Leon Lemmer: Melanie Phillips oor Londonistan – praag.co.za
Londen, die Britse hoofstad, het vandeesmaand ‘n Moslem-burgemeester van Pakistanse oorsprong gekry (Praag 6 deser). Geen sektor van die immigrantebevolking in die Weste (veral Amerika, Brittanje en Europa) veroorsaak meer probleme en word meer gevrees as die Moslems nie. Die klassieke boek oor die Moslembevolking in veral Engeland is Melanie Phillips (gebore in 1951) se Londonistan: How Britain has created a terror state within (London: Gibson Square, 2012, 288p; Amazon Kindle $7,40). Sy was aanvanklik ‘n linkse joernalis maar “has been mugged by reality.” Londonistan verwys nie slegs na die Britse hoofstad nie, maar ook na vermoslemde areas in Britse nywerheidstede, wat die tradisionele aard van die Britse samelewing nie net verander het nie maar op die lange duur selfs kan vernietig. Die agtervoegsel -stan, soos in Pakistan, beteken in Persies en Oerdoe ‘n plek of land. Londonistan is die naam wat die Franse geheimediens aan Brittanje gegee het omdat daar aanvanklik geen amptelike besorgdheid was oor die potensiële gevaar wat Moslem-immigrasie inhou nie, al is Brittanje telkens deur Frankryk daaroor gewaarsku (Kindle 4920). Frankryk het eerstehandse ondervinding van Moslem-immigrante, veral sedert die grootskaalse invloei van Algerynse Moslems na afloop van die Algerynse oorlog (1954-1962).
Sommige mense en dalk veral politici sien nie graag feite onder die oë waarvan hulle nie hou nie. Afgesien van hulle ydele ego’s is politici se openbare beeld vir hulle baie belangrik. Byvoorbeeld, toe Pallo Jordan nie meer as doktor aangespreek kon word nie, het hy dadelik uit die politiek getree. Van die kernkenmerke van politiek is professionele manteldraaiery. Daarom is daar talle voorbeelde van politici wat van een politieke party na die ander migreer het, bv Japie Basson en Koos van der Merwe. Soms kan so ‘n skuif eerbaar wees, bv as die politieke party (radikaal) van beleid verander, soos die Nasionale Party. Ander kere is so ‘n skuif minder eerbaar, bv wanneer dit suiwer in eie hoogsbetalende, posbehoudende belang is.
Die Nasionale Party het amptelik maande of eerder jare lank voorgegee dat sy onderhandelinge met die ANC-terreurgroep klopdisselboom gaan; dat talle deurbrake gemaak en lofwaardige kompromieë aangegaan is; dat formidabele wigte en teenwigte gevestig is; dat daar ‘n skitterende nie-gewelddadige, nie-kommunistiese land in die vooruitsig is; en dat nie net die boere se kaart en transport veilig is nie, maar dat daar ook ‘n veilige, voorspoedige toekoms vir al die blankes en hulle nageslagte, insluitende die taal en kultuur van Afrikaners, voorlê. Hierdie beeld is op ‘n uiters sluwe manier geskep om die oneervolle, onnodige, ongelooflik dwase, algehele politieke oorgawe aan swart mag te verdoesel.
Groter politieke dwaasheid as wat in 1990/1994 in Suid-Afrika gepleeg is, is moeilik voorstelbaar. Maar Britse politici het op ‘n soortgelyke manier aanvanklik die werklikheid van die immigrante in hulle midde en die probleme wat hulle veroorsaak, probeer miskyk en dit later probeer regverdig of verantwoordelikheid vir hulle aandeel ontken. Die nie-wit immigrante het ‘n ander kultuur as die inheemse Britte. Voor 1950 was die Britse bevolking monokultureel blank. Blanke immigrante uit Europa en Statebondslande, asook Jode, is met gemak in die bevolking opgeneem. Met nie-blanke immigrante was dit nie moontlik nie en dit het van Brittanje ‘n multikulturele land gemaak.
Weens kultuurverskille, dus nie-wittes se vreemde leefwyse, kon hulle nie so maklik soos blankes in die Britse samelewing geassimileer word nie. Die nie-blanke immigrante was geneig om eie monokulturele gebiede in Brittanje te vestig, wat veral in stede aangetref word en dikwels die aanskyn van krotbuurte aangeneem het. Daar is nie-wittes wat makliker as ander met die Britte integreer, bv Hindoes uit Indië (2102), maar daar is ook nie-wittes wat glad nie kon of wou integreer nie. Moslems uit bv Pakistan en Bangladesj, veral die fundamentalistiese variëteit, wil Brittanje kultureel verander en selfs polities-religieus oorneem pleks van self ‘n poging aan te wend om by hulle nuwe vaderland aan te pas. Dit is die onderwerp van Phillips se boek. Hierdie teks is so ryk aan inligting en gesonde insig dat dit onmoontlik is om in ‘n enkele rubriek reg aan alles te laat geskied.
“This book is an attempt to piece together this complex cultural jigsaw, and to show how the deadly fusion of an aggressive ideology [Islamism] and a society that has lost its way [Britain] has led to the emergence of Londonistan” (435). “The attempt to establish [a] separate Muslim identity is growing more and more intense, with persistent pressure for official recognition of Islamic family law, the rise of a de facto parallel Islamic legal system not recognised by the state, demands for highly politicised Islamic dress codes, prayer meetings or halal food to be provided by schools and other institutions, and so on. No other minority attempts to impose its values on the host society like this. Behind it lies the premise that Islamic values trump British ones, and that Muslims in Britain are necessarily hostile to the values of the society of which they are citizens” (451).
Die meer sigbare gevaar vir Brittanje is dat terroriste saam met die Moslem-immigrante ingevoer is; soms as nasate. “The attempts to take over our culture is even more deadly to this society than terrorism” (74). Islamisering is ‘n “attempt to colonise British society for Islam” (162). ‘n Soortgelyke situasie bestaan in Suid-Afrika. Toe die terroriste die bewind oorgeneem en hulle geweld amptelik gestaak het, is die publiek wysgemaak dat alles nou wonderlik gaan wees. Maar toe het die swartes hulle kulturele oorlogvoering in alle erns vanuit hulle politieke magsposisie begin ten einde die blankes en hulle kultuur onder die dekmantel van bv transformasie en nasiebou te verswelg en te poog om bv Afrikaner-identiteit en Afrikaans te vernietig.
Op amptelike Britse regeringsvlak en by die elite is daar ‘n gebrekkige besef van die gevare wat dreig: “They are simply blind to the ruthless way in which the Islamists are exploiting our chronic muddle of well-meaning tolerance and political correctness (backed up by the threat of more violence) to put Islam on a special – indeed, unique – footing within Britain. As a result, the steady Islamisation of British public space is either being ignored or even tacitly encouraged by a political, security and judicial establishment that is failing to identify the stealthy and mind-bending game that is being played” (74). “Islamism will only be repulsed if Britian once again regains the confidence of its own culture, heritage and traditions” (196). In Brittanje behoort konserwatisme, tradisionalisme en identiteitsbevestiging en -bevordering die wagwoorde te wees. Dit geld ook vir die blankes, veral die Afrikaners, in Suid-Afrika. In sowel die ou as die nuwe Suid-Afrika is die regering met geweld afgedreig. Dit toon dat die gewelddadigheid (en die onbeskaafdheid wat daarmee gepaard gaan) nie deur gesprekvoering, paaiery en halfhartige optrede uitgewis kan word nie maar net deur ferm optrede en swaar strawwe. Een van die baie dinge wat FW de Klerk en sy kornuite nie verstaan het nie, is “the first law of terrorism, which is that it preys on weakness” (4027). Swakheid veroorsaak dat terrorisme ‘n lonende bedryf word.
Die huidige Britse regeringstrategie is gebaseer op “isolating the extremists and encouraging the moderates. The problem, however, is that it doesn’t understand what Muslim extremism is. Believing that Islamic terrorism is motivated by an ideology which has ‘hijacked’ and distorted Islam, it will not acknowledge the extremism within mainstream Islam itself” (80). Islamiste “are all engaged in the same project – to Islamise the free world” (97). “The premise upon which this book is based is … that jihadi Islamism … has become today the dominant strain within the Islamic world” (441; ook 4079).
Phillips gee voorbeelde van hoe sogenaamde gematigde Moslems by pogings betrek word om die bedreigings te neutraliseer wat hierdie immigrante vir die Britte inhou. Telkens is die resultate teleurstellend omdat die sogenaamde gematigdes nie bereid is om terreurdade te veroordeel nie. Dit herinner aan Desmond Tutu wat beweer het dat hy teen geweld gekant is maar terselfdertyd alles in sy vermoë gedoen het om onrus te stook en dan geweier het om die daaruit voortvloeiende geweld te veroordeel. Dit herinner ook aan Michael le Cordeur wat as vermeende pro-Afrikaanse deur die Afrikaanse Taalraad, die Afrikaanse Taalmuseun en -monument en selfs Het Jan Marais Nationale Fonds by aktiwiteite betrek word maar wat dan as valse profeet van Afrikaans Wim de Villiers se verengelsingsbeleid aan die Universiteit Stellenbosch ondersteun.
In Suid-Afrika is daar nie ‘n enkele universiteit wat daarop aanspraak kan maak dat hy nie ANC-gedienstig is nie. In Brittanje is daar ‘n soortgelyke neiging: “The universities are steadily being Islamised, with academic objectivity in the teaching of Islam and Middle East studies being set aside in favour of indoctrination and propaganda” (108). Daar is selfs “the increasing Islamisation of the police” (114). Soos in Suid-Afrika word voorkeur aan nie-wit kandidate gegee, wat met ondergekwalifiseerdheid wegkom, met die gevolg dat die publiek vertroue in polisiëring verloor. “The courts still appear to be bending over backwards* to appease Muslim radicalism” (168). “Sharia law is steadily encroaching into British institutions … Britain is already developing parallel sharia jurisdiction** … with blind eyes turned to such practices as forced marriage, cousin marriage, female genital mutilation and polygamy; indeed, welfare benefits are now given to the multiple wives of Muslim men” (156). “Most of the leadership of the Islamic movement is on [state] benefit” (843). Plaaslik word die onnodige ekstra koste wat Jacob Zuma se talle vroue vir belastingbetalers meebring nooit opgehaal nie. [* Byvoorbeeld, “a series of judgments under human rights law – such as the ruling that halting welfare payments to asylum-seekers denied them a right to family life” (953). “Almost a quarter of all terrorist suspects arrested in Britain since 9/11 had been asylum-seekers” (964). Dit is eintlik “dutiless rights” (1093). “The highest judges in the land had been engulfed by the moral bankruptcy of victim culture” (1200). ** Dit word die “sharia creep” genoem (4967).]
Die Britte het nie die gevaar van Islamisme onmiddellik na die 9/11-voorval in Amerika besef nie. “The very concept of Islamic terrorism or other wrongdoing is automatically denied” (446). Die Britse publiek (eerder as die politici) het hierdie boodskap eers op 7 Julie 2005 gekry toe bomme in drie ondergrondse Londense treine en in ‘n bus ontplof het. Die gevolg was 52 dooies en meer as 700 beseerdes. “The appaling phenomenon of suicide bombing had arrived on British soil. Two weeks later, an almost identical attempt was made to blow up commuters on the Tube [London underground railway system] and buses. This time – incredibly – all four bombs failed to detonate … From the moment the [7/7] bombs went off, however, Britain sought to deny their full implications. For it quickly became clear that the bombers were all British … There was now no getting away from the fact that British Muslims had turned themselves into human bombs to murder as many of their fellow citizens as possible … The attacks had been carried out by home-grown Muslim terrorists” (217). “These British boys, the product of British schools and universities and the British welfare state, behaved in a way that repudiated not just British values but the elementary codes of humanity” (239). “It [7/7] dwarfs altogether any previous terrorism directed against the British state, including the campaign waged by the IRA” (Irish Republican Army) (4325).
“Every year some two thousand British Muslims were attending clandestine terrorist training camps around Britain to learn about holy war … The camps were being held most weekends in Birmingham and London” (1269). “The Islamists were being left undisturbed to conduct their activities on the assumption that they would not then attack Britain” (1408). Daar was soortgelyke verbaasde ongeloof in Suid-Afrika toe dit blyk dat verskeie moskees en kerke* vir terreurdoeleindes misbruik is. Die onbeholpe Nasionale Party-regering het hulle nie as onheilige ruimtes getakseer nie, maar verkeerdelik as heilige plekke. Die werklikheid van Suid-Afrikaanse “home-grown terrorists” gedurende 1990-1994, waarop ek voorheen die aandag gevestig het, is aan die plaaslike publiek feitlik onbekend. [* Onder die voorwendsel van religieuse vryheid: “In both the US and the UK, there was and still is a great reluctance to investigate any religious activity unless there is clear evidence that a crime has been committed” (1461). Die Britse polisie se beleid is “never to raid the mosques” (4476).]
In die Britse bevolking van sowat 60 miljoen is daar ongeveer 2 miljoen Moslems. “According to British officials, up to sixteen thousand British Muslims either are actively engaged in or support terrorist activity, while up to three thousand are estimated to have passed through al Qaeda training camps, with several hundred thought to be primed to attack the United Kingdom”* (234). “What if Britain, rather than being the front line of defence against the threat of radical Islam, has become a quisling** state that actually threatens to undermine that defence? What if, instead of holding the line for Western culture against the Islamic jihad***, Britain is sleepwalking into the arms of the enemy?”(256). [* “In 2001, a BBC poll had found that 15 percent of British Muslims supported the 9/11 attacks on America” (2083). In 2005 “one in ten [British Muslims] supported the attacks on July 7, and 5 percent said that more attacks in the UK would be justified” (2090). “An opinion poll carried out … July 2006 revealed that seven per cent of Muslims polled, equivalent to 112 000 British Muslims, thought suicide bombing in the UK was justified in some circumstances” (4296). ** Quisling: “A generic term for a traitor who aids an occupying force.” *** Jihad: “Holy war undertaken by Muslims against nonbelievers.” (Albei laasgenoemde aanhaling uit Collins World Encyclopedia, 2003.)]
“Britain has become Europe’s Islamist terror factory” (4166). “Britain had become the global hub of Islamic terrorism outside the Muslim world” (4920). “London has become the most important centre for Islamic thought outside the Middle East” (594). Een van die gevolge is “the astonishing procession of terrorists fanning out from London across the globe” (624). “London had been the epicentre of Islamic militancy in Europe. Under the noses of successive British governments, Britain’s capital had turned into ‘Londonistan’ – a mocking play on the names of such state sponsors of terrorism as Afghanistan – and become the major European centre for the promotion, recruitment and financing of Islamic terror and extremism” (272). Dit is natuurlik nie die eerste keer dat Londen, eens voorgehou as die hoofstad van (Westerse/Europese) beskawing, funksioneer as gasheer en vroedvrou* van terrorisme nie. Die “ANC in ballingskap” het jare lank die gasvryheid en misplaaste verdraagsaamheid in die Britse hoofstad misbruik om fondse en wapens te bekom en om sy terrorisme te beplan en ten uitvoer te bring. Nou toon die Islamiste aan die naïewe Britte hoe destruktief die koestering van terroriste is. Maar geen Britse regering aanvaar verantwoordelikheid vir die verwoesting wat terrorisme in Suider-Afrika aangerig het en vir die wandade wat deur sodanige regerings gepleeg word nie. [* “The British acted as midwife to the monster of global jihad” (1455).]
Phillips vestig die aandag op die volgende waarheid oor Britse Islamisme: “Always presenting themselves not as aggressors but as defenders of a victimised culture, the Islamists seize on any defense the west may mount to protect itself, citing such action as further proof of its perfidy in order to incite hatred and recruit yet more to the cause. This is the trap that terrorism always sets for its victims – that there is no escape from it. A response by terrorism’s victims creates more terrorists; but not to respond is to surrender to terror. Thus, to follow the anti-war argument to its logical conclusion, the west must do nothing to defend itself against murderous aggression or the clear threat of such aggression, because this in turn will be used to recruit still more to the cause of terrorism. This is, of course, a recipe for cultural suicide and the defeat of the west” (403). Pleks van Islamiste te paai, moet daar eerder die volgende ondubbelsinnige immigrantbeleid wees: “Fit in or get out” (4226). Margaret Thatcher het darem die moed van haar oortuiging gehad om Nelson Mandela ‘n terroris te noem. Plaaslik het ons egter elemente soos Max du Preez en Pierre de Vos wat predik dat blankes stil moet bly en eerder moet luister na wat swartes sê en ‘n mens soos Anton van Niekerk wat Afrikaners daarvan beskuldig dat hulle vyande kweek as hulle beswaar teen die miskenning van Afrikaans opper.
“After the London bombings, the main concern of the media and intelligentsia was to avoid ‘Islamophobia’, the thought-crime that seeks to suppress legitimate criticism of Islam and demonise those who would tell the truth about Islamist aggression. Consequently, Muslim denial of any religious responsibility for the bombings was echoed and reinforced by government ministers and commentators, who sought to explain the Islamist terror in their midst by blaming, on the one hand, a few ‘unrepresentative’ extremist preachers and, on the other, Muslim poverty and discrimination … Londonistan is – among other things – a state of mind that has spead well beyond the capital … It is not a transient phenomenon … and has been created by the confluence of two lethal developments. The first was die arrival in Britain of large numbers of Muslims, first from Asia and then from Arab countries, where Islam had been systematically radicalised by a political agenda promoting the conquest and Islamization of the West. The second development, which was critical, was that British society presented a moral and philosophical vacuum that was ripe for colonisation by predatory Islamism. Britain has become a decadent society, weakened by alarming tendencies towards social and cultural suicide” (419).
Daar is “a fundamental loss of national self-belief throughout the institutions of British society. Driven by postcolonial guilt and, with the loss of empire, the collapse of a world role, Britain’s elites have come to believe that the country’s identity and values are by definition racist, nationalist and discriminatory. Far from transmitting or celebrating the country’s fundamental values, therefore, they have tried to transform a national culture into a multicultural society, both in terms of the composition of the country and the values it embodies … all minorities are deemed to have equal status with the majority and any attempt to impose majoritarian values is held to be discriminatory. Schools have ceased to transmit to successive generations either the values or the story of the nation, delivering instead the message that truth is an illusion and that the nation and its values are whatever anyone wants them to be. In the multicultural classroom, every culture appears to be taught except Britain’s indigenous one” (457).
In Suid-Afrika probeer die marxiste polities korrek om die plaaslike “bevrydingstryd” aan die gewelddadigheid van blankes toe te skryf en om die fundamentele immoraliteit van die terroriste te ontken. Boonop word enige poging om die Afrikanervolk te laat herleef, verdag gemaak en ondermyn. Ons geskiedenis word herskryf om blankes af en swartes op te gradeer. Wanneer Die Burger (6 April 2016) oor belangrike datums in die geskiedenis berig, bly die aankoms van Jan van Riebeeck in Tafelbaai (doelbewus) onvermeld.
“Virtually the entire British establisment has succumbed to multiculturalism and victim culture, and the attack on British values that these encapsulate. In America, the churches have been in the forefront of the defence of Western values. In Britain, by contrast, the Church of England has been in the forefront of the retreat from the Judeo-Christian heritage. At every stage it has sought to appease the forces of secularism, accommodating itself to family breakdown, seeking to be nonjudgmental and embracing multiculturalism” (506; ook 3175). “Britain … has effectively allowed itself to be taken hostage by militant gays, feminists or ‘antiracists’ who used weapons such as public vilification, moral blackmail and threats to people’s livelihoods to force the majority to give in to their demands” (517).
In Suid-Afrika word die swart meerderheidsmening op hierdie manier afgedwing, bv deur die toepassing van polities korrekte sensuur. Baie dinge mag nie meer by die naam genoem word nie. “As religion has retreated and morality becomes privatised, individual conscience has become universalised” (529). Dink aan die wêreldburgers wat Wim de Villiers aan die Universiteit Stellenbosch wil kweek. Phillips noem sodanige strategie ‘n “potentially deadly cultural meltdown” (557). “Instead of being taught how to think, children were now told what to think” (1745).
My teks hier bo is hoofsaaklik op die voorwerk van Phillips se boek gebaseer. Dit is duidelik dat ek die res van hierdie belangrike boek nie hier in besonderhede bekend kan stel sonder om ‘n redelike lengte vir hierdie rubriek op ‘n buitensporige manier te oorskry nie. Maar my bostaande teks behoort aan Praag-lesers ‘n aanduiding te gee van waaroor hierdie boek handel en ook dat sommige aspekte plaaslik ter sake is. “Muslim enclaves” word ironies “areas of separate development” genoem (589) en vir immigrantgebiede word selfs die kosmologiese term “black holes” gebruik (1705). Ek sluit hierdie rubriek af met twee paragrawe wat ‘n aantal aanhalings uit die res van die boek bevat.
“The emergence of a culture of hyperindividualism gave rise to a radical egalitarianism of lifestyles and values. Morality was privatised, and all constraints of religion, tradition or cultural taboos came to be seen as an attack on personal autonomy. Where previously ties of obligation had bound individuals to each other and to the state, the new culture of entitlement imposed instead an obligation on the state to deliver individual demands that were presented as rights. Since radical egalitarianism meant that all lifestyles were of equal value, the very notion of a majority [ie white] culture or normative rules of behaviour became suspect as innately exclusive, prejudiced or oppressive” (1015). “Moral equivalence rapidly mutates into moral inversion, in which those doing wrong are excused if they belong to a ‘victim’ group while those at the receiving end of their behaviour are blamed simply because they belong to the ‘oppressive’ [white] majority” (1898).
Ingevolge die multikulturele standpunt “Britain is now made up of many cultures that are all equal and therefore have to be treated in an identical fashion, and … any attempt to impose the majority [ie white] culture over those minorities is by definition racist” (1631). Multiculturalism and antiracism were now the weapons with which minorities were equipped to beat the majority. Not all minorities, mind you – Jews were not considered to be a minority … since Jews were seen to be powerful, they were part of the majority and so could never be victims” (1669). “Democracy became effectively redefined from majority [ie white] rule among equal citizens to power-sharing among ethnic and other interest groups” (1026). In Suid-Afrika het FW de Klerk se sogenaamde magsdeling tot algehele magsoorgawe aan die swart meerderheid gelei. Die wit meerderheid in Brittanje word deur etniese minderheidsgroepe suksesvol tot magsdeling geïntimideer, maar in Suid-Afrika is daar (nog) feitlik geen sprake dat die swart meerderheid hom aan die blanke of ander etniese minderhede hoef te steur nie.
Skrywer Leon LemmerGepubliseer op 15 Mei 2016 Kategorieë Leon Lemmer, RubriekeSleutelwoord Londen, Londonistan, Melanie Phillips, moslems
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