The prospect of Ken's mega-mosque
William Shawcross kindly alerts us to this article by Irfan al-Alawi and Stephen Schwartz in the current issue of the Spectator (UK): "Ken's mega-mosque will encourage extremism." The article opens:
In 2007 Britain will almost certainly be the chief testing ground of the attempt by radical Muslims to gain more power and influence in Western society.You will want to read it all.The United States, too, is threatened by militant Islam — not least by the prospect of terrorist attacks on its own territory — but the problem in the United Kingdom is much greater. In America, radical Islamists have used civil rights legislation and the habits of multicultural courtesy to gain advantages that might not be available to them in Europe. At any rate there has been no debate there about niqab or face-covering. Britain, however, gives the impression of a society approaching a fork in its historical road: either towards more ‘Islamisation’ of the broader society or towards a powerful backlash as Britons grow increasingly troubled by the apparent forcible dilution of the majority culture.
The fork in the road could be reached later this year if the go-ahead is given for the building of the massive, intrusive — and bizarre — Sunni mosque complex to sit alongside the 2012 London Olympics centre. All the indications are that the go-ahead will be given.
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