Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series on Sharia law, or Islamic law, featuring Raheem Kassam, author of the new book, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You. In part one, Mr. Kassam discussed the effects of growing self-segregation in Muslim communities across the U.S. and Europe.
The left has created quite a conundrum for themselves. On one hand, they proclaim their commitment to all forms of tolerance and diversity (except, of course, intellectual diversity). On the other hand, they embrace the cause of Islam, which is hardly known for its equal treatment of women and gay people, among others.
Raheem Kassam, British political activist, Editor-in-Chief of Breitbart News London, and author of the new book, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You, discussed this cognitive dissonance, as well as Muslims’ refusal to assimilate into western cultures, on Liberty Nation Radio.
LN: Let’s talk about the issue of the left and the incompatibility of their pronounced virtue signaling in favor of every form of cultural, racial and gender diversity with their protection of an Islamic tradition that places little to no value on the input of women. How does the left reconcile those seemingly irreconcilable points of view?
Mr. Kassam: Well I don’t think it does, but in the arguments, I have with people about this…they tend to argue, “they’re different, you gotta leave them to their own devices, it’s Islamophobic if you say they can’t exercise their culture and their religion.” Of course, the United States has this incredible freedom of religion … acceptance. It’s built into the very fabric of your society, and of your country. But, when it gets to the point that people are being actively, seriously discriminated against, when women are being lashed, when children are being trafficked and sexually groomed and raped, as is the case in many of these areas…to what extent do we continue to allow this?
You have Maajid Nawaz in the United Kingdom, a former extremist himself, who has turned into a liberal leftist, who is now being shunned and shamed by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. They call him a hater, they call him an Islamophobe, and why? He’s still a practicing Muslim. And why do they call him an Islamophobe? Because he does not want Sharia law in the west. And those who think like him are called Uncle Toms; they’re called House Muslims, they’re called Islamophobes, you name it.
It’s not like we can convince the left that they’re wrong on this issue. But at least we can hold up a mirror to them.
LN: Now the issue you constantly bring to the forefront in your book and in this conversation is assimilation, and how Muslims are, or are not, assimilating into the nations where they live. And what you seem to be saying is that Muslims have to a large extent isolated themselves in Islamic ghettos where no non-Muslims, or infidels, are permitted to tread, for fear of what?
Mr. Kassam: Well I mean it’s not like they have a gatekeeper standing at the entryway to these neighborhoods, but it becomes extremely uncomfortable for non-Muslims, for documentarians or police, for journalists, for women, especially white women, and especially blond white women, and I’ve seen that with my own two eyes, to go into these neighborhoods. I know people in the United Kingdom who grew up in those neighborhoods who simply won’t go there anymore because when a non-Muslim goes into that neighborhood, they’re set upon. They can be spat at; they can be shouted at, as I have been. They can be threatened; they can be insulted. The insults, I can’t even say them on radio, that I’ve heard hurled at women in these areas are absolutely extraordinary.
And in some parts of Europe, police don’t even want to go into these neighborhoods anymore, and they certainly won’t go in twos, they will go in sixes, sevens, eights, maybe even ten at a times. The postal services will refuse to deliver to some of them. When I was on a bus in the northern parts of the Parisian suburbs, the bus wouldn’t stop in these neighborhoods because it was too dangerous.
This is…our new reality. I often hear, “Yes, Raheem, sure, but when the Irish came over they ghettoized them, and when the Italians came over they ghettoized,” and so on and so forth. And then the next generation is supposed to integrate, and they did, but the problem with Islamic migration and the difference between all those other migrant groups, whether your average Muslim on the street acknowledges it or even knows it, is that…they believe that their law is better, they believe that their law is God-given and that every other law is man-made and therefore they don’t have to abide by it.
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The supremacy of Sharia law in Muslim communities has indeed become the west’s new reality. And it has happened because western leaders have permitted it, or even embraced it. Until such time as the west’s deference and tolerance about Sharia is tempered by equal justice under the laws of nations, the magnitude of this problem will only continue to grow.
