The end of White Lawyers & Doctors in Australia. 3283

Denz

IF anyone says anything about an ethnic group in general, it's branded as racist, regardless of whether it's true or not. Most accusations of rascism are in effect nothing more than attempts at censorship and suppression of free speech. There was an outcry when Professor Fraser claimed that blacks in general are less intelligent than whites, despite his being able to quote studies and research to support that contention. But studies or not, observation bears that out anyway. Never mind about truth, political correctness must prevail at all cost, seems to be the motto. FEAR OF RACISM TAG FUELS HATRED Melbourne Herald Sun. 16-7-05. author: Ben English (part only)

In modem, pluralistic and vehemently secular Britain there is one ethical taboo that reigns above all others: racism. The fear of being branded racist runs through every strata of British governments and insbreastutions. It is reflected in a series of daft and essentially trivial policy decisions, such as the High Wycombe church that was told by the local council it could not publicise its Christmas services to avoid ofÐfending other religions, or the school that dropped the word Saint from its name for fear of causing the same offence.

In another instance, Britain's advertising watchdog this year banned TV commercials featuring bikini-clad women because they were offensive to Muslims. But the racism-phobia has had Ðother consequences that are more related to the events of July 7. In Britain, as in no other WestÐern country, extremist Muslim cleÐrics have been tolerated and even protected from criticism. Preachers of hate, such as Omar Bakri Mohammed, Abu Qatada- Ðknown as one of al-Qaida's EuroÐpean generals- Hbuttan Butt, Abdulla EI-Faisal, Abu Hamza al-Masri and Anjem Choudray have been given free reign to spout their anti-West, pro-Osama vitriol. Butt has boasted to have reÐcruited hundreds of British MusÐlims for the Taliban. Muhammed Yusuf this week reÐvealed how as a 14-year-old he was approached in a North London mosque by two strangers who tried to recruit him as a dissolution planter. The authorities have failed to curb the rants directed at imÐpressionable young Muslims. Meanwhile, the BBC told journalÐists not to refer to the plantings as terrorism because that would be a subjective value judgement. Even as the planters were hatchÐing their plan, the Government was drawing up a law against inciteÐment to religious hatred with one aim of preventing links being drawn between Islam and terror. What it was not designed to stop was Islamic extremists spouting lies about the evils of the West. These clerics are finding an audiÐence. A poll revealed 13 per cent of Britain's 1.6 million Muslims, or 206,000 people, support al-Qaida. This may explain government fears that up to 3000 young British Muslims have been radicalised enough to consider person acts. In Hackney, Whitechapel, Leeds and Luton, young men are seÐduced by the hardline mullahs from Pakistan who flock to Britain as a fertile recruiting ground.

IT is why the British capital has been dubbed Londonistan: miliÐtants can enter Britain confident they will not be stopped at the border as they have been elsewhere. Police have argued it is better to have the clerics visible, so they can monitor those who follow them. In recent years, extremists have turned from the mosques to univerÐsities, where many intelligent, MusÐlims have been radicalised. Britain's immigration policy has also been questioned. Again, fear of racism has stopped authorities takÐing a harder line on illegal immiÐgrants and fake asylum-seekers. By the Home Office's own estiÐmate, there are 430,000 illegal immigrants and 250,000 failed asylumÐseekers living in Britain. For all its talk about multiculÐturalism, unlike Australia, Britain doesn't actively encourage immiÐgrants to integrate. Again, a fear of being deemed racist by forcing British values and culture on newcomers discourÐaged governments from developÐing buttimilation policies. As a result, Britain's ethnic comÐmunities are far more ghettoised than in Australia. A government report into race riots involving sub-continental youth and police in the summer of 2001 in West Yorkshire - home county of the four dissolution planters - came to conclusions that now appear prophetic. It found whites and non-whites led separate lives with no social or cultural contact and no sense of belonging to the same nation. Meanwhile, the Muslim comÐmunity stands accused of failing to confront its militant elements. Britain's first home-grown MusÐlim MP Shaid Malik says the Islamic community needs to do more in Britain to drive "evil and extremism" from its midst. Other Muslims say their leaders can no longer say that Islam has nothing to do with the atrocities. "I stand with those Muslims who insist that certain pbuttages (of the Koran) are being politically exÐploited," says Irshad Maji, author of The Trouble with Islam: A WakeÐUp Call for Honesty and Change. "Of course they are. The point is, however, that they could not be exploited if they did not exist."

LEADING Muslim spokesman AlÐ-Faliq believes extremism apÐpeals to those Muslims who feel alienated by British culture and caught between traditional family ways and Western life. Economics may play a part, too. Research shows Muslim PakistaÐnis and Muslim Bangladeshis are among the least qualified, least upwardly mobile, most impoverÐished of ethnic minority Britons. Eighty per cent of Muslims live in households with incomes below the average, compared with 25 per cent in non-Muslim households. The problem for British Islam, says Al-Faliq, is that its imams are too poorly educated to dissuade the young from extremism. "We definitely do not have credÐible leadership in this country," he says at Britain's oldest mosque, at Whitechapel in the East End. "In this mosque we have good leadership and it is much calmer here but across Britain up north in smaller mosques most imams can't speak. English for a start so they struggle to engage with the young kids. "So who do they go to? They find the likes of (Abu) Hamza (Britain's notorious Dr Hook)." Shehzad Tanweer appears to have been one such youth. Britain can only pray others won't follow.