A Lament for Britain
by Aaron Goldstein (2/25/09)
Fourteen winters ago, I spent a semester in London as a parliamentary intern in the British House of Commons where I had stints with two Members of Parliament from the Labour Party. My second placement was with a MP from Glasgow named Jimmy Wray. Jimmy and I got along famously. I was one of the few people who could understand his thick Scottish burr. We were a perfect match.
We worked so well together that Jimmy wanted me to return to London to work for him after the 1997 general election which Labour under Tony Blair was widely expected to win. The Conservative government of John Major was clinging to power trying to put off the inevitable for as long as possible. Sure enough Blair and Labour ended 18 years of Conservative rule as planned. However, the plan to return to Britain was never realized. In fact, I have not been across the Atlantic since.
I was disappointed at first. After the obligatory culture shock and equally obligatory adjustments I enjoyed my time over there immensely. I enjoyed walking to work from the hostel on Great Portland Street to Westminster. This commute was far more interesting than taking the Tube not to mention better exercise. I would pass the shops on Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus through Trafalgar Square onto Whitehall past Number 10 Downing Street. On weekends, I liked walking through Regents Park or Hyde Park. I also visited the Old Vic, the London Zoo and Abbey Road. While many scoff at British cuisine I quite liked eating jacket potatoes as well as fish and chips. Throw in the occasional soft serve ice cream with half a Cadbury Flake inserted in the cone (this was before I stopped eating dairy.) I also liked being in a country that was the cradle of modernity. Where would Prime Minister’s Questions and Speakers’ Corner be without the Magna Carta? I would have loved to have lived in Britain.
But life went on. Five years after my time overseas, I would find myself in the United States where I have been ever since having evolved from a Canadian socialist to an American conservative. Looking back on it now I would have to conclude that it is just as well that I did not move to Britain. If I were living in Britain today I would probably be looking to leave.
In the fourteen years since that winter, Britain has become a place where common law is breaking down, liberty has been surrendered and history is no longer valued. The main reasons for this are the excessive political correctness of Britain’s political and cultural elites, the assertiveness of Britain’s growing Muslim community and the unwillingness of political and cultural elites to stand up for common law, exercise liberty and remember its history.
Of course, I am far from the first person to lament the current state of affairs in Britain. Melanie Phillips and Mark Steyn have written extensively on this subject and frankly have far more first hand experience where it concerns the day to day travails in which Britain finds itself unable to properly negotiate.
According to the United Kingdom 2001 Census, there are more than 1.5 million Muslims in Britain comprising nearly 3% of the population. That might not seem like an impressive figure. But when one considers that a third of that population is under the age of 16 and more Muslims have found their way onto British soil in the near decade since one must take pause. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4385768.htm) It is worth noting that in 2007 it was discovered that the second most popular name for baby boys in Britain was Muhammad. It is quite possible that by now Muhammad might have supplanted Jack for the number one spot. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1890354.ece) Their numbers are large enough to have achieved critical mass sufficient for Britain to have fundamentally altered the character of British law, liberty and history.
The backbone of the British legal system and much of the English speaking world is common law (Scotland is different although it does incorporate some elements of common law). There would have been no United Kingdom without a common set of laws that were applicable to all persons. However, the influx of Muslims in Britain has created judicial bodies which adjudicate matters through Islamic Sharia law, a legal system that amongst other things considers the word of a woman to be worth half that of a man.
A year ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said it “seems inevitable” that Sharia law would be incorporated into British law. Earlier this month, the Archbishop said that there was a “drift of understanding” in British society towards his view. He cited the views of Lord Phillips, the former Lord Chief Justice and soon be the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Last July, Lord Phillips publicly concurred with Williams that Sharia law could be utilized in civil matters:
It is possible in this country for those who are entering into a contractual agreement to agree that the agreement shall be governed by law other than English law…In some countries the courts interpret Sharia as calling for severe physical punishment. There can be no question of such courts sitting in this country, or such sanctions being applied here. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2242340/Muslims-in-Britain-should-be-able-to-live-under-sharia-law,-says-top-judge.html)
How can Lord Phillips be so confident? At the very minimum, Britain is on the verge of creating one law for Muslims and one for everyone else. What is to stop Muslims for wanting everyone else to submit to Sharia law? Only days after Lord Phillips made his remarks Sarfraz Sarwar, a Muslim leader in the small town of Pitsea said Sharia law should apply to criminal matters and that criminal offenses should be punishable by flogging in town centers such as Pitsea. (http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/2380729.muslim_leader_in_call_for_sharia_law_in_uk/) Where’s Enoch Powell when you need him?
If Sharia law is formally enshrined in British law one can kiss political liberty goodbye. As it stands now there isn’t much liberty to speak of in Britain these days. Last week, Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders was denied permission to enter Britain to present his film Fitna, documenting violence carried out in the name of Islam. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith referred to her fellow European parliamentarian as an “undesirable person.” Yet the Home Secretary had absolutely no problem permitting Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi from entering the country last May. Either the Home Secretary doesn’t consider terrorist mouthpieces undesirable or is simply afraid of offending Muslims.
Whatever the motivations of the Home Secretary it represents an infringement of political liberty. If Muslims in Britain had wished to protest Wilders presence peaceably then fine. Denying Wilders entry into Britain denied Britons an opportunity to listen to his arguments and make the choice of accepting, rejecting or ignoring them. Somehow I don’t think this will be the last time someone who has views that are not acceptable to Muslims will be denied entry into Britain. If Wilders’ colleague Ayaan Hirsi Ali decides to touch down on British soil do not be surprised if the Home Secretary deems her an undesirable person as well. Fortunately, Hirsi Ali and Wilders are both welcome in America.
President Obama caused a bit of a stir when he returned a bust of Sir Winston Churchill to British Embassy in Washington. The bust was lent to President Bush by former Prime Minister Blair in the wake of the September 11th attacks and sat in the Oval Office to end of his tenure in the White House.
One could take President Obama to task for alienating a long standing ally. On the other hand, one could make the argument that Churchill isn’t valued by British political and cultural elites in the way he used to be. In July 2007, Britain’s Department of Education & Skills removed the study of Churchill from the history curriculum of its secondary schools in favor of “relevant issues” like global warming and genetically modified foods. (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/07/british_schools_cut_churchill.html)
If the Britain’s Ministry of Education doesn’t place any value on Churchill then why should we expect any different of President Obama?I am certain this development was pleasing to Britain’s Muslim community. After all, it was Churchill who in 1899 wrote, “The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property…must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.” (http://freebornjohn.blogspot.com/2006/02/winston-churchill-on-islam.html)
When a country cannot be bothered to teach its children about its most important historical figures one cannot expect them to grow up with the knowledge of the development of their national identity and the measures it took to maintain that identity much less take even a modest amount of pride in them.
If there is a silver lining in all this is that it is not too late to reverse these trends although time is at hand. Such a reversal would most likely happen if a political figure were to emerge who was willing to say enough and mobilize support around such a sentiment. It is difficult to imagine Britain’s current state of affairs happening under the watch of Churchill, Margaret Thatcher or an Enoch Powell. But they don’t make Churchills or Thatchers like they used too. I am no more optimistic about the Conservative Party under David Cameron than I am about the Labour government of Gordon Brown. While Powell enjoyed popular support he exercised little political power.
This isn’t to say there isn’t promising political talent. Conservative MP Michael Gove comes to mind. Of course, how much support he can mobilize amongst Tories much less Britain’s silent majority remains to be seen. But perhaps reversing such a trend is a task too much for a single individual no matter how charismatic and persuasive. It would require a cultural shift amongst the current and next generation of British political and cultural elites. Such a shift would need to emphasize a common law that applies to all, a political liberty that can accommodate vast disagreements without violence or threat of it and an educational system that appreciates and is proud of Britain’s history.
It is a lot to ask but anything short of it could result in Britain eventually becoming an Islamic state. This is my lament for Britain.
Aaron Goldstein
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