The political and media debate on the alleged Islamist Trojan Horse infiltration of Birmingham schools reveals -- like no other issue regarding Islam in Britain -- a deep and long-held political fear in confronting the truth about the nature of Islam and large-scale Muslim immigration.
That truth -- and it has been a concern of governments for some time -- is that with Britain’s rapidly increasing Muslim population, the teaching of any culturally conservative interpretation of Islam (the bare minimum that any serious Muslim would insist on) is entirely incompatible with the secular, liberal and pluralistic values that define British society, and even perhaps incompatible with the long-term political stability of the country.
.... The immediate issue with Birmingham’s Trojan Horse debacle is not the threat of Islamic terrorism, but the threat of an eventual cultural Balkanisation of the country as Muslim demographics increase and Muslims gradually assert their own deeply felt religious identity, particularly in the area of education.
.... However, with a rapidly growing Muslim population, how will governments in forty or fifty years defend these freedoms when Muslims are a majority or plurality in many of Britain’s towns and cities?
Will Islamic values not then be a major feature of those towns and cities? Will Islamic values not then be British values? [The Commentator] Read more
