Learning from Britain's Islamic migration mistakes

Sometimes the small things are the most noticeable.

Last Sunday morning I woke and turned on the ABC radio news. The lead items were the arrest of the ‘third’ man from the Brussels bombings, an extremist group in the Philippines and an update on the kidnap of schoolgirls in Nigeria.

All interesting stories with a common thread linking them together – Islam. However, that thread was never mentioned during the news report, nor was the word Muslim.

It was as if these were unimportant ‘asides’ to the context of what the world is confronting.

This could be termed media bias by omission; an accusation that can be levelled far wider than just the ABC. Any reasonable and diligent observer would notice the same failing in many sections of our media.

Bias by omission appears in many forms but seems particularly apparent when it comes to the ‘religion of peace’- a term applied by those who don’t or won’t understand.

Any analysis that may result in an honest (and hence critical) assessment of the threat of Islam is dismissed as Islamophobia, so too many think it’s better not to mention it at all.

The person credited with popularising this term of oppression is the former head of Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Trevor Phillips.

Phillips commissioned “the Runnymede report” in 1997 which gave rise to the phrase ‘Islamophobia’; a term now synonymous with any criticism – legitimate or not – of Islam or Muslims.

He was reported this week as admitting he ‘got almost everything wrong’ when it came to his assessment of Islamic migration in the 1990s.

He has now conceded that the idealised concept of integration and assimilation suggested by the cultural Marxists has given way to ‘nations within nations’ brought about by the intransigent cultural attitudes of too many Muslims migrating to the West.

Phillips wrote “For a long time, I too thought that Europe’s Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.”

His comments were in light of an ICM poll released to The Times which found:

• One in five British Muslims never enter a non-Muslim house;
• 39 per cent of Muslims (male and female) believe a wife should always obey her husband;
• 31 per cent of Muslims in Britain support the right of a man to have more than one wife;
• 52 per cent of Muslims weren’t in favour of legalising homosexuality;
• 23 per cent of Muslims support the introduction of Sharia law rather than British law.

Phillips went on to admit:

“Liberal opinion in Britain has, for more than two decades, maintained that most Muslims are just like everyone else… But thanks to the most detailed and comprehensive survey of British Muslim opinion yet conducted, we now know that just isn’t how it is.”

These concessions come too late for the UK. Already weakened by their slavish adherence to the dictates of the Brussels bureaucrats, the British political establishment have washed their hands of conserving their cultural heritage.

We see the same thing starting to happen here…although it’s not too late to do something about it.

Whilst under serious threat, we still have every opportunity to arrest the decline and undermining of our social mores. The fifth columnists attack from many fronts but the practice of cultural relativism under the guise of ‘multiculturalism’ is perhaps the most insidious.

People come to this country for many reasons but principally for the opportunity of a better life. They seek to escape the injustice, oppression and authoritarianism of former lands for opportunity and the rule of law.

By and large, our community welcomes those migrants who seek to embrace our values and our nation. However, Australians are increasingly intolerant of those who seek to recreate the very conditions from which they fled in their adopted land.

Unless the elected representatives – too many of whom have been living in denial – do the same mea culpa that Trevor Phillips has in England, the public divide and the discontent will grow steadily worse.

We have an extraordinary opportunity to learn from the errors of other nations. It is high time we heeded their expensive cultural lessons borne of bitter experience.