Ghost of a flea

The cleric forecast that a government ban on his group Islam4UK would stoke hostility between Muslims and white Britons. He claimed there could be a repeat, on our own streets, of the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica in which Serbs slaughtered 8,000 Bosnian men and boys.
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Islam4UK was banned by Home Secretary Alan Johnson after uproar over Choudary’s plans to hold a protest march in the Wiltshire village of Wootton Bassett where the public salute the bodies of soldiers brought back from Afghanistan. But ex-lawyer Choudary was unrepentant, claiming that white Britons do not understand the strength of feeling of the Muslim population.

He said: “In some cities, one in six of the young people are Muslim. People don’t realise that there are actually four to five million Muslims in the UK. Many of them do not register to vote so the Government’s figures do not reflect the true size of the Muslim population."

Forget about my usual explanation that this is all about liberalism and its prohibition on discriminating against nonwhites and non-Westerners. There is a much simpler explanation: the governments of the West and its main organs of opinion have already surrendered to Islam. Under Islamic law, criticism of Islam is prohibited.(e.g. the report on Fort Hood) and punished (e.g., the trial of Wilders). It is as simple as that. Western governments are now obeying and enforcing Islamic law--exactly as Barack Obama pledged to do in his Cairo speech last June, when he declared:

"I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

Law professor Afshin Ellian, a witness for the defense in the Wilders trial, gets to the real meaning of the anti-hate speech laws in general and of Obama's pledge in particular:

"If you cannot say that Islam is a backward religion and that Muhammad is a criminal, then you are living in an Islamic country."

What the Wilders prosecution, the Danish cartoons, the Canadian "human rights" suits against Ezra Levant, Maclean's and me and many other ostensibly minor news stories all have in common is one consistent underlying principle - that Islamic law now applies to all.

If a Muslim doesn't want to show representations of Mohammed, good for him. But why can't Yale University Press?

If a Muslim doesn't want Winnie-the-Pooh's pal Piglet on his desk, go for it. But why can't a lapsed Anglican working for a British municipal council?

If a Muslim wants to fast during Ramadan, fast away. But why does a Brussels cop or a Scottish hospital worker have to ease up on the donuts?