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Three cheers to Andrew Neil for his bravura speech praising Western enlightenment values in comparison with murderous “Islamist scumbags” – and their sleazy apologists on the British Left
It’s fair to say that this blog has not always been the biggest fan of Andrew Neil, or what he has done with the BBC’s flagship political television output.
But I have only admiration for his opening monologue on today’s Daily Politics, responding to last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris. It’s worth transcribing Neil’s speech in its entirety:
Welcome to This Week. A week in which a bunch of loser jihadists slaughtered a hundred and fifty-two innocents in Paris to prove the future belongs to them rather than the civilisation like France.
Well, I can’t say that I fancy their chances. France: the country of Descartes, Boulez, Monet, Satre, Rousseau, Camou, Renoir, Berlioz, Cézanne, Gauguin, Hugo, Voltaire, Matisse, Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Bizet, Satie, Pasteur, Molière, Franck, Zola, Balzac, Blanc, cutting edge science, world class medicine, fearsome security forces, nuclear power, Coco Chanel, Château Lafite, coq au vin, Daft Punk, Zizou Zidane, Juliette Binoche, liberté, égalité, fraternité and creme brûlée.
Versus what? Beheadings, crucifixions, amputations, slavery, mass murder, medieval squalor, a death cult barbarity that would shame the Middle Ages. Well, IS, or Da’esh, or ISIS, or ISIL, or whatever name you’re going by, I’m sticking with IS – as in Islamist Scumbags.
I think the outcome is pretty clear to everybody but you: whatever atrocities you are currently capable of committing, you will lose. In a thousand years’ time, Paris – that glorious city of lights – will still be shining bright, as will every other city like it, while you will be as dust, along with a ragbag of fascists, Nazis and Stalinists who have previously dared to challenge democracy. And failed.
What a marvellous, stirring speech in defence of Western civilisation. Between Andrew Neil and John Oliver, here we have all the response we need to those who preach an ideology of hatred, ignorance and death.
If only more of our political and civic leaders had the self-confidence and moral fibre to speak like Neil (Oliver would probably be going too far) – and not just in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on a European capital – perhaps we would not be facing such a crisis of confidence in Western and British values.
And that crisis of confidence is unfortunately summed up in some of the responses to Neil’s speech on Twitter:
Through an insatiable desire to signal their virtue, flaunt their multiculturalist credentials and deliberately misinterpret those who dare to criticise the Islamists – but never Muslims in general – there are some on the Left who will only ever see bad in the West, and a plucky underdog in the murderous fanatics who bring death to innocent people in Paris, Madrid, New York and London.
These people are despicable. If our civilisation does ever collapse, it will be entirely thanks to their self-flagellating, virtue-signalling, moralising vacuity – not the Islamists, whose brief time strutting around the world stage will perish just like all of the failed ideologies that came before it.
A big toast to Andrew Neil for a full throated and very welcome defence of Western enlightenment and civilisation in the face of primitive Islamist barbarism.
And shame on each and every one of the virtue-signalling, West-hating, terror-appeasing, amoral leftists who chose to attack the speech on social media to flaunt their warped “tolerance” credentials.
They and the murderous Islamists fully deserve one another.
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If we’re relying on Andrew Neil to defend the West from Islamic aggression then we may as well pack our suitcases and head for the hills. Neil neither understands the nature of what we’re up against, nor does he want to understand it. By his use of the word “Islamist” I sense the author of this article would rather dodge the truth as well.
Quran (9:29) – “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” Suras 9 and 5 are the last “revelations” that Muhammad narrated – hence abrogating what came before, including the oft-quoted verse 2:256 -“There is no compulsion in religion…”.
Islam is an ideology that promotes violence and intolerance. It is right to criticize its followers and try to persuade them to lose their religion. If you’ve been fooled by the argument that the above quotation is taken “out of context”, then think again. Mohammed went from having a few followers to ruling most of the Arabian peninsula during quite a short period, he did not accomplish this by only waging jihad defensively. He also had several critics murdered as well.
“Islamist” is a weasel word.
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I am not dodging any truth, and I disagree with your effort to tar all Muslims (and an entire religion) with the same brush.
I believe one has to distinguish between the foundational books and doctrines of a religion and the way in which it is practised now by different groups. I don’t dispute the quotes you cite, but plenty of distasteful passages can be found in other holy books, as you know.
I use the term Islamist because it serves to distinguish between peaceful adherents of Islam and the more extremist fundamentalist sects (such as the jihadist salafism of ISIS).
Failing to make this distinguish dishonours the memory of people like Asad Shah, murdered by *Islamists* for daring to set an example of how Muslims can peacefully coexist with and within the West.
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An Ahmadi Muslim is not the same as a mainstream Muslim. Asad Shah was an Ahmadi Muslim. He was inspired to make his statements by his religious beliefs just as much as the killers of the Hebdo cartoonists were inspired by theirs. I have no issues with the Ahmadi beliefs, they do not believe in violent jihad. Ahmadis are persecuted by mainstream Muslims, his murder seems to have been an example of that. Also I hope you are aware that Ahmadis are a tiny minority of Muslims in the UK (around 1%).
Of course many Muslims behave very well towards others throughout their lives. However I take very strong exception to your claim that “Failing to make this distinguish dishonours the memory of people like Asad Shah”. It does nothing of the kind and it would not have done so even if he had been a Sunni Muslim. Can we not criticize anybody for holding the beliefs they do just because they are called religious beliefs without dishonouring them?
“it serves to distinguish between peaceful adherents of Islam and the more extremist fundamentalist sects”. How do you define a peaceful adherent? One who wants Sharia law? One who isn’t actually engaged in violent jihad at the moment? How do you know what they would do if their leaders told them it was time for jihad? You don’t. The only thing that we really know is that they admire a man who rose to power by waging war, enslaving, stealing, and having dissidents murdered. He is supposed to have been the most perfect man who every lived. These are beliefs that are not compatible with a free society.
As far as “plenty of distasteful passages can be found in other holy books”, of course that is true. I am happy to criticize other religions as well and I do. The problem is that all religions are not morally equivalent. Islam is riddled with huge problems for any person who is concerned with morality. The murders of dissidents, the marriage to the 6 year old Aisha, the Banu Qurayza massacre, the condoning of wife beating (Koran 4:34). Can we not criticize these things? Of course the stoning of adulterers is also a statement in Leviticus as well, but so what? Can we not criticize those that advocate it, just because its a religious belief? Jesus in any case effectively overruled the stoning of adulterers by his speech about that.
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