Sharia law in the UK?

A teacher in Batley, United Kingdom recently taught a religious lesson. In doing so he showed an image of the Prophet Mohammed. Do we have to say the Prophet Mohammed ‘Peace and Blessings be Upon Him’?

Pupils reacted wrathfully to the likeness of Mohammed being displayed. The teacher has been suspended. Dozens of irate Muslims have protested outside the school ever since demanding that the teacher be sacked and indeed banned from working with minors in any capacity for the rest of his life. The educator taught in a town where 40% of the populace is Muslim.

We have come to a pretty pass when a teacher who used a visual aid in class could be put on the same barred list as paedophiles and murderers. There are Muslims who for centuries have published images of Mohammed. It is true that in mainstream Islam images of the Prophet are now made or displayed. However, the United Kingdom is not a shariat state. Yet!

The whole sordid episode is redolent of the Jyllands Post imbroglio of 2006 or the Charlie Hebdo Massacre of 2015. A non-Muslim published something that some Mohammedans took grave exception to. Islamist reactionaries arrogate to themselves censorious rights. Worse they do so not just in Dar Al Islam but in lands where infidels form a high majority.

Education is supposed to broaden the mind. In the United Kingdom the objective of education seems to be narrow the mind. Pupils are not to be exposed to anything that might pose a challenge to liberal left pieties and multicultural fundamentalism. Teachers are only allowed to preach from within an ever-narrowing ideological range.

What is the liberal left buzzword du jour? Tolerance. Ah that’s it. Western society has to tolerate arranged marriages, veiled women, intimidation of teachers, Islamist control of curricula, mosque building, mass Muslim prayers in parks, sadistic butchering practices, circumcision and so forth. What do hardcore Muslims have to tolerate? Not very much it seems. Much of what hardline Muslims want to do I am willing to accept. But why is it that Western society has to bend over backwards to accommodate an obscurantist sect? Why do these bigots not have to tolerate the 21st century?

If you do not like Islamist extremism: tough – you have to live with it! But if you are an Islamist extremist and you do not like others having freedom then that is just fine. We will deprive others of their entitlements just to gratify you. This craven appeasement of avowed enemies of Occidental civilisation is disgraceful. The United Kingdom is a long way down a very dangerous road. The shameful abandonment of liberty and truth will be hard to reverse.

Not all Muslims are bad. There are enlightened and reasonable Muslims. Some of them will accept that unflattering images of the Prophet can and should be shown. Some of them might dislike the display of these contentious images. But a decent person would recognise that he does not have the right to disallow what he disapproves of.

We are told that showing a picture of this mortal is racialist. This is patent bunkum. Islam is not an ethnicity. It is a faith. It consists of beliefs and practices. Like any belief system it must be open to inquiry and critique. However, Islam is often like liberal leftism – a closed system of thought. It purports to be immune to analysis much less castigation. It shall brook no dissent. Those who are indoctrinated from birth into these creeds are kept in the feedback loop. The incessant brainwashing tends to have an effect.

People brought up in an all-encompassing belief system find that it embraces their forekind, friends and whole community. They become emotionally invested in this belief. Indeed, it is their whole identity. Therefore, breaking away from the creed becomes nigh impossible. It would engender an identity crisis. To leave the faith community would necessitate the rescission of all familial and amicable bonds. It would require a stout soul to bear the obloquy and ire that would follow.

It is possible for a non-Muslim to become a Muslim or a Muslim to reject the religion. However, if a Muslim renounces Islam he does so at the risk of his life.

We face liberal totalitarianism. Liberal in the Occident has long been a one word oxymoron. The true meaning of liberalism is being relaxed, free spirited and open minded. A liberal is inclined to allow and disinclined to forbid. Yet nowadays liberals have a penchant for outlawing things and for forcefeeding pupils leftist shibboleths.

It is staggering but unsurprising that the bien pensant liberal educational establishment failed to vigorously defend the pedagogue who displayed a controversial image. Controversy is what education is about. Audi alteram partem. Pupils must be exposed to countervailing points of view.