According to US President Trump’s strategic advisor Steve Bannon, the “Judeo-Christian West is collapsing, it is imploding. And it’s imploding on our watch. And the blowback of that is going to be tremendous”.

The impotence and the fragility of our civilization is haunting many Europeans as well.

Europe, according to the historian David Engels will face the fate of the ancient Roman Republic: a civil war. Everywhere, Europeans see signs of fracture. Jihadists seem to be leading an assault against freedom and against secular democracies. Fears occupy the collective imagination of Europeans. A survey of more than 10,000 people from ten different European countries has revealed increasing public opposition to Muslim immigration. The Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs carried out a survey, asking online respondents their views on the statement that “all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped”. In the 10 European countries surveyed, an average of 55% agreed with the statement.

Mainstream media are now questioning if “Europe fears Muslims more than the United States”. The photograph used in the article was a recent Muslim mass prayer in front of Italy’s monument, the Coliseum. In echoes of the capture of the great Christian civilization of Byzantium in Constantinople, Sunni Islam’s most prominent preacher, Yusuf al Qaradawi, declared that the day will come when Rome will be Islamized.

Hundreds of Muslims engage in a mass prayer service next to the Coliseum in Rome, on October 21, 2016. (Image source: Ruptly video screenshot)

Do civilizations die from outside or inside? Is their disappearance the result of external aggression (war, natural disasters, epidemics) or of an internal erosion (decay, incompetence, disastrous choices)? Arnold Toynbee, in the last century, was adamant: “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder”.

“The contemporary historian of ancient Greece and ancient Rome saw their civilisations begin their decline and fall, both the Greeks and the Romans attributed it to falling birth rates because nobody wanted the responsibilities of bringing up children,” said Britain’s former chief rabbi, Lord Sacks.

Everywhere in Europe there are signs of a takeover. Muslim students now outnumber Christian students in more than 30 British church schools. One Anglican primary school has a “100 percent Muslim population”. The Church of England estimated that about 20 of its schools have more Muslim students than Christian ones, and 15 Roman Catholic schools have majority Muslim students. In Germany as well, there are fears of a massive Muslim influx into the school system, and German teachers are openly denouncing the threat of a “ghettoization”.

France saw 34,000 fewer babies born last year than in 2014, a new report just found. The number of French women having children has reached its lowest level in 40 years. A low fertility rate has become a plague all over Europe: “In 1995 only one country, Italy, had more people over 65 than under 15; today there are 30 and by 2020 that number will hit 35.” Welcome to the “Greying of Europe“.

Additionally, if it were not for Muslim women, France would have an even lower birth rate: “With a fertility rate of 3.5 children per woman, the Algerians contribute significantly to the growth of the population in France”, wrote the well-known demographer Gérard-François Dumont.[1]

Thanks to Muslim migrants, Sweden’s maternity wards are busy these days.[2]

In Milan, Italy’s financial center, Mohammed is the top name among newborn babies. The same is true in London, in the four biggest Dutch cities and elsewhere in Europe, from Brussels to Marseille. It is Islam, not Christianity, that now saturates Europe’s landscape and imagination.

Meanwhile, Europe’s leaders are almost all childless. In Germany, Angela Merkel has no children, as British prime minister Theresa May and one of France’s leading presidential candidates, Emmanuel Macron. As Europe’s leaders have no children and no reason to worry about the future (everything ends with them), they are now opening Europe’s borders to keep the continent in a demographic equilibrium. “I believe Europeans should understand that we need migration for our economies and for our welfare systems, with the current demographic trend we have to be sustainable”, said Federica Mogherini, the European Union representative for foreign affairs.

The Battle of Tours in 732 was the high-water point of the Muslim tide in Western Europe. If Christians had not won, “perhaps,” wrote Edward Gibbon, “the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet”. Does that sound familiar these days?

Islamists take culture and history more seriously than the Westerners do. Recently, in Paris, an Egyptian terrorist tried to strike the great museum, the Louvre. He planned to deface the museum’s artwork, he said, because “it is a powerful symbol of French culture”. Think about an Islamic extremist shouting “Allahu Akbar” while slashing the Mona Lisa. This is the trend we need to start reversing.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Hostility for Christmas was on full display. On Christmas Day, Muslims in Bethlehem, as documented here, set a Christmas tree on fire and greeted the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem with a hail of stones; in Belgium, Muslim “refugees” set fire to a public Christmas tree; in Nigeria, Muslim jihadis attacked churches during Christmas mass and killed at least 16; in the Philippines, on Christmas Eve, Muslim jihadis slaughtered 10 Christians to “make a statement;” in Bangladesh, churches skipped Christmas mass, due to assassination attempts on pastors and death threats against Christians; in Indonesia, churches were on “high alert,” with 150,000 security personnel patrolling; in Iran, Christians celebrating Christmas in homes were arrested; and three Muslim countries — Somalia, Tajikistan, and Brunei — formally banned any Christmas celebrations.

Earlier in December, in the United States, in San Bernardino, California, Mohamed Ahmed Elrawi, 57, a Muslim, pulled out a sword and, saying he would “Die and kill for Allah,” chased his neighbor, Mark Tashamneh a Christian of Jordanian descent. Tashamneh escaped and called police. After they arrested Elrawi on suspicion of attempted murder, they found in his apartment evidence suggesting that he is a “radicalized Muslim.” While police were escorting Elrawi out of his apartment, Elrawi said in Arabic to Tashamneh that he would kill him. “I’m a Christian,” Tashamneh told reporters. “I’m happy … and I believe what I believe. I am not against what he believes, but he apparently has a problem with me and came and threatened me.”

In Uganda, in separate incidents, Muslims slaughtered two Christian leaders with swords. Patrick Ojangole, a 43-year-old Christian father of five, was hacked to death. He had also supported several children whose families had disowned them for leaving Islam. According to Ojangole’s friend, who survived, they had been traveling to their village when they saw Muslim women covered in burqas sitting on the road: “Because it was late in the evening, we thought they needed some help from us, so we stopped, and while we were still talking with them, a man arrived [followed by two more men] … The two women immediately pulled out swords from their burqas and gave them to the men.” One of the three Muslim men reproached Patrick Ojangole’s for refusing to cease his Christian activities. Then the Muslims killed him. “Patrick was a very committed Christian and a hard-working farmer,” said the friend. “From his farm work, he used to support 10 children from Muslim families who had been ostracized by their families.” Ojangole’s five children range in age from seven to sixteen.

Separately, a pastor was also hacked to death and beheaded after he and other church members resisted efforts by local Muslims to seize land belonging to the church. When pastor Bongo Martin, 32, confronted them, the imam of the Muslim group said, “We have told you many times that we do not want the church to be located near our mosque. Your church has been taking our members to your church.” Then a Muslim, Abdulhakha Mugen, pulled out a sword and struck the pastor’s neck. Martin instantly collapsed but Mugen kept hacking at him until he was decapitated. His body was later found floating the river.

In a predominantly Muslim village in Uganda, after a Bible study, an additional five underground Christians, including a pregnant mother, died from poisoning.

The rest of December’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches and Symbols

Italy: While shouting “Allahu Akbar!” [“Allah is the Greatest!”], two Muslim men, one Palestinian the other Tunisian, attacked and tried to disarm soldiers stationed outside Santa Maria Maggiore cathedral in Rome. According to Italian media, “[W]hen police intervened, the two men aged, 40 and 30, called other foreigners in the area to their aid, and assaulted and threatened the arresting officers. After they were taken to the police station, they continued to speak out against law enforcement and Europe in both Arabic and Italian. They were charged with resisting and threatening an officer and instigation to commit a crime with intent to commit terrorist acts, slapped with an expulsion order, and taken to a migrant reception center in the southern city of Bari prior to repatriation.”

Egypt: A church which had obtained the necessary permits required for construction, and was under construction, in Swada village, Minya, was attacked on December 10 by a mob of at least 400 Muslims, incited by local officials. “They destroyed the marble, ceramics, cement, wood and church’s signs inside the buildings and destroyed the contents of the building, and attacked and injured some of the workers,” said a local man. After the attack, the same officials who incited the attack pointed to it as the reason to outlaw the church. The population of Swada is about 35% Christian, or 3,000 people, and there is not a single Coptic Orthodox church to serve them.

Separately, the ancient Paromeos monastery was threatened online by jihadists. The monastery, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was built more than two hundred years before Islam overran Christian Egypt. Although the ancient monastery receives police protection, Christian activists are calling for greater security measures in response to increasing threats.

Yemen: Days after the Islamic State (ISIS) assassinated Aden city’s governor, an abandoned Catholic church was blown up. “The gunmen,” according to a resident, “who were probably extremists, blew up the [Immaculate Conception] Catholic church in the Mualla district of Aden… The building was completely destroyed.” The church had already been severely damaged after a Saudi-led coalition air strike last May. Reuters wrote: “Once a cosmopolitan city, home to thriving Hindu and Christian communities, Aden has gone from one of the world’s busiest ports as a key hub of the British empire to a largely lawless backwater. Its small Christian population left long ago. Unknown assailants had previously vandalized a Christian cemetery and torched another Aden church this year.”

Iraq: ISIS bombed a monastery that belonged to nuns in the Christian village of Tel Kepe. Ten Assyrian Christian homes were also bombed and several people injured. Separately, in Kirkuk, a cemetery used by the Assyrian Church and the Syriac Orthodox church was vandalized. Crosses and tombstones were broken, and graves opened. The identity of the perpetrators is unknown. Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako condemned the destruction of the cemeteries. He said, “We live in difficult conditions…”

In December 2015, a Christian cemetery in Kirkuk, Iraq was vandalized. Crosses and tombstones were broken, and graves opened.

Turkey: Groups believed to be associated with ISIS issued death threats to at least 20 evangelical churches via social media, email, and mobile texts. They included “upsetting videos and pictures” said a human rights activist. Suspected Islamic State militants reportedly said they “are tired of waiting” for Muslims who had converted to Christianity to return to Islam. “Koranic commandments… urge us to slay the apostate like you,” said one message.

Bangladesh: “He who preaches Christianity must leave the country or die” were the words of an anonymous letter sent to ten leaders of Protestant Christian churches. An additional four church leaders narrowly escaped attempts on their lives, causing the nation’s churches to cancel Christmas Day church services.

Cameroon: Boko Haram jihadis invaded a Christian village and torched a church and several homes. Up to 1,000 Christians – men, women and children – were affected. Eight were killed. After reducing everything the villagers had to ashes, the jihadis also set their food supplies on fire. The villagers are struggling to survive.

Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Nigeria: Seven Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacked two households and a compound for Christians who had already been displaced from earlier jihadi attacks. Fifteen Christians were slaughtered, including three children aged 1, 3, and 5, as well as their grandmother. According to her daughter, “My mother struggled with the gunmen until they finally shot her and the three kids,” said her daughter. “She died trying to save the three children.” According to one resident: “They had come to survey the village that Sunday morning while we were in our churches. The Fulani gunmen even asked our children to give them drinking water, which they did, but the kids did not suspect anything and did not inform us about this. It was only after the attack that we were told about the visit of the gunmen to our village.”

Central African Republic: Armed Muslim Seleka militants attacked a camp for internally displaced persons. They killed eight Christians and wounded one UN peacekeeper. Since Muslim Seleka seized power of the Christian-majority country in 2013, thousands of people have been killed. After months of massacres, rapes, and looting by armed Seleka, Christian anti-balaka (anti-machete) armed groups emerged to counter the Seleka. Although they see themselves as a Christian militia, the nation’s churches condemn their violent actions.

Egypt: A 70-year-old Christian woman was found stabbed to death in her house in what is now a Muslim majority nation. She had 10 stab wounds in her chest. Police were informed and the matter was reported as being under investigation.

Dhimmitude

Norway: Christian camp sites offered as shelter for asylum seekers were told by local authorities to remove Christian symbols. According to the report, to accommodate “the large influx of asylum seekers to Norway, immigration authorities found it necessary to lodge asylum seekers in more places than ordinary reception centres. The Norwegian Missionary Society offered several Christian camp sites, which authorities accepted as long as the missionary society took down any cross or other Christian symbols.” It agreed. But a speaker for the Progress Party said, “I understand that asylum centres should be politically and religiously neutral, but I interpret it so that the camps would not engage in active ministry, which is said they will respect. The cross however, is not just a religious symbol, but also a part of our heritage and part of our flag…. [I]f they fear that people are offended by being surrounded by Christian symbols, then perhaps those [Muslim] people applied for asylum in the wrong country.”

Eritrea: After finding a new life in Europe, Gospel singer Helen Berhane shared her experiences in Eritrea. She told of how she was locked in a shipping container and tortured for being Christian. At a conference in Rome, she said: “The only reason they [Muslim authorities] let you go is when they torture you to death…. They don’t want you to die in prison, it’s not their responsibility, so they send you home to die.” Berhane, who was arrested for evangelizing and releasing religious music, was released only after she became deathly ill.

Syria: A Christian priest who escaped to the West after being held for months by Islamic State in Raqqa shared his “very intense experience, from the spiritual point of view.” According to Syriac Catholic priest, Rev. Jacques Mourad: “It was very difficult above all when they said, ‘Become Muslim or we’ll cut your head off.'”

Turkey: After widespread international criticism, the nation’s schoolroom textbooks appear improved in several ways, including how non-Sunni Muslims are depicted. But they still contain biases against non-Muslim religions, said a new study. The “major weakness” is that the “textbooks are still written through the paradigm of the officially-sanctioned interpretations of Islam and Islamic culture. All religious minority traditions in the country are depicted within the Muslim context rather than as distinct traditions. In addition, only superficial, limited, and misleading information is given about religions other than Islam, such as Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism.” For example, instead of explaining that Christians view Jesus as the Son of God, an eighth-grade text depicts him as one in a line of Islamic prophets called by Allah, akin to the Islamic historiography about Muhammad: “When Jesus reached 30 years of age, Allah gave him the duty of being a prophet…. He then began inviting people to believe in Allah. At the start, only 12 people believed in his call. They are called the ‘disciples.'”

Pakistan: Mary Javaid, a Christian teacher at a female primary school in the Punjab, was accused of having “preached Christianity to Muslim girls.” A Muslim man, Muhammad Sharif, filed a complaint with the Department of Education containing accusations against Javaid which, according to human rights lawyer, Sardar Mushtaq Gill, are false, and instead represent yet another case of discrimination and abuse towards a Christian involved in the area of education. A few months earlier, a Catholic teacher, appointed headmaster at a primary school, was beaten and tortured by a group of Muslim teachers who spurned the authority of a Christian “infidel.”

Nigeria: Mercy, a 22-year-old Christian woman abducted by Boko Haram in June 2014 and rescued after five weeks, described her ordeal in the Islamic camp. In June 2014, members of Boko Haram overran her town and declared it an Islamic caliphate. At least 100 people were killed in the attack. She was seized from her home in the middle of the night. “Everyone in the town,” she said, “ran to save themselves. My dad and I were separated. I don’t know what happened to him. I think he died the same way many others died, because they refused to deny Christ.” She was marched off to a Boko Haram camp. “When we got to the place, there were about 50 other women. I recognised many other Christians, who had now become Muslims and were forced to undergo Islamic teaching…. My first day was like hell. I cried all day and all night. I prayed like never before and asked God to give me courage.” The next morning, Mercy and the others were taken to a clearing for questioning and asked to convert to Islam.

The four other girls were very scared and immediately agreed. I pleaded that they allow me to remain a Christian, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. They beat me and told me to never mention Christianity in the camp again. Then they told me that they would arrange a husband for me. … We were forced to attend prayers at 5am. After that, we were sent to a madrassa [Islamic school]. There was only a short break. After we were given a little food, we returned to the madrassa. They constantly told us to work hard for the advancement of Boko Haram. In the afternoon we were dispersed to do our chores, such as washing the men’s clothes…. I witnessed constantly how Boko Haram members killed innocent people. Christian men who were captured and brought to the camp were killed for refusing to deny their faith. [It was like] the fulfilment of the [things written in the] Bible played out in front of my eyes, as people died for their faith in Christ. But others, including me, could not endure the torture and gave in to their demands.

Mercy was eventually “married” off to a Muslim man and without giving any details only said, “Every single day came with tears and fears for the unknown.”

Listening to President Obama and Hillary Clinton, one would think that Islamic extremists represent only a minority of Muslims, but the facts tell a different story.

Hillary Clinton will tell you that Muslims are peaceful people. President Obama will tell you that the majority of Muslims reject terror and desire peace.

Let’s be very clear that there are many Muslims who do seek peace, and who reject terror. We cannot generalize.

As for violent, extremist Islam? The numbers are going to shock you, because the truth is that Islam today does have a problem.

The city of Birmingham in the West Midlands, the heart of England, the place where the Industrial Revolution began, the second city of the UK and the eighth-largest in Europe, today is Britain’s most dangerous city. With a large and growing Muslim population, five of its electoral wards have the highest levels of radicalization and terrorism in the country.

In February, French journalist Rachida Samouri published an article in the Parisian daily Le Figaro, in which she recounted her experiences during a visit there. In “Birmingham à l’heure islamiste” (“Birmingham in the Time of Islam”) she describes her unease with the growing dislocation between normative British values and those of the several Islamic enclaves. She mentions the Small Heath quarter, where nearly 95% of the population is Muslim, where little girls wear veils; most of the men wear beards, and women wear jilbabs and niqabs to cover their bodies and faces. Market stalls close for the hours of prayer; the shops display Islamic clothes and the bookshops are all religious. Women she interviewed condemned France as a dictatorship based on secularism (laïcité), which they said they regarded as “a pretext for attacking Muslims”. They also said that they approved of the UK because it allowed them to wear a full veil.

Another young woman, Yasmina, explained that, although she may go out to a club at night, during the day she is forced to wear a veil and an abaya [full body covering]. She then goes on to speak of the extremists:

“In England, they are free to speak. They speak only of prohibitions, they impose on one their rigid vision of Islam but, on the other hand, they listen to no-one, most of all those who disagree with them.”

Speaking of the state schools, Samouri describes “an Islamization of education unthinkable in our [French] secular republic”. Later, she interviews Ali, an 18-year-old of French origin, whose father has become radicalized. Ali talks about his experience of Islamic education:

“There are plenty of private Muslim schools and madrasas in this city. They pretend that they all preach tolerance, love and peace, but that isn’t true. Behind their walls, they force-feed us with repetitive verses of the Qur’an, about hate and intolerance.”

Samouri cites Ali on the iron discipline imposed on him, the brutality used, the punishment for refusing to learn the Qur’an by heart without understanding a word of it, or for admitting he has a girlfriend.

Elsewhere, Samouri notes young Muslim preachers for whom “Shari’a law remains the only safety for the soul and the only code of law to which we must refer”. She interviews members of a Shari’a “court” before speaking with Gina Khan, an ex-Muslim who belongs to the anti-Shari’a organization One Law for All. According to Samouri, Khan — a secular feminist — considers the tribunals “a pretext for keeping women under pressure and a means for the religious fundamentalists to extend their influence within the community”.

Another teenager of French origin explains how his father prefers Birmingham to France because “one can wear the veil without any problem and one can find schools where boys and girls do not mix”. “Birmingham,” says Mobin, “is a little like a Muslim country. We are among ourselves, we do not mix. It’s hard”.

Samouri herself finds this contrast between secular France and Muslim England disturbing. She sums it up thus:

“A state within a state, or rather a rampant Islamization of one part of society — [is] something which France has succeeded in holding off for now, even if its secularist model is starting to be put to the test”.

Another French commentator, republishing Samouri’s article, writes, “Birmingham is worse than Molenbeek” — the Brussels borough that The Guardian described as “becoming known as Europe’s jihadi central.”

The comparison with Molenbeek may be somewhat exaggerated. What is perplexing is that French writers should focus on a British city when, in truth, the situation in France — despite its secularism — is in some ways far worse than in the UK. Recent authors have commented on France’s growing love for Islam and its increasing weakness in the face of Islamist criminality. This weakness has been framed by a politically-correct desire to stress a multiculturalist policy at the expense of taking Muslim extremists and fundamentalist organizations at face value and with zero tolerance for their anti-Western rhetoric and actions. The result? Jihadist attacks in France have been among the worst in history. It is calculated that the country has some some 751 no-go zones (“zones urbaines sensibles”), places where extreme violence breaks out from time to time and where the police, firefighters, and other public agents dare not enter for fear of provoking further violence.

Many national authorities and much of the media deny that such enclaves exist, but as the Norwegian expert Fjordman has recently explained:

If you say that there are some areas where even the police are afraid to go, where the country’s normal, secular laws barely apply, then it is indisputable that such areas now exist in several Western European countries. France is one of the hardest hit: it has a large population of Arab and African immigrants, including millions of Muslims.

There are no such zones in the UK, certainly not at that level. There are Muslim enclaves in several cities where a non-Muslim may not be welcome; places that resemble Pakistan or Bangladesh more than England. But none of these is a no-go zone in the French, German or Swedish sense — places where the police, ambulances, and fire brigades are attacked if they enter, and where the only way in (to fight a fire, for example) is under armed escort.

Samouri opens her article with a bold-type paragraph stating:

“In the working-class quarters of the second city of England, the sectarian lifestyle of the Islamists increasingly imposes itself and threatens to blow up a society which has fallen victim to its multicultural utopia”.

Has she seen something British commentators have missed?

The Molenbeek comparison may not be entirely exaggerated. In a 1000-page report, “Islamist Terrorism: Analysis of Offences and Attacks in the UK (1998-2015),” written by the respected analyst Hannah Stuart for Britain’s Henry Jackson Society, Birmingham is named more than once as Britain’s leading source of terrorism. [1]

One conclusion that stands out is that terror convictions have apparently doubled in the past five years. Worse, the number of offenders not previously known to the authorities has increased sharply. Women’s involvement in terrorism, although still less than men’s, “has trebled over the same period”. Alarmingly, “Proportionally, offences involving beheadings or stabbings (planned or otherwise) increased eleven-fold across the time periods, from 4% to 44%.” (p. xi)

Only 10% of the attacks are committed by “lone wolves”; almost 80% were affiliated with, inspired by or linked to extremist networks — with 25% linked to al-Muhajiroun alone. As the report points out, that organization (which went under various names) was once defended by some Whitehall officials — a clear indication of governmental naivety.

Omar Bakri Muhammed, who co-founded the British Islamist organization al-Muhajiroun, admitted in a 2013 television interview that he and co-founder Anjem Choudary sent western jihadists to fight in many different countries. (Image source: MEMRI video screenshot)

A more important conclusion, however, is that a clear link is shown between highly-segregated Muslim areas and terrorism. As the Times report on the Henry Jackson Society review points out, this link “was previously denied by many”. On the one hand:

Nearly half of all British Muslims live in neighbourhoods where Muslims form less than a fifth of the population. However, a disproportionately low number of Islamist terrorists — 38% — come from such neighbourhoods. The city of Leicester, which has a sizeable but well-integrated Muslim population, has bred only two terrorists in the past 19 years.

But on the other hand:

Only 14% of British Muslims live in neighbourhoods that are more than 60% Muslim. However, the report finds, 24% of all Islamist terrorists come from these neighbourhoods. Birmingham, which has both a large and a highly segregated Muslim population, is perhaps the key example of the phenomenon.

The report continues:

Just five of Britain’s 9,500 council wards — all in Birmingham — account for 26 convicted terrorists, a tenth of the national total. The wards — Springfield, Sparkbrook, Hodge Hill, Washwood Heath and Bordesley Green — contain sizeable areas where the vast majority of the population is Muslim.

Birmingham as a whole, with 234,000 Muslims across its 40 council wards, had 39 convicted terrorists. That is many more than its Muslim population would suggest, and more than West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire put together, even though their combined Muslim population is about 650,000, nearly three times that of Birmingham. There are pockets of high segregation in the north of England but they are much smaller than in Birmingham.

The greatest single number of convicted terrorists, 117, comes from London, but are much more widely spread across that city than in Birmingham and their numbers are roughly proportionate to the capital’s million-strong Muslim community.

Hannah Stuart, the study’s author, has observed that her work has raised “difficult questions about how extremism takes root in deprived communities, many of which have high levels of segregation. Much more needs to be done to challenge extremism and promote pluralism and inclusivity on the ground.”

Many observers say Birmingham has failed that test:

“It is a really strange situation,” said Matt Bennett, the opposition spokesman for education on the council. “You have this closed community which is cut off from the rest of the city in lots of ways. The leadership of the council doesn’t particularly wish to engage directly with Asian people — what they like to do is have a conversation with one person who they think can ‘deliver’ their support.”

Clearly, lack of integration is, not surprisingly, the root of a growing problem. This is the central theme of Dame Louise Casey’s important report of last December to the British government. Carried out under instructions of David Cameron, prime minister at the time, “The Casey Review: A review into opportunity and integration” identifies some Muslim communities (essentially those formed by Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants and their offspring) as the most resistant to integration within British society. Such communities do little or nothing to encourage their children to join in non-Muslim education, events, or activities; many of their women speak no English and play no role within wider society, and large numbers say they prefer Islamic shari’a law to British law.

Casey makes particular reference to the infamous Trojan Horse plot, uncovered in 2014, in which Muslim radicals conspired to introduce fundamentalist Salafi doctrines and practices into a range of Birmingham schools — not just private Muslim faith schools but regular state schools (pp. 114 ff.): “a number of schools in Birmingham had been taken over to ensure they were run on strict Islamic principles…”

It is important to note that these were not ‘Muslim’ or ‘faith’ schools. [Former British counterterrorism chief] Peter Clarke, in his July 2014 report said:

“I took particular note of the fact that the schools where it is alleged that this has happened are state non-faith schools…”

He highlighted a range of inappropriate behaviour across the schools, such as irregularities in employment practices, bullying, intimidation, changes to the curriculum, inappropriate proselytizing in non-faith schools, unequal treatment and segregation. Specific examples included:

• a teachers’ social media discussion called the “Park View Brotherhood”, in which homophobic, extremist and sectarian views were aired at Park View Academy and others;
• teachers using anti-Western messages in assemblies, saying that White people would never have Muslim children’s interests at heart;
• the introduction of Friday Prayers in non-faith state schools, and pressure on staff and students to attend. In one school, a public address system was installed to call pupils to prayer, with a member of the staff shouting at students who were in the playground, not attending prayer, and embarrassing some girls when attention was drawn to them because girls who are menstruating are not allowed to attend prayer; and
• senior staff calling students and staff who do not attend prayers ‘k****r’. (Kuffar, the plural of kafir, an insulting term for “unbelievers”. This affront reproduces the Salafi technique of condemning moderate or reformist Muslims as non-Muslims who may then be killed for being apostates.)

Casey then quotes Clarke’s conclusion:

“There has been co-ordinated, deliberate and sustained action, carried out by a number of associated individuals, to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos into a few schools in Birmingham. This has been achieved in a number of schools by gaining influence on the governing bodies, installing sympathetic headteachers or senior members of staff, appointing like-minded people to key positions, and seeking to remove head teachers they do not feel sufficiently compliant.”

The situation, Casey states, although improved from 2014, remains unstable. She quotes Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, in a letter to the Secretary of State for Education, which declared as late as July 8, 2016, that the situation “remains fragile”, with:

• a minority of people in the community who are still intent on destabilising these schools;
• a lack of co-ordinated support for the schools in developing good practice;
• a culture of fear in which teachers operate having gone underground but still there;
• overt intimidation from some elements within the local community;
• organised resistance to the personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum and the promotion of equality.

Elsewhere, Casey notes two further issues in Birmingham alone, which shed light on the city’s Muslim population. Birmingham has the largest number of women who are non-proficient in English (p. 96) and the largest number of mosques (161) in the UK (p. 125).

For many years, the British government has fawned on its Muslim population; evidently the government thought that Muslims would in due course integrate, assimilate, and become fully British, as earlier immigrants had done. More than one survey, however, has shown that the younger generations are even more fundamentalist than their parents and grandparents, who came directly from Muslim countries. The younger generations were born in Britain but at a time when extremist Islam has been growing internationally, notably in countries with which British Muslim families have close connections. Not only that, but a plethora of fundamentalist preachers keep on passing through British Muslim enclaves. These preachers freely lecture in mosques and Islamic centres to youth organizations, and on college and university campuses.

Finally, it might be worth noting that Khalid Masood, a convert to Islam who killed four and injured many more during his attack outside the Houses of Parliament in March, had been living in Birmingham before he set out to wage jihad in Britain’s capital.

It is time for some hard thinking about the ways in which modern British tolerance of the intolerant and its embrace of a wished-for, peace-loving multiculturalism have furthered this regression. Birmingham is probably the place to start.

Dr. Denis MacEoin is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. He has recently completed a book on causes for concern about Islam in the UK.