Obsolete: Scum-watch: Reid warns Muslims to be suspicious of their children.

Another day, another article in the Sun by a member of the government mentioning all the same platitudes about the war on terror.

The article doesn't start well, and it goes downhill dramatically:

EXTREMIST Muslims are calling for jihad, or holy war, after the Pope quoted an ancient text linking the Prophet Muhammad with “things evil and inhumane.”

As tensions rise, this week Home Secretary John Reid will appeal to Muslims to help root out potential terrorists from within their community. Here he writes for The Sun.

Err, they are? The pope's comments did cause a degree of outrage in the Middle East, but it appears to have been calmed by his apology. The only person in the UK who came anywhere near to calling for "jihad" was Anjem Choudrary (his Wikipedia page is currently vandalised, otherwise I'd link to it), the extremist idiot from al-Ghurabaa, who implied on Sunday during a demonstration that the pope could be subject to capital punishment for insulting the prophet Muhammad.

OUR world has changed enormously over the last 15 years. The dangers of religious extremism and ethnic tensions have replaced the East-West rivalries of the Cold War.

The end of communism was a great victory for freedom and democracy but it created new challenges — including global terrorism.

Yes, quite. When it came to defeating communism, it didn't matter if we decided to be friends with or fund deeply unpleasant people or groups - such as the mujahideen in Afghanistan, who fought the Soviets. Just because a lot of those that did then turned their attention to fighting the west and carrying out terrorist attacks across the globe doesn't matter at all; our heart was in the right place.

But this is not a war with Islam, this is a battle against extremism and intolerance. And it is vital that we all work together to defeat those twin evils. That’s why there must be no sectarian divide between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Which is a bit rich coming from the Sun newspaper, the same owners of which printed the following despicable sectarian rant from Lord Stevens in the News of the Screws:

WHEN will the Muslims of Britain stand up to be counted?

When will they declare, loud and clear, with no qualifications or quibbles about Britain's foreign policy, that Islamic terrorism is WRONG?

Most of all, when will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is THEIR problem? THEY own it. And it is THEIR duty to face it and eradicate it.

It's all right though, John Reid is here to teach the feckless dumb Muslims how to do it:

It is because of the level of threat they face that I will start this week to brief the Muslim community, to give them the knowledge to defeat these extremists and ask for their help.

This dovetails with the work of Ruth Kelly who, as part of her ongoing engagement with Muslim communities, will be hosting a meeting of Muslim women. Some may think it is better to accommodate extremists in the hopes of influencing them for the better, but as I know from the bitter experience of dealing with militants in the Labour Party, you cannot compromise with fanatical beliefs.

Militants in the Labour party, Islamic extremists, what's the difference? All this talk of accomodating extremists depends on the definition of "extremist": are we talking about Anjem Choudrary or the likes of the MCB, MAB and MPAC-UK, which some, including on the supposed liberal-left, regard as "extremist"? The government itself has a lousy record on this, especially after the 7/7 bombings. It set up a committee, only to limit their time to investigate and then ignored pretty much all the recommendations that they had come up with. What's going to be different about it this time? The debates which Labour has pledged in the past on different issues have often turned out to be window-dressing for what's already been decided. The government has to prove this is not just more of the same.

As a father of two boys, I know how hard it is to raise children and know everything they are up to. It is especially difficult to intervene as they get older.

But there are times when we must confront them to protect them from harm. So I appeal to you to look for changes in your teenage sons — odd hours, dropping out of school or college, strange new friends. And if you are worried, talk to them before their hatred grows.

In other words, every single one of you bastard Muslims is a potential terrorist, so do the decent thing: snoop on your kids. If they suddenly start caring about the war in Iraq, or Lebanon and Palestine, they're probably on the road to extremism, so shop them to the police. You know it makes sense.

I don’t want a suspicious society when we have done so well in breaking down differences. But the terrorists want to divide us. We must not let them.

Yet this is exactly what the government and many of the commentators in the tabloids have been doing. Rather than listening, accepting that foreign policy has had a marked influence in the radicalisation of a tiny percentage of Muslim youths in this country, they've done everything they can to obfuscate and play down the issue. Asking Muslims to regard their children as potential jihadis if they start doing "odd" things is an example of this. Everyone accepts that extremism is a growing problem, but rather than tackling it properly and reassuring the Muslim community as a whole that it is not regarded as the enemy within, the government seems determined to try and divide and rule certain sections of it and create conflict, between those groupings and with the policy itself.

Terrorism can be defeated only when we all work together to defeat it. That’s why it is so important that Muslims join us in exiling extremism from our country — and from their communities.

Who could disagree? If the government believes this, it's time that it actually put it into practice. Don't hold your breath.

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Slightly off topic but it is strange how the ex-communist makes so many references to the victory over communism. What's that all abouT?

Posted by CuriousHamster | Wednesday, September 20, 2006 4:28:00 PM

It's all part of the "moving the debate on" spin, such as then in the aftermath of the revelations on rendition. The government are trying their damndest to compare the threat we face now to the threat we faced from the err, nuclear armed Soviets who err, ran numerous countries in the east. Blair and his acolytes have decided that Bush's "he's a Hitler" line is the one that's worth expanding on, and the Sun are only too pleased to take part.

As for Reid himself, I'm sure it's all part of his own attempts to put his communist past behind him, now that he's in the spotlight more than ever before. Unfortunately for him, we're not going to let him forget about it, or his dealings with Radovan Karadizic.

Posted by . | Wednesday, September 20, 2006 6:32:00 PM

Islam is SCUM... they are the filthy descendants of a child raping cunt rash and their beliefs are inhumane and vile... think that sums up 90%of English people...

Posted by Anonymous | Saturday, October 07, 2006 3:57:00 AM