I hate to say it, but I think I’m giving up on Britain. Go ahead, Home Secretary Sajid Javid, add my name to that ever-growing list of Islam critics who are banned from entering your country. I won’t be offended. In fact, I’ll be offended if you don’t ban me.
On his July 25 call-in show, UKIP founder and Brexit godfather Nigel Farage took up the issue of “grooming gangs” – you know, those groups of young Muslim men who have been raping young non-Muslim girls for years, decades even, in cities across the UK. The first one of these gangs to be publicly exposed, beginning in 2011, was in Rotherham, in South Yorkshire. That one gang, it turned out, had systematically and repeatedly raped about 1400 girls. Since then, reports have emerged about other such gangs in other British cities. In all or most of these cities, it has been discovered, police officials, journalists, social workers, politicians, and judges knew for years about the rapes but did nothing and said nothing for fear of being called racists.
This, then, is the topic Farage took up on July 25. And what question did he ask his listeners? Did he ask them whether the death penalty should be restored so that the rapists could get the punishment they deserve? Did he ask them what kind of disciplinary action should be taken against all those public figures who stood by silently while little girls were being sexually abused?
No. He asked them about Sarah Champion.
And who is Sarah Champion? She is the Member of Parliament for the city of Rotherham. Almost a year ago, on August 10, 2017, The Sun ran an opinion piece by her that began with the statement: “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.” She went on:
There. I said it. Does that make me a racist? Or am I just prepared to call out this horrifying problem for what it is?
For too long we have ignored the race of these abusers and, worse, tried to cover it up.
No more. These people are predators and the common denominator is their ethnic heritage.
In the remaining 500 or so words of her piece, Champion told about how, after becoming an MP, she learned in a committee room about this whole grooming thing. Unwiling to stay quiet, she launched a parliamentary inquiry. She saw to it that the police and courts changed their conduct. But some things didn’t change. Victim support didn’t improve. Action on the part of people at the highest level of the government wasn’t forthcoming. As of August 10, 2017, she complained, such action was still nowhere in sight.
Sarah Champion is to be congratulated for having spoken up in this manner. But two words that appeared nowhere in her article were “Islam” and “Muslim.” When it came to the roots of these child rapes, Champion dodged the hard facts. The common demoninator isn’t ethnicity. It’s a religion that preaches the absolute right of male adherents to ravage the daughters of infidels.
Surely Sarah Champion knew this. She was brave to write the Sun piece, but not brave enough to mention Islam. Nor was she brave enough to stand up to criticism from fellow Labour Party members. When MP Naz Shah accused Champion of making “blanket, racialized, loaded statements” about Pakistani men and of having “demonise[d]” every one of them “as a rapist” (which, of course, she had not), Champion wimped out, claiming that “her piece had been altered and should ‘not have gone out in my name.’” The Sun insisted that Champion’s office “had fully approved the article.” Champion, who at the time was Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, resigned that position six days after her article ran.
A year later, people in Britain are still talking about all this. No, not about the rape gangs themselves. Yes, every so often the media uncover yet another such gang, and the news is out there for a cycle or two and then dies away. But they’re still discussing Sarah Champion. And that leads us to the question that Farage asked his listeners on July 25: “Did Sarah Champion go too far?”
Yes, you read that right. Did Sarah Champion go too far?
And then he fielded one phone call after another. One caller said it didn’t matter that the rapists were of Pakistani heritage because most of them were “British born.” Another said: “There’s something culturally wrong in Britain.” A third insisted that the “root cause” of the rape epidemic had something or other to do with economics and the British Commonwealth. But India, too, is a member of the Commonwealth. There are plenty of Hindus from India in Britain. Why aren’t they forming rape gangs? There are also lots of poor non-Muslim immigrants in Britain from other Commonwealth countries. Why aren’t they forming rape gangs?
One call followed another, with no mention of Islam. Then a Pakistani man phoned in and maintained, with some urgency, and supporting his assertion with the usual carefully cherry-picked lines of scripture, that the rape gangs were “not Islamic.” Whether out of ignorance or out of timorousness, both inexcusable, Farage didn’t correct his manifest scriptural B.S.
Not until 23 minutes into the hour-long program did one hear a critical word about Islam. A caller dared to assert, correctly, that the whole rape thing, far from being at odds with Islam, is rooted in Islamic teaching. A palpably uneasy Farage was quick to try to rein him in. At the 47-minute point, a Hindu listener phoned in and pointed out that Pakistani Muslims in Britain target not only white girls but also Sikh and Hindu girls. They have, he said, a “disrespectful attitude to non-Muslim girls.” In Britain, he noted, there’s no such thing as Sikh or Hindu rape gangs. And he added that he was sick of seeing headlines about “Asian grooming gangs” when, in fact, they’re always Muslim.
Absolutely true. But Farage’s response to this came off as timid. “Interesting perspective,” he chirped. Interesting perspective? No – it’s all plain facts.
A minute later another caller made the obvious point: Champion should have said “Muslim,” not “Pakistani,” because the whole business is not about ethnicity but about ideology. The caller emphasized that there are many people in the Muslim community who know about rapes and other crimes but don’t tell the authorities. The same caller also said something I had been thinking throughout the show – that Farage’s successor as head of UKIP, Gerard Batten, has been talking more frankly about this topic than Farage ever has. Farage’s reply was that he tries to be “nonracist” and “nonsectarian.” Meaning what? Was he suggesting that Batten is racist? Does he truly believe that it’s possible to talk honestly about this issue without being “sectarian”?
Farage wrapped up by saying that British society has been “too cowardly in confronting” this whole grooming-gang issue. It certainly has. But when it comes to spelling out the whole truth, Farage hasn’t exactly been a model of valor himself. In fact he’s been quite the jerk about Tommy Robinson. And this, mind you, is one of Britain’s top good guys on the whole Islam, immigration, and integration front. Which is why that whole hour on July 25 made for a hell of a depressing listen. With allies like these – well, let’s just see what happens with Tommy Robinson’s appeal, which is supposed to be ruled on early next week. If he isn’t allowed to go home at once, I may just send an urgent e-mail to Sajid Javid demanding that he preemptively ban me from the United Kingdom. I’d rather read old books and watch old movies, escaping into the Britain of Pride and Prejudice and Great Expectations, of Brief Encounter and Mrs. Miniver and Random Harvest, than be red-pilled by the grim reality currently presided over by the likes of Sadiq Khan and Naz Shah.
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