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The case for mistrusting Muslims
The latest terror plots are confronting tolerant Britons with uncomfortable choices.
By Theodore Dalrymple, THEODORE DALRYMPLE is the author of "Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses."
July 8, 2007
ARRIVING IN BRITAIN by air the day after two men crashed a gasoline-laden Jeep Cherokee into the main terminal at Glasgow's international airport, and a couple of days after two car bombs were discovered in the heart of London, I was surprised by how calm everybody was.
Apart from the prohibition of passenger drop-off and pickup next to the terminal building at Birmingham Airport, everything was as usual. Men and women in Muslim garb mingled in the crowd with perfect tranquillity, expecting neither violence nor even verbal reproach.
Was this a sign of the admirable tolerance of British society, or of its bovine complacency born of an inability, or unwillingness, to make the effort to defend itself? Was it decency, cowardice or stupidity?
I really don't know anymore, which is an indication of the problem: Only time will tell, and by then it might be too late.
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Now, despite friendly and long-lasting relations with many Muslims, my first reaction on seeing Muslims in the street is mistrust; my prejudice, far from having been inherited or inculcated early in life, developed late in response to events.
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And the plain fact of the matter is that British society could get by perfectly well without the contribution even of moderate Muslims. The only thing we really want from Muslims is their oil money for bank deposits, to prop up London property prices and to sustain the luxury market; their cheap labor that we imported in the 1960s in a vain effort to bolster the dying textile industry, which could not find local labor, is now redundant.
In other words, one of the achievements of the bombers and would-be bombers is to make discrimination against most Muslims who wish to enter Britain a perfectly rational policy. This is not to say that the government would espouse it, other than surreptitiously by giving secret directions to visa offices around the world. But why should a country take an unnecessary risk without a compensatory benefit?
The problem causes deep philosophical discomfort to everyone who believes in a tolerant society. On the one hand we believe that every individual should be judged on his merits, while, on the other, we know it would be absurd and dangerous to pretend that the threat of terrorism comes from sections of the population equally.
History is full of the most terrible examples of what happens when governments and peoples ascribe undesirable traits to minorities, and no decent person would wish to participate in the crimes to which this ascription can give rise; yet it would also be folly to ignore sociological reality.
All that is needed, then, to deal with the present situation is the wisdom of Solomon.
While there is much less of this as a problem in US so far, it's obvious that UK in particular has a nasty problem, just a bit more than much of EU.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion...0,6923090.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
In future I want yall to call me a "Khazar & American Mistruster."
A Muslim Mistruster how greasily PC can ya get! It sounds much more decent than an anti-Muslim, doesnt it?
Just think, if the term takes on the Jews are sure to call themselves Justified Muslim Mistrusters.
Dimwit and his demonic, hegemonic followers will call themselves Selective Mistrusters - as they devastate any insignificant nation that gets in their Imperial way.
In future I want yall to call me a "Khazar & American Mistruster."
