Sunday 15 March 2009

Peter Hitchens - Mail On Sunday

In general I am not a lover of his writing, however I have to admit this extract from his column today rather 'hits the nail on the head'. Discussing the 'Muslim Problem' he says:

"We have rightly been told for many years not to refer to such people as ‘immigrants’ for the simple reason that they have been born and raised here.Why then do they not feel as we do? It is not because they are Muslims. Muslims served the British Crown with loyalty and distinction in the days of Empire, and would not then have dreamed of insulting this country’s flag or scorning its soldiers.

It is because we have encouraged them to think like this by ceaselessly attacking our own country.We teach our children to be ashamed of our past. We tell them our sailors at Trafalgar had weevils in their biscuits but not that by astonishing courage and endurance they saved Europe from endless tyranny. We act ashamed of the Christian religion that formed our laws and institutions. We encourage new arrivals to speak their own languages, to stay in isolated communities.

We never say that there are two sides to hospitality – a concept our Muslim citizens understand very well – and that those who are welcomed are expected to be loyal members of the society they have voluntarily joined. What do we expect these people and their children to think if we treat our own nation with contempt?

The reasons for this lie buried in the lost teenage years of our elite. Far more of them than are now ready to admit it were revolutionary Marxists at the time.They have not really changed the views they held then, just become cleverer at achieving their aims. Now we see the result.

Of course, if British Christians living in an Islamic country turned out to jeer at that country’s army, they would be torn to pieces by the crowd or hurled into prison.I am rather proud of the immense restraint shown by most of those who went there to cheer – because such restraint is very British. But how long will restraint be British, and the British be restrained? I cling to the idea that it is not too late to stop the disintegration of our society but, if so, then time is very short indeed." (Emphasis mine)

Exactly!

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