Excerpt
The distress of ordinary Britons at how their country was being reshaped to accommodate medieval Islamic values tipped the Brexit vote in favor of leaving the EU. |
The beauty of an uprising like the Brexit vote is that it makes the political and media elites who govern our lives look like fools.
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In the once-thriving mining town of Barnsley, where 70% of the population voted to leave the European Union, one middle-aged man summed it up as he spoke to Britain’s ITV network: “It’s to stop the Muslims from coming into this country. Simple as that.”
Few others dared to be so explicit. But neither before nor after the Brexit vote has the political and media elite dared to discuss the elephant in the room – radical Islam.
The fear of being labelled racist may silence many for now. But in the future there will be an ultra-right-wing backlash in which innocent Muslims may well suffer.
I remember the fallout when former British foreign secretary Jack Straw in 2006 asked one of his constituents to remove her burka while speaking to him. He was accused of “thinly veiled racism” and his fate gave the elites one of many cues to tiptoe around such issues.
Neither before nor after the Brexit vote has the British elite dared to discuss the elephant in the room – radical Islam.
But trust ordinary Britons to be appalled at how their country was being reshaped to accommodate medieval values, not imported by Muslim immigrants, but entrenched in the values their British-born children were being taught at school.
The UK is not alone. From India to Myanmar, France to the Central African Republic, ordinary people are angry at Islamism.
As as a result, innocent Muslims suffer while their radical leaders gloat at this “proof” of their predictions that the ‘“kuffar,” non-Muslims, are enemies of Islam.
If Muslim leaders do not acknowledge the flaunting of radical Islam on the streets and in the workplaces of Europe’s cities, then Brexit is just the beginning.
Is blocking off streets in Paris and Delhi for Friday prayers the best way for Muslims to display our faith? It’s time to take stock, but is anyone listening?
Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and columnist at the Toronto Sun, is a Robert J. and Abby B. Levine Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
