling from revelations that Muslim rape gangs specifically targeted at least 1,400 white teenage girls; Pakistani men groomed and trafficked the girls while politically correct local officials refused to address what they long ago knew to be a major problem.

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With this entire backdrop as part of an ongoing immigration debate, comes the question of “How Britain became the Yemen of the West,” in the recent Telegraph article. The Telegraph reporter who scrupulously avoided the issue of immigration did wrap up on this politically correct note, “The only way to defeat a bad idea is with a better idea.” The problem with this pleasantry is that bad ideas can be central to a group’s sense of meaning and belonging.

You can’t defeat an idea without confronting a people.

Those who pretend to be concerned about the consequences of ideas must acknowledge that flesh, blood, and culture are ultimately the vessel for ideas. Hence the connection between immigration and bad ideas–which should be hard to miss.