Wednesday 3 August 2005

Why cultural tolerance cuts both ways By David Davis(Filed: 03/08/2005)

The full article is in the Telegraph here. However, these extracts seem to set a sensible agenda from the Man Who Would Be King.

Rather than setting communities against one another, the bombers' actions have united all faiths in facing down this new breed of terrorism. Political parties have also been united in their resolve to defeat the threat - a lesson learnt from Spain, where the political response to the attack on Madrid played straight into the terrorists' hands. The most important thing British politicians can do is to remain united and avoid knee-jerk responses. Any other response would be grossly irresponsible, and could easily encourage more attacks.
The Government has responded over the past month with sensible proposals to tighten existing legislation. Our task is to ensure that these new laws will be effective and workable. The Government has to get them right first time. There is no room for mistakes. But this does not exempt us from a constructive critique of some of the Government's plans. We have reservations about proposals to extend the time-scale of detention without trial, for example. Ministers should also give clearer backing to the police's policy of stop and search, which, while controversial in some quarters, is obviously sensible. Nor should the prevailing political climate stop us proposing extra measures to increase Britain's security without sacrificing fundamental freedoms.
There are five things the Government could do that would gain our support. Firstly, it must secure Britain's porous borders. A new border control police force should be set up to ensure that every major port is manned day and night, to stop people entering the country illegally. Secondly, the Government should urgently review the process by which citizenship is granted. It is totally unacceptable that one of the alleged bombers was given a British passport despite having received a jail sentence and having a long record of bad conduct. British citizenship is a privilege, not a right. Thirdly, the Government should allow evidence from phone-taps to be used in the courtroom, making it easier to convict would-be terrorists and stop future attacks. Fourthly, the Government should appoint a Minister for Homeland Security to deal with the terrorist threat. Finally, ministers must show they are prepared to look again at whether the Human Rights Act stops them from ensuring that Britain is as safe as possible. This should include advocating its repeal, if necessary.
But the terrorist threat will not be beaten by security measures alone. Searching questions now have to be asked about what has been happening inside Britain's Muslim communities, and how the perverted values of the suicide bomber have been allowed to take root. Britain has pursued a policy of multiculturalism - allowing people of different cultures to settle without expecting them to integrate into society. Often the authorities have seemed more concerned with encouraging distinctive identities than with promoting common values of nationhood. The chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality has called multiculturalism "outdated". He is right. We should learn lessons from abroad - from the United States, where pride in the nation's values is much more prevalent among minorities than here. Above all, we must speak openly of what we expect of those who settle here - and of ourselves.
Let us be clear. Non-Muslims have obligations to their Muslim fellow citizens - to strive for equal opportunities for all, to accept the mainstream version of Islam as a part of society, and to reject the vile racism of the BNP and its like. But Muslims in turn have obligations: not simply to condemn terror, as one Labour MP put it, but to confront it.
In the past month, the vast majority of Muslims have queued up to denounce the outrages unleashed upon London. Senior Muslim leaders such as Dr Zaki Badawi, of the Muslim College, have spoken courageously and eloquently. But their thoughtful contributions are undermined by men such as Mohammad Naseem, the chairman of Birmingham's central mosque, who chose to focus his anger on the Government and security services, not on the men who set out to kill Londoners. People such as Mr Naseem do no favours to the Muslim community. After all, Muslims too are in the sights of the Islamic extremists.
Al-Qa'eda's long-term ambition is to eliminate moderate Islam altogether. It is therefore in the interests of moderate Muslims to support such measures as the extension of stop and search, the closing down of websites which support terror, the barring from Britain of clerics who support terrorist activity, and the licensing of visiting clerics.
Religious leaders have a special responsibility when those who commit crimes claim to be motivated by religion. We must acknowledge that there are good imams and bad imams. Most preach the true Muslim faith in a manner consistent with the society in which they live. Others, though, do not represent Islam properly and fail to understand the conventions of British society. Indeed, their aim is to destroy it. The Government must do more to encourage good imams to train here in Britain. Muslims themselves should help root out the bad ones.
Britain has a proud history of tolerance and respect towards people of different views, faiths and backgrounds. But we should not flinch from demanding the same tolerance and respect for the British way of life.


There is another Telegraph article which directly refers to that Shadow government fool I wrote of recently.
"Even more crass was the comment by Dominic Grieve, junior home affairs spokesman for the Conservatives, on the same programme: "I have to say that I find the suicide bombings totally explicable in terms of the level of anger which many members of the Muslim community seem to have about a large number of things." So will you commit mass murder and blow yourself up, Mr Grieve, when you reach a certain "level of anger" about a "large number of things”?

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