Tony Blair says murder of British soldier proves 'there is a problem within Islam'

Tony Blair today makes his most powerful political intervention since leaving Downing Street by launching an outspoken attack on ‘the problem within Islam’.

The former Prime Minister addresses the shocking killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich by going further than he – or any front-rank British politician – has gone before over the issue of Muslim radicalism.

Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, he departs from the usual argument that Islam is a peaceful religion that should not be tainted by the actions of a few extremists.

Instead, Mr Blair urges governments to ‘be honest’ and admit that the problem is more widespread.

‘There is a problem within Islam – from the adherents of an ideology which is a strain within Islam,’ he writes.

‘We have to put it on the table and be honest about it. Of course there are Christian extremists and Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu ones. But I am afraid this strain is not the province of a few extremists. It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies.’

He adds: ‘At the extreme end of the spectrum are terrorists, but the world view goes deeper and wider than it is comfortable for us to admit. So by and large we don’t admit it.’

You’re wrong that Powell’s objections were solely about culture and not about race, and you’re wrong that Powell shouldn’t be viewed as a hero.

Powell was keenly aware of the races, the differences between the races, and how this often made them incompatible. Powell also noted, correctly, that to truly be English you must be of English stock. While you’re correct that Powell said that importing a multitude of Germans and Russians would also be problematic because of their cultural differences, he was aware that cultural identity is often tied in with racial identity.

Here are some quotes from Powell...

http://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell

“It depends on how you define the word “racialist.” If you mean being conscious of the differences between men and nations, and from that, races, then we are all racialists. However, if you mean a man who despises a human being because he belongs to another race, or a man who believes that one race is inherently superior to another, then the answer is emphatically “No.”

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as ‘controversial, ‘extremist’, ‘explosive’, ‘disgraceful’, and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.

The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, ‘race’. The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are ‘prejudiced’, ‘racialist’... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as ‘spouting the fantasies of racial purity’ to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of ‘racialist’ and ‘unChristian’ and applying them to lifelong political colleagues.”

Powell should be considered a hero because he was principled and intelligent enough to buck against incorrect group think. Powell is a hero because he put his nation before his career. He knew full well that the truth of his speeches could end his possible ascendancy to the Prime Minister position, but he stood by truth anyway.

The tragedy is that NEITHER ‘side’ looks at him as the real man and politician he was. A soldier, writer, politician, he was a deeply complex man. A classical scholar and multi-linguist with a deep love and respect for ancient non-European civilisations, from the ‘Near East’ to India. Who prided himself on speaking Urdu and Arabic fluently.

Racist?. Bigot?....Absolutely not.

QUOTE: “I have and always will set my face like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on grounds of his origins” (Enoch Powell 1964)

It was Enoch Powell who as Health Minister argued for allowing tens of thousands of blacks into Britain in the early 60’s, to serve in the NHS. And as I said and have pointed out, Powell was against racism and any suggestion that he believed in racial superiority. This was a man after all who spent six years fighting Nazism.

And he was an anti-imperialist from 1947 onwards, who believed the Empire should have gone all independent after India left. Who opposed the Suez War and had little or no time for the (predominantly white) Commonwealth. Who opposed the beating by a small number of British soldiers of Mau-Mau terrorists, and made a Commons speech saying so.

Powell also co-promoted the Bill to end the illegality of homosexuality and campaigned AGAINST the death penalty.

And as has also been pointed out, the speech he gave was not of his own making AND that he was opposed to ANY large influx of immigration in 1968 to Britain, be it black, Asian or white European.

A fact he made very clear in his famous interview in 1968 on the BBC’s ‘Any Questions’:

“But if they are different, and to the extent that they are different, then numbers clearly are of the essence and this is not wholly - or mainly, necessarily - a matter of colour. For example, if the immigrants were Germans or Russians, their colour would would be approximately the same as ours, but the problems which would be created and the change which could be brought about by a large introduction of a bloc of Germans or Russians into five areas in this country would be as serious - and in some respects more serious - than could follow from an introduction of a similar number of West Indians or Pakistanis.”

—Enoch Powell on BBC Radio’s ‘Any Questions’
29 November, 1968.

ALL Powell did was warn us of the dangers of racial division and self-segregation. Much of which HAS come true. At worst, all he can be criticised for is the manner in which he warned. Yet since 1968, we have confused the messenger with the message. It is not Powell some ‘hate’, it is actually the message he gave that they dislike and find counter to their own view of the world.

So the neo-thug right venerate him despite his disgust as their ideas, as a man who fought fascism in its worst form in ww2. And the left hate him for in their eyes stoking racial tensions. Yet the idea that either side of him has is not the actual man. Neither have him ‘right’.

The ideology behind Lee Rigby’s murder is profound and dangerous. Why don’t we admit it?: Tony Blair launches a brave assault on Muslim extremism after Woolwich attack

By Tony Blair

PUBLISHED: 20:01 EST, 1 June 2013 | UPDATED: 20:01 EST, 1 June 2013

There is not a problem with Islam. For those of us who have studied it, there is no doubt about its true and peaceful nature. There is not a problem with Muslims in general. Most in Britain will be horrified at Lee Rigby’s murder.

But there is a problem within Islam – from the adherents of an ideology that is a strain within Islam. And we have to put it on the table and be honest about it.

Of course there are Christian extremists and Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu ones. But I am afraid this strain is not the province of a few extremists. It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies.

Blair says extremism within Islam can’t be ingored
The Times of Israel ^ | June 3, 2013, 1:48 am | Times of Israel staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3026529/posts?page=6

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