Liberal England in its decadence is more likely to turn on the enemies of repellent religion than the creed itself. The University of West London's censorship was hardly a one-off. The authorities at the London School of Economics punished atheist students for wearing T-shirts with a cartoon of Jesus saying "hey" and Muhammad saying "How ya doin'?", taken from the online "Jesus and Mo" strip. The sight of a cartoon image of Muhammad was too much for the university to bear. The LSE students union egged the administrators on, and passed a motion saying that it was "racist" to fear Islamic culture, even if that culture included variants of sharia law that mandate unequal treatment for women, Christians and Jews.
So deep has the rot set in that the National Union of Students decided that it was "Islamophobic" to support the Kurds fighting Islamic State, even though most Kurds are Muslims (although, admittedly, some are Christian and some — shockingly for the British Left — don't believe in a god or gods at all).
One can see in the universities and outside a left-wing version of radical Islam developing. Or if that is too strong, a culture which behaves as if it were controlled by radical Islamists. Like our supposedly alternative comedians, the middle-class left will satirise Christianity, as any Islamist would. Like the newspapers and television stations, it will not allow any satire of Islam even if the satire is as toothless as a cartoon of Jesus saying "Hey" and Muhammad saying "How ya doin'?" It will ignore the crimes against humanity of Islamic State while condemning every Israeli crime. For all its supposed feminism, it will behave as any Islamist would, and allow religious speakers to segregate audiences with men at the front and the seductive women who might drive them from the path of purity at the back.
As with the schools, it was easy to think that the dominant left-wing culture would take decades to shift. As with the schools, those who thought that their little world would never change failed to see themselves as others saw them. The state, and the rest of society, could see the hypocrisy and the dangers of giving extremism a ride so easy extremists did not even need to argue their case.
Last year, in the first sign of new times coming, Labour and Conservative politicians slapped down Universities UK, the quango that represents all institutions of higher education. It had ruled, without a blush, that it was a breach of an Islamist cleric's human rights to deny him the power to segregate women at public meetings. This year, as young British men flood overseas to commit crimes against humanity, the state has gone much further, and already you see institutions scrambling to fall in behind the new party line. Last month, a London university banned an Islamist speaker, who had blamed "Western culture" for allowing "obscene, filthy, and shameless" homosexual impulses. On the same day, the Law Society withdrew its staggeringly sexist guidance that solicitors must tell their Muslim clients that women should receive only half as much as men in sharia-compliant wills.
I am sure the government has overwhelming public support, but fear that an oppressive culture imposed from above is no substitute for a genuine anti-fascist culture bubbling up from below. But then I must face the fact that there is a vast woozy mass of liberal-leftists who will never change, and would not fight back even if a bomb exploded in their own back yard.
I will oppose the state's attempts to restrict freedom of speech, as I hope you will too. But I will not let supposed liberals forget that, by their own cowardice and lack of conviction, they have brought this dismal moment on themselves.
So deep has the rot set in that the National Union of Students decided that it was "Islamophobic" to support the Kurds fighting Islamic State, even though most Kurds are Muslims (although, admittedly, some are Christian and some — shockingly for the British Left — don't believe in a god or gods at all).
One can see in the universities and outside a left-wing version of radical Islam developing. Or if that is too strong, a culture which behaves as if it were controlled by radical Islamists. Like our supposedly alternative comedians, the middle-class left will satirise Christianity, as any Islamist would. Like the newspapers and television stations, it will not allow any satire of Islam even if the satire is as toothless as a cartoon of Jesus saying "Hey" and Muhammad saying "How ya doin'?" It will ignore the crimes against humanity of Islamic State while condemning every Israeli crime. For all its supposed feminism, it will behave as any Islamist would, and allow religious speakers to segregate audiences with men at the front and the seductive women who might drive them from the path of purity at the back.
As with the schools, it was easy to think that the dominant left-wing culture would take decades to shift. As with the schools, those who thought that their little world would never change failed to see themselves as others saw them. The state, and the rest of society, could see the hypocrisy and the dangers of giving extremism a ride so easy extremists did not even need to argue their case.
Last year, in the first sign of new times coming, Labour and Conservative politicians slapped down Universities UK, the quango that represents all institutions of higher education. It had ruled, without a blush, that it was a breach of an Islamist cleric's human rights to deny him the power to segregate women at public meetings. This year, as young British men flood overseas to commit crimes against humanity, the state has gone much further, and already you see institutions scrambling to fall in behind the new party line. Last month, a London university banned an Islamist speaker, who had blamed "Western culture" for allowing "obscene, filthy, and shameless" homosexual impulses. On the same day, the Law Society withdrew its staggeringly sexist guidance that solicitors must tell their Muslim clients that women should receive only half as much as men in sharia-compliant wills.
I am sure the government has overwhelming public support, but fear that an oppressive culture imposed from above is no substitute for a genuine anti-fascist culture bubbling up from below. But then I must face the fact that there is a vast woozy mass of liberal-leftists who will never change, and would not fight back even if a bomb exploded in their own back yard.
I will oppose the state's attempts to restrict freedom of speech, as I hope you will too. But I will not let supposed liberals forget that, by their own cowardice and lack of conviction, they have brought this dismal moment on themselves.
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