In an Islamic London, Christians and Jews – with their allegiance to the Bible and the Talmud – would be protected as ‘peoples of the book’. Hindus and Sikhs manage to live alongside a large Muslim population in India, so why not here? Although England has a long tradition of religious bigotry against, for instance, Roman Catholics, it is reasonable to assume that under the guiding hand of Islam a civilised accommodation could be made among faith groups in London. This welcoming stance already exists in the capital in the form of the City Circle (see Yahya Birt interview), which encourages inter-faith dialogue and open discussion.Even on its own terms, Mr. Hodges's argument flies off at a tangent from reality and refuses to see any trouble with Islam that can't be explained away by blaming those nasty British racists who are the real problem. Take the start of the article:
The noise from the expectant crowd hushed to a murmur as an open-backed lorry that had driven slowly up the Mall – known since the Islamic revolution of 2021 as The Way of the Martyrs – nudged its way through the thousands gathered in Mohammad Sidique Khan Square. On the lorry, two masked guards held a young man, black hood over his head; a quiver running through the material suggested he knew what was coming.On the terms of sanity, it's the ravings of a man who will be the first to embrace dhimmitude and then be all surprised when it's literally his turn for the chop. What Mr. Hodges completely fails to grasp is that while his scenario might be a "right-wing nightmare" it is also a Jihadi dream-- one which evil men of violence will do anything (and I mean anything) to inflict on the rest of the world. Add to this an Islam on the verge of a theological crisis as moderate is confronted with Jihadist and a growing Muslim immigrant population that has an alarming percentage that sympathise with the goals of these villains, if not their means, and you have a self-lighting powder keg. Perhaps Trafalgar Square will never be a place of public execution where bearded fanatics ululate in glory, but that doesn't mean that a future London couldn't end up looking like Gaza City with a bit more rainfall as it becomes a battleground between civilised men and the barbarians come again.
The lorry halted by the plinth that had once held Marc Quinn’s sculpture ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’ – long since removed as an insult to decency – and was now the place of public execution. A rope noose attached to a wire cable hung from a mechanised hoist. The main doors of what had been the National Gallery flung open and an Imam walked down the steps of the new Institute of Islamic Jurisprudence, opened only a week before by Sultan Charles, Prince of Islam and protector of the faithful in England.
The official executioner placed a stepladder against the plinth. The lorry pulled up and the young man was pushed out, then forced up the ladder. The noose was forced over the condemned man’s head. The crowd chanted ‘Allahu akbar’ (God is greater than everything).The hoist driver put his finger on a green button … Okay, not really – that’s a hysterical, right-wing nightmare of a future Muslim London: where an cruel alien creed is forced on a liberal city. A society where women are second-class citizens, same sex relationships a crime and Sharia law enforces terrible public disfigurement and death. But the reality is a long, long way from this dark vision.
I haven't seen such willful blindness since the days of the Cold War when Stalin worshipers in the chattering classes of Islington used to tell Solzhenitsyn to his face that he didn't know what he was talking about. It puts me in mind of nothing less than the start of the Dark Ages when Roman upper-class ladies were said to greet the arrival of the Visigoths by calling out "When do the rapes begin?"
It looks as if things don't change that much in a millennium and a half.
Update: From the comments that follow the article, it looks as the Time Out's readers don't think much of Mr. Hodes either.
