Sorry, Brits, But Opposition to Jihad Violence and Islamic Supremacism Still Isn’t Racism
Sorry, Brits, But Opposition to Jihad Violence and Islamic Supremacism Still Isn’t Racism
Despite the best efforts of British law enforcement and media to establish otherwise.
By Robert Spencer
“Proposal for Piccadilly Circus mosque withdrawn after racist complaints,” the Muslim news site 5Pillars announced Tuesday, and Britain’s dastardly white supremacists weren’t finished. Wales Online reported on the same day that “a pub landlord has been suspended after his bosses were tipped off about a Facebook post he had allegedly shared mocking Muslims.” The perp, Jason Taylor, insisted, “I’m no racist. I just thought it was funny,” and even groveled to the mob, pleading, “I’ve learnt my lesson,” but to no avail. There is just one problem with both of these stories: neither of them have anything to do with race at all. The are the latest examples of the likely deliberate obfuscation between race hatred and criticism of Islam’s supremacist ideology.
5Pillars claimed that the application to construct a mosque in London’s Piccadilly Circus into a mosque had been withdrawn after the plan had received “thousands of racist comments.” It said that Westminster City Council “received 6,100 comments in support of the plans but 2,800 objected, including a high volume of racist comments.”
In the balance of its article, however, 5Pillars failed to produce even one of these supposedly racist comments. It noted that “a number of objectors said that the presence of large numbers of Muslims in the area may make LGBT people living and socialising in nearby Soho uncomfortable.”
It quoted another that said: “It is clear for all to see that the Muslim community will seek to impose itself on all aspects of the native culture and will never yield to anything that does not further the fundamentalist political aspirations of Islam. The writing is on the wall and as sure as night follows day, you can bet your bottom dollar allowing this wholly unwelcome intrusion on the native population will only exasperate [sic] the problem of Islam. It simply has no place in the West, as the orchestrated ‘support’ comments allude to. This is yet another assault on your nation by stealth and subversion. Please do not be fooled, we’ve had more than enough bloodshed and rape in this country thanks to cow-towing [sic] to the endless demands of the Muslim community.”
A third declared: “I hope by now it is self-evident in this comments thread, that the Muslim community has NO RESPECT for the very legitimate concerns of the residents of Piccadilly…This is merely a taste of what will follow should this unwelcome, foreign display of dominance be imposed on British Citizens. Given it’s [sic] DISGUSTING track record, you would think one would be as silent as possible about belonging to this obnoxious, perverted, insidious cult, but as we can see from the incessant spamming in the ‘support’ comments, the Muslim community has no sense of decency or respect. What more evidence do we need that Islam has no place in the west? It seems the only people who haven’t realized this yet are in the Westminster bubble.”
Local politicians were duly appalled. Conservative councillor Matthew Green said: “We find these racist, hateful comments utterly.” Labour councillor Hamza Taouzzale added: “Some of the comments that I’ve unfortunately had to read through were horrible, they really were. They were racist, they weren’t aligned with any of our views.”
Yet all the comments that 5Pillars quotes opposing the mosque are concerned about Islamic supremacism, about the old Islamic adage “Islam must dominate, and not be dominated.” None of them say anything to the effect of “Muslims are of a different race and thus this mosque must not be built.”
This reflects the general confusion in British society, as well as American society today: any opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression is decried as “racism,” even if race is never mentioned. Muslims, and Islamic jihadis, are of all races, but the enablers of that violence and oppression know that racism is generally considered to be the foremost sin of all in the modern age. Thus to denounce opposition to the mosque as “racism” is makes sense tactically: it lines up all the right-thinking people who abhor racism, or at least those among them who are unthinking lemmings, in support of the mosque.
Jason Taylor, for his part, was concerned about the same supremacism. He shared a post that said that another proposed mosque “should be allowed – and two nightclubs, a ‘sex toy shop’ and a ‘butcher shop that specialises in pork’ — should also be opened next door thereby promoting tolerance from within the mosque’. The writer went on to say one of the clubs should be gay and the other a ‘topless bar’ and they gave all the establishments racially derogatory names.”
Maybe you think that the post Jason Taylor shared was offensive. May you think it was obnoxious. But if Jason Taylor had called for having a gay nightclub and a “sex toy shop” next to a church, “thereby promoting tolerance from within the church,” do you think he would have been suspended? Neither do I. And the poor devil was reduced to insisting he was not “racist,” when there was nothing in what he shared about race at all. Muslims are not all of one race.
But in Britain today, and in America, all discussion of Islamic supremacism and intolerance is drowned out by spurious charges of racism. Jason Taylor is just the latest victim of this intentional obfuscation.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster.