OPINION:
Britain seeks to conduct an interesting surgical procedure. Extremely difficult to perform, it is the equivalent of separating Siamese twins.
Success or failure rests on where the twins are connected. Britain is the surgeon; the patient is a major religion. While the proposed surgical approach seeks to eliminate one twin suffering from an affliction of violence, the surgeon seems unaware the surviving twin suffers from the same affliction.
In May 2013, British soldier Lee Rigby was brutally attacked and slain in public view by two Islamic extremists on a London street during daylight hours.
Armed with knives, a cleaver and gun, they nearly decapitated Rigby, informing bystanders the killing was vengeance for Muslims killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by British soldiers.
Born in Britain, the killers were of Nigerian descent, raised as Christians but later converting to Islam as a result of radicalization by domestic anti-West Muslim clerics.
In the attack’s aftermath, British Prime Minister David Cameron created an antiterrorism task force to make recommendations on how to stop such radicalization of Britons by Muslim “hate preachers.”
Mr. Cameron told the House of Commons that lessons must be learned from the Rigby attack, adding, “When young men born and bred in this country are radicalized and turned into killers, we have to ask some tough questions about what is happening.
It is as if that for some young people there is a conveyor belt to radicalization that has poisoned their minds with sick and perverted ideas. We need to dismantle this process at every stage — in schools, colleges, universities, on the Internet, in our prisons, wherever it is taking place.”
One task force recommendation, while encouraging, provides only a partial solution to a religion suffering from a diagnosis of violence toward all nonbelievers.
The task force advises, and Mr. Cameron agrees, that Islam basically needs to be separated into “Islam, the ideology” and “Islam, the religion.” He reports it is the ideology that gives rise to “Islamist extremism.”
Mr. Cameron suggests that recognizing the dichotomy is important so as to create separation between the religion’s nonviolent and violent extremist sides — the latter to be criminalized and no longer allowed to disguise itself as a religion.
If the recommendation is implemented, it will give the government more authority to stop Islamic hate preachers, ban groups encouraging violence and disrupt Islamic extremist recruiting efforts. The approach mirrors one Britain used in 1998 to effectively disrupt antisocial behavior by hooligans and youth gangs.
While the hooligans’ commitment to antisocial behavior was a passing fancy, making dissuasion easier, the Islamic extremists’ commitment is a lifelong religious commitment not lending itself to the same.
Britain thinks its 2.7 million strong Muslim community to be mostly moderates — but these moderates will take the policy as a crusade against them.
A Jan. 8 opinion article in The Washington Times documents how deeply entrenched Islam already is within British society: Muslim gangs known as “Muslim London Patrols” can be seen abusing non-Muslim pedestrians entering a Muslim area shouting, “This is a Muslim area Islam is here, whether you like it or not . What we need is Shariah.”
Dozens of Shariah law courts freely operate within Britain, issuing domestic- and marital-law decisions complying with Shariah — but not British — laws, the former being very abusive toward women. Supposedly not legally binding, Muslims press for victims’ obedience.
Reaching tidal wave proportions, sex crimes against women by predatory Muslim taxi drivers have caused a British judge to issue a public warning that no woman should expect to be safe in cabs.
At least 2,500 children are confirmed victims of Muslim “child-grooming” gangs torturing, sexually abusing and trafficking girls as young as 11 — with this thought to just be the tip of the iceberg.
Additionally, hundreds of Britons fighting in Syria are being trained to return home to wreak violence.
Questions remain as to how far a government program aimed at silencing Muslim hate preachers will go. Will it criminalize the publication or distribution of materials that encourage Muslims to commit violence? If so, it will have a much bigger problem on its hands.
As indicated, the recommendation endeavors to separate one group — Muslims — into two: moderates favoring Islam’s peaceful support and extremists who do not. Yet both groups take their guidance from the same source, the Koran.
Reading the Koran, one better understands the basis for the Islamist’s extremist interpretation. The Koran is an indoctrination tool for extremism, calling on all Muslims to take violent action against non-Muslims. More than 100 such violent references appear in the holy book.
Regardless of one’s personal interpretation, the Koran’s mandate for all Muslims is clear: convert non-Muslims to Islam or slay them. Even moderate preachers teach this mandate to their flock. Will implementation still allow such teachings simply because the violence is being taught by so-called “moderates”?
Is there a peaceful component to the Koran? There is, but unfortunately, it conflicts with its violent one. Where such conflict exists, confused followers are taught to obey the latter (violent) interpretation.
In time, Britain will discover its surgical procedure for separating Islam’s Siamese twins — one violent, one supposedly not — cannot succeed.
Surgery may eliminate the violent twin by removing its religious cover. However, the procedure fails to recognize these twins are conjoined at the head and thus, share a genetic mindset committed to violence.
James Zumwalt, a retired U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel, is author of “Doomsday: Iran — The Clock is Ticking” (Fortis Publishing, 2012).
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