RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hill’s aim to ban the term “Islamist terrorism” indicates that political correctness is more important to him than strengthening Britain’s counter-terrorist efforts.

His recommendation comes despite the fact that Hill himself, whose official title is Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, referred to the “threats from Islamist terrorism” in his first report, released in January.

Britain’s terrorism watchdog, Max Hill QC (Queen’s Counsel), recently told a parliamentary committee that it is “fundamentally wrong to attach the word ‘terrorism’ to any of the world religions,” and suggested that the term “Daesh-inspired terrorism” should be used instead of “Islamist terrorism” to refer to attacks carried out by Muslims (“Daesh” is the Arabic acronym for ISIS). His recommendation comes despite the fact that Hill himself, whose official title is Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, referred to the “threats from Islamist terrorism” in his first report, released in January. In that first report, Hill also argued that “what [Islamic terrorists] claim to do in the name of religion is actually born from an absence of real understanding about the nature of the religion they claim to follow.” How impressive that he knows more about their religion than they do, despite the fact that the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, received a PhD in Koranic Studies from Saddam University for Islamic Studies in 2007.

Although Hill’s statements ostensibly put him at odds with Prime Minister Theresa May, she too has mystifyingly called terrorism “a perversion of Islam.”

There are two problems with this expression of political correctness. One is that although the Quran and Sunnah contain inherently contradictory texts, most jihadi leaders and ideologues follow and act upon the most extremist and violent interpretation of them. Therefore, constantly apologizing for the religion is worse than counter-productive: it is incorrect. The other, related, problem is that British policy is forged and implemented on the basis of ideas; so when those ideas stem from a fear of offending Muslims, the policy is necessarily flawed.

Islamists seem to be influencing the British school system with ease: there is simply no solid opposition to them. The government even stays silent about the harassment and intimidation.

Islamists in Britain seem to be intent on establishing regressive requirements, such as the hijab for young girls, wife beating, making homosexuality illegal, death for apostates, halala rituals in divorce, and exploitation of women and children through Sharia courts as part and parcel of British culture.

That St. Stephen’s School allowed itself to be blackmailed in this way bodes ill for both Britain and its education system.

St. Stephen’s School in East London recently imposed a ban on hijabs (Islamic headscarves), but reversed its decision after administrators received hundreds of threats from enraged Muslims.

Among the targeted officials from the primary school was the head of governors, Arif Qawi, who had supported the ban on the grounds that the girls wearing hijabs were less likely to integrate socially with their peers. As a result of the outcry, Qawi submitted his resignation, saying that members of the staff were afraid to come to the school.

Head teacher Neena Lall, whose educational philosophy has turned St. Stephen’s into one of the best secular primary schools in Britain’s capital — in spite of its being in Newham, a poor neighborhood where English is spoken predominantly as a second language — was bombarded with e-mails calling her a “pedophile” who “deserved what she had coming.” Lall, of Punjabi origin, was even compared to Hitler in a video uploaded to YouTube.

It is not the first time that British educators have been intimidated by Muslim extremists. The head of Anderton Park School in Birmingham, Ms. Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, received similar threats on social media.

Anderton Park School was inspected as part of the “Trojan Horse” scandal, in which the British government discovered that Muslim extremists had been trying to take over Britain’s secular school system.

So it appears that there will be no state visit for Donald Trump. The US President will not travel down The Mall in a carriage with the Queen. More than that, it appears that the leader of our closest ally will not visit London at all. He may have gone to Paris already. He may have gone to Brussels. He may be able to travel to Hamburg with ease. But his feet will not darken the streets of London. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who had repeatedly campaigned against the President, chose to take some credit once the non-visit was announced: Trump had “got the message”. Londoners such as Mayor Khan did not want Trump to visit — ever.

There are a number of disconcerting aspects to all this. One is the fact that the American President will not be visiting Britain during a period when British relationship-building will everywhere be of unusual importance. Second, there is the fact that all this suggests that a small group of noisy activists on social media can decide who should and who should not visit the UK. That isn’t democracy, or even government, but rule by social media mob.

But most alarming is the pride with which those who have kept him away have responded. And Mayor Khan most of all. Londoners were used to their Mayor having a separate foreign policy when Ken Livingstone represented their city. But to consider the full awfulness of Khan’s intervention it is worth comparing him to his immediate predecessor. Imagine if Boris Johnson had insulted Angela Merkel. Imagine that it wasn’t even a gaffe — which would have been bad enough. Imagine if he had actually campaigned to stop her coming to London and suggested he would help to raise a crowd if she came. In such a situation, if the leader of an ally like Germany actually chose not to come as a result of something Boris Johnson had said, there would be an uproar. There would have been no way the Mayor could have remained in position, no way, indeed, he could ever have held public office again. Why can Mayor Khan help keep the US President out of London and escape similar censure?

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Former Google engineer James Damore has just filed a class-action lawsuit against his erstwhile employer. The filing states that it aims to represent not only Damore but other employees of Google who have been discriminated against because of their “perceived conservative political views”, “their male gender” and “their Caucasian race”. Among the details in the suit is the allegation that the “presence of Caucasian males was mocked with ‘boos’ during company-wide weekly meetings”. This is remarkable stuff. If a bakery in Northern Ireland, say, was even once alleged to have organised weekly “boos” of any black or gay staff, then the company would be out of business before anyone had ascertained whether the charges were true or not.