We must listen to the Bishop's warnings on the dangers of Islam

For too long our ruling elite has been in denial about the con­sequences of  this insidious process, pretending the assertiveness of Muslim culture is just another element in the rich diversity of British society.

Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester and a leading figure in the Church of England, has had the courage to attack the fashionable ortho­doxy. In a brave and eloquent article yesterday, he warned that the rise of Islamic extremism is not only destroying Christianity but is also creating “no go” areas in parts of Britain, where non-Muslims are made to feel deeply uncomfortable.

Bishop Nazir-Ali’s words are all the more powerful because he was born in Pakistan into

a Muslim family and later converted to Christianity. 

So he has a far better understanding of the brutal realities of hardline Muslim ideology than all the dripping wet Anglican clerics and politicians who prattle about the joys of multi-culturalism.

But there is nothing the politically correct brigade loathes more than an intelligent challenge to their dogma.

Instead of engaging with the argument, they attack their opponent for daring to speak out. The Bishop of Rochester has therefore been condemned for “scaremongering”, producing “a gross caricature” of urban society, and making “extraordinary inflammatory” remarks.

Yet Bishop Nazir-Ali is absolutely right. His critics are living in a fantasy world conjured up by their own deceitful clappy-happy rhetoric if they think Britain does not have a problem with the growing strength of Islam in our midst.

The fact is that, in all too many of our cities, Mus­lim radicalism has led to segregation, oppression of women, criminality and terrorism.

Enthusiasts for multi-culturalism continually demand that the indigenous British people show tolerance towards those of other faiths but when it comes to fundamentalist Islam, there is no pressure for this mood of tolerance to be reciprocated.

Islam in Britain could be portrayed as a combination of the outstretched palm of victimhood, begging for official support, and the clenched fist of grievance, threatening violence if demands are not met.

All too often the political establishment has surrendered, dressing up its feebleness as multi-cultural sensiti­vity. But, as the Bishop of Rochester asserts, the outcome of this defeatism has been catastrophic. Civic institutions might blather about “unity in diversity” but, in reality, urban Britain is scarred by divisions. Integration has given way to separatism.

We now have state-funded Muslim schools, housing projects, leisure centre sessions and community groups. Cul­tural cringe means that every superstitious demand of the radicals, no matter how absurd, is taken seriously by the authorities.

So, while elderly people are dying of neglect, nurses are instructed to turn the beds of Muslim patients five times a day towards Mecca. Similarly, toilets in prisons are being reconstructed to turn away from Mecca.

Such considerations never seem to apply to Britain’s own cultural heritage. Christianity is mocked or marginalised, our history ignored or treated as a source of shame. The generation that fought the Second World War to protect our nation from foreign occupation must wonder why they bothered as the social landscape of our country is transformed.

There is no more graphic symbol of the change sweeping  Britain than the demand from Muslims in Oxford that the city council give mosques the right to broad­cast the call to prayers over loudspeakers at least three times a day. The noisy summons to Muslim prayers smacks of ideological and cultural supremacy rather than spiritual concern.

It is absurd to pretend that Muslim culture is not becoming the dominant force in all too many cities. Sharia law is now informally operating in many places where there is a substantial Muslim population.

Muslim women are increasingly compelled by social pressures to adhere to strict customs and codes of dress, such as the hijab and even the burqa. The mosques are ever more powerful and radicalised.

According to one recent survey, half of them are controlled by the hardline Deobandi sect, which loathes Western values and played a key role in the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan.  

This group, which runs 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, is led by Riyadh ul Haq, who has called for Muslims to “shed their blood for Allah” and has said a Muslim friendship with a Jew or a Christian makes “a mockery of Allah’s religion”.

The political creed of multi-culturalism has encouraged  this bigotry to flourish in British society. Politicians and police chiefs have cravenly allowed Muslim preachers of hate to operate with impunity. As one Birm­ingham woman, Gina Khan, who turned against Islam after running away from an arranged marriage, said in an interview last year: “There are mosques on every street corner. It is all happening on your doorstep and Britain is still blind to the real threat that is embedded here now.”

What is remarkable is that, in the name of diversity, so-called liberals have promoted the miso­gynistic authoritarian theo­­cracy they claim to despise.

Christianity helped to build the safe, tolerant society which for generations has attracted migrants fleeing persecution or squalor. Yet now, as Christian­ity withers, large swathes of our country are starting to replicate the Third World.