I’m probably going to get myself into a lot of trouble here with the “Hang ’em and flog ’em” brigade, but being controversial and willing to think things through for myself has never hindered me before now. I once seriously considered becoming a magistrate, until I realised how completely compromised our legal system is. That is why I will always support the jury system, and indeed believe we need a grand jury system in this country to address a lot of the corruption and injustice that is quietly forgotten about. For the fundamental question here is not about retribution, revenge or indeed racism, it is about what we believe justice and compassion really is.
I’m not talking about the politicised, mealy-mouthed version that passes for “Social justice”, although how these two words can be rationally reconciled in the same sentence defeats me. In every society there will be a hierarchy, so naturally it follows that there will be winners and losers. The only time we could potentially approach equanimity would be under Communism or Anarchy, and even then, both these systems are effectively philosophical straw men. Under Communism (nee Socialism), you have the leadership, whose wisdom, vision and authority entitles them to luxuries and privilege “Comrades” will never enjoy. Under Anarchy, it is survival of the fittest, and he with sufficient brawn and weaponry will succeed and rise to the top. So to suggest that it is possible to obtain social justice is a myth, a fragrant unicorn fart from the anus of the political machine, unless you are willing to consider a “Priest-less” Theocracy. Apart from a very brief period after the death of Christ, the Middle ages was a dark time for the church, and such an idea today is considered – somewhat ironically – morally profane. Combining the twin elements of religion and politics is neither wise, nor a good look. No system is perfect, but the current Western model of Capitalism is the best we have managed so far. Why else would millions wish to flock here, and indeed, attempt to mould their society upon this model?
Putting aside the excellent welfare system that we have, which clearly is an attractive proposition to many, why are people so attracted to Western, Judeo-Christian, value systems? I would suggest that a major part of the answer is our inherent sense of justice and fair play. Honed through wars, famines, political dictatorships and religious oppression, we finally settled on the sound basic principle that you “Need to rub along to get along”. This of course, requires an element of give and take on both sides, but also a very concentrated helping of “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” on the part of any incoming community. It is also based, fundamentally, on the laws of the Bible. If we are to abandon this counterbalance, we are in danger of being culturally consumed by anyone whose values are diametrically opposed to our own. Not only that, but what is advocated as “Compassion”, in reality, becomes a perverse form of tolerance. Where the guest abuses the clear generosity and good nature of the host, isn’t it acceptable for the door to be shown?
Nowhere is this clearer than the approaches of the three major Monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. While there is a degree of cross-pollination and mutual respect between the latter two, radical Islam remains stubbornly isolationist, refusing to entertain any notion that there is any common ground between themselves and “Kafir”. Placing the shoes of other men upon my feet, the same can be said of the radical Jew and Gentile through periods of history, but even then, I have yet to encounter anyone from these two camps that today would honestly, openly and publicly advocate strapping a bomb to themselves and detonating it, whilst next to a critical mass of their enemies. Such behaviour is totally abhorrent to the soft flabby white underbelly of liberal secularism, and quite rightly so. To even consider this action, clearly demonstrates a level of demonisation, dehumanisation, brutalisation and sheer desperation on both sides. Not only is the victim of such atrocities considered sub-human, but the perpetrator is clearly so brutalised that the value of human life is as naught, with the added twist of the knife that the victim will allegedly, spend an eternity in Hell. Such thinking is not only vicious, it is barbaric in the extreme. Yet we persist in the foolish notion that somehow, if we “Turn the other cheek”, all will be well.
Some say that Islam is just pure political ideology, not a religion, but I would disagree. Admittedly, Islam seems to be front loaded with politics, with spirituality trailing meekly behind – if at all. The Christian equivalents are just the opposite. Any preacher would be on very thin ice indeed if he were to announce from the pulpit how his congregation should vote in an election. A lot might be said about values and the importance of actually voting, but there would be no “Coaching” or assistance to the polling station, unless of course, this was a part of a visit to the shop as the individual concerned was infirm or vulnerable. The choice would be left to individual conscience, and the gossamer thin barrier between church and state left virgo intacta. The only exception to this pastoral rule of thumb would be where a candidate or party mandated a policy that was clearly contrary to scriptural principles, and even then, it would be prefaced with the rider that it was down to individual conscience, not peer pressure. Free will is sacrosanct.
The current crisis we face with Islam and the West is indeed a simple one; politics is meant to be a reflection of spiritual and moral values rather than the driver. For the intended order is God, government, man. Our current political class pays but scant, if any, lip service to this order, as do we. The end result is rather than pray for our leaders, we worship them. This is abundantly clear insofar as “government” has now replaced the role of God. You just need look no further than the current Covid-19 scenario to witness how much fear people have surrounding death. Rather than turning to an honest spiritual evaluation or even considering there may be a God and indeed a Devil, we place our faith in man and his institutions. Hence our spiral ever deeper into tyranny, for we have demanded more and more “Protection”, conveniently forgetting that the lawbreaker has no respect for the law. Take the ever increasingly stringent gun legislation on both sides of the pond for instance. Does this deter the criminal use of guns? Of course not. Whilst we scratch our collective heads in amazement considering that simple systemic failure, we wonder why Islam has such an iron grip that required the Russians and the West to make an ignominious retreat from Afghanistan. If the ends justifies the means, all morality immediately flies out the window. While the Christian takes solace in his “White lie”, the Jew “Pikuach nefesh” (Lying to save a life), the Muslim punches well above above his weight with “Taqiya”. Coupled with the loaded gun and no tolerance for the “Evildoer”, such strategic deceit makes for a formidable adversary.
From a purely dogmatic perspective, the bulk Islamic and Judeo-Christian vote is a potential political marriage made in heaven for the progressive politician. Family values, the belief in god/G-d/God, strike the right chord, and you have hit political pay dirt. Meeting this compromise in reality though, is a bit more difficult without inherent duplicity. Despite being Semitic, the Arab and the Jew are not exactly the best of friends, irrespective of sharing a lot of history. As to the Judeo-Christian relationship, this is an extremely complex one. While we both share an agreement that the Old Testament is the inspired word of God, the Jews dismiss the New Testament as heresy. Conversely, there is still the foul smell of sulphur from the pit of Hell emanating from some “Christian” circles insofar as the Jews killed Jesus, conveniently forgetting that Jesus was a Jew. My personal take on this schism amongst the biblical family of God is a simple one, until we both get our respective acts together, we are royally screwed. For we have much more in common than we generally realise, as “Believers of the Book”, in the eyes of the radical and politicised Muslim, we are a common target. Tragically, there is no shortage of people of any faith who are willing to use religion as platform for hate. As Christians, we need not congratulate ourselves either, in a forthcoming article I will be examining the alarming rise of radicalism in the Christian church.
What I find fascinating is the wholesale deterioration of Europe, America and the UK as we have abandoned Christianity for secularism. The same pattern seems to be emerging, while we are patting our respective backs on our “Liberal” outlook, a culture with strong familial and religious values is rapidly in the ascendant. How many non-muslims protested at Batley? Not that I am advocating the politicisation of religion, for I strongly believe that the mix of politics and faith is both toxic and counter productive. Unless one is sufficiently wise and spiritually mature enough to discern both falsehood and the true condition of man, it takes a very special kind of individual to successfully negotiate the knife edge between these two kingdoms. For inevitably they are both at war with each other, hence the tradition of not discussing politics or religion in polite company. I do find it highly ironic however, that the spiritual space abandoned by Christendom is now clearly occupied by a radical group that cares more about family, cultural cohesion and “faith” than we seem to now. Those who know their Bible will be able to relate to the exact verse I am speaking about, where God explicitly warns about this judgement.
So where have we gone so terribly and tragically wrong? I am unequivocal in my belief that part of this stems from a horrible dilution of both morality and understanding. We have conflated democracy with compassion, and in the process, diluted the value of both. The church, once the bedrock of values and ethics, has descended into a New Age cornucopia of belief, the final straw for any biblical credibility being the de rigueur acceptance of pretty much every value the good book stands against. It doesn’t matter what your faith is, as long you have some. Another great example of the clear peril of mixing religion and politics. Worst still, we have taken this bastard compromise and tried to impose it via the bomb, bullet and banknote on any nation that dares challenge or disagrees with Western hegemony. Like the wicked cancer of unrestrained multiculturalism in our own nation, we have eroded the natural order insofar as destroying national boundaries and promoting regime change when it is none of our business. Might is right, and once we have bombed you into a car park – for your own good naturally – we will further insult you by helping with the reconstruction of your shattered nation, at the same time making a profit from your children and grandchildren for good measure. Of course, you must adopt our standards, buy our drinks, pay homage to the puppet leaders that we install. We might then open our borders like a cheap prostitute opens her legs for you, our military-industrial complex having been adequately recompensed.
Far from helping matters, all we are doing is making matters worse. How would you survive in a foreign country with few or no qualifications, little language skills and a scant understanding of the subtleties of the culture? Making “Allowances” only goes so far when it comes to cultural integration. It will take generations to come close to any decent quality of life. Even with generous welfare subsidies and positive discrimination, such policy ultimately leads to one thing – the ghetto. We all know where the ghetto leads to, first of all to the hatred and demonisation of a people, then eventually their extermination. Is it any wonder that we have slid into the morass of saccharin morality, with a younger generation bewitched by the lip service of “Social justice”? On the macro and micro level, we cannot distinguish right from wrong any more. Rather than robustly defending and supporting our own heritage, and indeed our troops, we have sold our traditions, spirituality and values for a bowl of pottage. Can there be any wonder that we are despised and hated? When we have such scant respect for ourselves, our culture, our beliefs, how can we expect anyone to have respect for us?
Our problem now is that such old-fashioned thinking has being replaced by a faux-compassion that is even more dangerous than anything the “Hate speech” warriors could ever possibly comprehend. By letting the genies of multiculturalism, situation ethics, post-modernism and secularism out of their respective bottles, we have unleashed such a hellish whirlwind that it is doubtful that we will ever recover. Rather than respecting traditional values, we have committed the same mortal sin as Nadab and Abihu and offered incense with strange fire. Whilst their fate was sealed for making an unholy offering to God, our cultural fate is now equally sealed for abandoning our Christian foundations. Like it or not, the judgement of God is bearing down on us, as the consequences of global politik become reality. As a nation, we had a simple moral responsibility, and that was to love our neighbour as ourself. We have neglected that on a national and geographic scale. We have yet to properly address the societal problems from both world wars up to the start of mass immigration in the 60’s and 70’s. Even now a Black person who attempts to integrate will be accused of being a “Bounty bar” or a “Coconut” – Black on the outside, but white on the inside, despite many African and Caribbean immigrants sharing our strong Christian foundation. What awaits us when we invite those into the heart of our nation whose values are diametrically opposed to ours, or indeed theirs?
As a male baby, I probably would not be that effected by circumcision. Quietly carried out by Jewish priests and doctors, the process, while not something I’d personally subscribe to, is a cultural stepping stone on the way to adulthood for some. Accepted by both Jew and Gentile, this gender anomaly was quietly forgotten about when the spectre of female genital mutilation was outlawed. True to form of the “Let’s make some laws and then conveniently ignore them” bandwagon, there have been few successful prosecutions to this utterly barbaric act, with the first in 2019, sixteen years after Royal assent. In probably the most disturbing episode of my life dealing with the homeless on the streets of London, I encountered a young white girl, beyond herself in despair. After much coaxing, cups of coffee and many cigarettes later, it transpired that she had run away, as her boyfriend had bitten her clitoris off as she wasn’t “Clean”. I am no expert in madness, but the chances of her randomly encountering a psychopath or schizophrenic in comparison to someone of a certain “culture” who advocates clitorodectomy, is slim.
I am not the same innocent man who encountered that ravaged soul in the 90’s. It was not until many years later that I was able to make any sense of that horrific circumstance. Thankfully, albeit at a glacial pace, the law has moved to address such issues. It is a moot point, but I doubt if the law as it stood then would have had sufficient clout to redress what happened to that poor lass. I suspect a maximum charge of grievous bodily harm or sexual assault would have been on the cards, and then, no doubt, the race or mental health card would be played in mitigation. Even now, the maximum penalty under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 is 14 years.
So, as of 2021, and yet another influx of Afghan refugees, we are left with a major problem. Even if we took our metaphorical prostitute and gave her the lead part in a snuff movie (this is not urban legend I hate to say), what do you do when a substantial number of UK “Citizens” are equally, if not more, brutalised by extremist radicalisation and war? To bastardise a common phrase, you can take a man out of the war, but you cannot so easily take the war out of the man. The road to repentance and reconciliation is a hard one. You only need look at the number of abandoned UK soldiers on the streets. So how do we start to address this conundrum? I don’t have anywhere near enough answers, but from a Christian perspective, the answer is love, but tough love.
First of all, we need to abandon the deception that allowing Sharia law to take pre-eminence in the West is beneficial, wise and tolerant. All this does is reinforce the belief that our own historical, spiritual and domestic laws are inadequate, weak and ineffectual. This immediately creates a two-tier society where division naturally festers beneath the surface. For the Muslim, rather than garnering any respect for the natural Judeo-Christian ecosystem, the temptation is to sink further into known religious dogma and a belief system that wants to dominate all the world by force. For the Judeo-Christian, who admittedly have their eyes squinting on the same spiritual hegemony, to continue to do so is a metaphorical slap across the face, for Allah is neither Jehovah nor Jesus. The establishment of Israel in 1948, can be viewed as a spiritual or geopolitical miracle, depending on whom or what you want to believe. The right of Israelis to live peacefully in their homeland, nobody should contest. The industrial revolution and Western colonialism, likewise, served as the bedrock for the spread of the Christian gospel and our cultural values. We have now matured and cut our spiritual wisdom teeth, and hopefully, now come to the sensible conclusion that the adoption of faith is purely a matter of conscience, not a choice to be enforced by violence or law. We have turned from the concept of our respective historical “Jihads” as there is no longer any need to preach or fight, as the moderate Jew and Christian are now relatively secure in our respective identities. The acceptable method to achieve conversion for any faith can never be rooted in violence or coercion. Therefore, we should have no reason to adopt violence unless attacked first. The radical Muslim has not got this freedom, for global spiritual and political dominion is still the imperative, and unlike Christianity or Judaism, any abandoning the faith are viciously persecuted, ostracised and often killed for converting. So to pander to a set of spiritual laws that not only are directly opposed to our own, but by pure logical extension, wish to either eliminate, enslave or convert both the Jew and Gentile, is neither compassionate nor beneficial to host or guest alike. As we have belatedly outlawed FGM, we need to properly and thoroughly examine Sharia law and ruthlessly proscribe anything that fails to meet our rigorous expectations and freedoms.
Secondly we need to start rooting out the corruption and lawlessness in this nation. This needs to start with the church, which has abandoned the gospel of truth for an artificial empathy and compassion. We have totally lost connection with rational Christianity, and instead have a gospel of insanity where we accept values in direct conflict with thousands of years of faith in the name of “Tolerance”. The church is in desperate need of restoration, but before restoration may come, repentance and reflection are required. How, literally in the name of God, can we be expected to refute the foundations of Islam – faith and religious law – when we don’t even have an adequate grasp of our own? Anyone who suggests otherwise is a fool, and this is clearly demonstrated in the analogy of the decompressed airliner, the mother and the child. It is essential that the mother places the oxygen mask on her face first, otherwise she will be be unable to hold the mask to the face of her rapidly expiring child. We must, without exception, start applying traditional spiritual and domestic law we have to all in equal measure, be they Jew, Gentile or Muslim. It is only then there is any hope for a civilised democratic society, and indeed any mutual exchange of cultural values or wisdom.
Thirdly, we need to face the uncomfortable fact that in our greed and idolatry, we have abandoned great swathes of our own population, leaving many to rot in the trenches of welfarism, crime, homelessness, politicisation and despair. Abandoned, forgotten, the ghetto has many faces. We have families who have not worked for generations, and the situation is not going to improve with the next industrial revolution that is about to engulf us. We are quick to scream “Radicalisation”, forgetting that Islam holds its arms open in welcome to the disaffected. Everyone needs to belong, and if the church and the synagogue doesn’t offer effective solutions to the disenfranchised, the mosque will. If you have a grudge to bear, what more convenient home than a global quasi-spiritual family? The division between religion and cult is often very blurred indeed. We have a populace indoctrinated rather than educated with every value that corrodes the precious cup of understanding, logic and truth. We have demonised the poor, whilst exalting murderers, if not in deed, certainly in thought. Rather than embrace the sacred institution of marriage and family, we have done everything in our power to annihilate it. We then have the bare faced hypocrisy to condemn the immigrant, who be it through guile, political good luck or just a sheer determination to survive, is willing to game the system for a better deal for his children and fellow citizens? Would we not, in a similar position, do exactly the same? Not that I am condoning such actions, far from it. Even if we were to close the door on untrammelled immigration tomorrow, then what? Like it or hate it, we have a moral responsibility to those who live here now. Exactly how we discharge that duty needs to be very seriously considered indeed, but in our pursuit of “Tolerance” we have bitten off far more than we can possibly chew. For we can barely look after our own, never mind those that are rooted in a violent medieval mindset who are dogmatically content with such belief. From a cultural, ethical and moral perspective, we have caught a massive dose of the clap. Whose fault is that – the prostitute or the client? Should both parties wish to move forward, the treatment for all will be uncomfortable, embarrassing and ultimately, extremely painful.
In closing, the observant will have noted that I have deliberately skipped over focusing a particular form of societal hierarchy, the Theocracy. In this eschatological end game, the lion lies down with the lamb, and God rules without the necessity of priest, politician or cleric. This is where Koran, Torah and the Bible converge. It is the only rational space where Muslim, Christian and Jew can even start to agree the form of a just, loving and fair society. The only areas where we would naturally and vehemently disagree is just about everything else. The classical Christian biblical interpretation to me, seems to be the most faithful, truthful and rational interpretation of this journey. For it embraces the cultural purity of the Jew with the expansive influence of the Gentile, whilst lovingly and firmly placing God at the centre and stating, unequivocally, that without Him, His grace and His intervention, we are ultimately capable of nothing but wickedness. For true compassion, true love, is impossible without us being able to see ourselves as we truly are. Christian, Jew or Muslim, we are capable of the most heinous deeds imaginable, and the primary one is to reject the belief that we are all made in the image of God, and that human life is indeed sacrosanct. Casting that understanding aside, we can legitimise any evil we so desire, irrespective of whatever “god” we worship.
© Rookwood 2021
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
