So you thought Corbyn was bad...

Scripted spontaneity rules, ok? I was not aware of the alarming, and at the same time hypercringe, video of Keir Starmer bromancing Sadiq Khan, published the day before I published “Child sacrifice and Islam” to mark the occasion of Eid al-Adha. The short one-act play, “Watch: Keir Starmer speaks to Sadiq Khan about how he celebrates Eid,” goes as follows:

Dramatis personae:

Sir Keir Starmer. Presumptive next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Starmer’s allegiance to Islam trumps his allegiance to Parliament. He is preparing to inaugurate the first Majlis of the United Kingdom and give the realm her first ever Constitution: Shari’a. As Prime Minister in the Majlis, his role will be to act as regent for Sadiq Khan for the next five years.

Sadiq Khan. Mayor of London who glided to power on the wings of chattering class virtue-signalling, gives Starmer all the virtue-signalling opportunity he needs. Khan will not take power; Muslims on the flip-side of the jihad coin will make sure of that, and put a real Muslim in charge.

Scene:

A low-key lounge area in Sadiq Khan’s house. Just enough staircase peeks into the scene to suggest to working class voters: domestic contentment, family man, man of the people; and to the literati: onwards-and-upwards. In the background, just enough books to make clear that Khan can read, but not so many as might suggest aloofness. The back of a modest settee is visible. There are no painting on the walls, creating an air of bleak neutrality, a huge blank to be filled in later. Khan knows his guest well. They are, after all, both leaders of the Labour Party, and are about to deliver the death-blow to their country. Everything has to be right. Everything has to be exactly on-message. This is one monstrous carbuncle the King will approve of, because that’s so 1984.

Act:

Starmer materialises centre-stage. The audience never saw him coming. Dressed in casual (pressed) white shirt with open collar and rolled up cuffs. Exaggerated smile at waiting Khan, hidden just outside stage left. Starmer walks two steps to left of centre to meet Khan halfway.

Khan emerges from the far left with his back to the audience. The two men embrace, Muslim-style, left of centre. It is an awkward embrace. Khan is too short, Starmer too stiff.

Starmer: Eid Mubarak!

Khan: Thank you!

The two men settle in on the settee.

Starmer: It’s Eid. It’s a really important time for the Muslim community. So I just wanted to ask you how you and your family actually celebrate Eid.

Khan: We will go to the mosque in the morning. We have something sweet to eat in the morning, and then it’s a day that you spend with your family, visiting family and friends. It’s a day of celebration.

Starmer: Hajj is so important and many people will be coming back from that.

Khan: Well, Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. Every Muslim who can afford to do so, once in a lifetime, is required to go to Mecca and many of your constituents and people across the country have been going to Mecca to perform pilgrimage and they’re returning now after Hajj.

Starmer: But there is this theme coming up which is about the problem with visas and, obviously, you know, if we are able to come in and form a government, I think we’re going to have to increase the quota. Have you picked this up as well?

Khan: The Saudi government has reduced the numbers of people who are able to go to Hajj from this country. So many who want to go, who can afford to go, and can’t go—

Starmer, talking over Khan last words:—And it’s big and important thing that there’s a real frustration that people are not being able to go.

Khan: Anything we can do to to lobby the Saudi government to get more places for British Muslims would be appreciated.

Starmer: Because it’s Eid, it’s also a time, I think, where all of us are able to celebrate the, you know, incredible contribution that Muslims have made uh to our country. We see it in business. We see it in culture. We see a better Britain.

Khan nods modestly.

Starmer: One of the things that is coming up over and over again, um, is islamophobia and, well, you can see the stats you can see the numbers rising, particularly since October the 7^th, although we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that before October the 7^th, um, this was all heading in the right direction. It’s been far too high for far too long. Clearly we need to just say over and over again, um, Islamophobia is intolerable. Uh, It can never ever be, uh, justified and we have to continue with a zero tolerance approach, and I think there’s more we can do in government. There’s certainly stuff online which I think needs tackling much more robustly than it is at the moment.

Khan: What I’m hoping, Keir, is your experience as a prosecutor means you’ll be thinking about the strategy we can use to make sure we take action against those who break the law.

Starmer: It has a massive impact on people and their lives, their feeling about being able to walk around their own, um, you know, communities, their streets, their places of work, or whatever it may be. It is certainly not low-level. It really, really impacts people. I’ve seen so many cases for myself.

Khan: What excites me though, because I’ve been campaigning across the country, we’ve got so many Labour candidates who are Muslim, who are Hindu, who are Sikh, who are Jewish, who are Christian, I think, uh, you know, our candidates are the most diverse we’ve ever had.

Starmer: It’s the best team, I think, the Labour party has ever put forward for an election. But look, this is a time of great celebration and, you know, I do say Eid Mubarak, my friend, um, and thank you for sharing with me, um, how you celebrate with your family. Um, my very best wishes to you to the whole Muslim community and Eid al-Adha.

Khan: Thank you. Thanks very much.

Curtain

And so, after three minutes and four seconds, we reach the end of a conversation that was over in twenty seconds flat. "I just wanted to ask you how you and your family actually celebrate Eid" — not something you can do over the phone, obviously. Notable throughout this sub-amateur exercise in scripted spontaneity, was how the two men’s overly-energetic gestures contrasted with their strained smiles and dead eyes.

While Jeremy Corbyn is a head-banging Stalinist from the same stable as his comrades António Guterres and Josep Borrell, Keir Starmer hails from the next generation of slick, suited socialists who saw how the wind was blowing in the 1990s and added marketing and “optics” to their political repertoire. Corbyn was never going to say that Hamas are terrorists, yet he lacked the ability to come up with something else to say instead, whereas Starmer, who will not say that 7 October was something horrible that happened to the Jews, is sinister enough to imply that 7 October was something horrible that happened to Muslims.

Of course, Sadiq Khan would never be so discourteous as to correct his guest, besides, he still had his cynical line about Jewish Labour Party election candidates to speak. Starmer’s correction of history gets underway even before he has taken office. Events that never took place do not have to be erased from history. Jeremy Corbyn’s Jew-hatred is blatant and crude, Starmer’s is concealed within his defence of Muslims against “Islamophobia.” Who could possibly think ill of someone who wants to protect Muslims from “Islamophobia”? It is the distinction between Ernst Röhm and Joseph Goebbels.

As King’s Counsel, lawyer for the state, Starmer is perfectly placed to have a go at bringing the might of the law to bear against “Islamophobia,” and signals he’s government's readiness to kowtow to Muslims: “I think there’s more we can do in government. There’s certainly stuff online which I think needs tackling much more robustly than it is at the moment.” This is what a Labour vote means.

This “more” that the British government can do includes, e.g.: instead of putting Muslim gang-rapists on trial behind closed doors, to not put them on trial at all; instead of allowing a Muslim to bring multiple wives into the country, allow them to bring their slaves as well; instead of just lobbying the Saudis to allow more Briton Muslims to go on Hajj, compensate them for the stress of worrying about whether they were going to get a visa, e.g., by flying them there first class; instead of allowing Muslims to perform adhan, the call to prayer, over loudspeakers, ban church bells as distressing to Muslims. Starmer is right: “there’s more we can do in government.”

But there is also “stuff online which needs tackling much more robustly,” such as tweets, emails, articles, blogs, video, etc. Instead of just taking down media that Muslims do not like, destroy the livelihoods of the authors, turn their own children against them, shame them publicly and even revoke their citizenship, assuming that will be robust enough for the likes of Sadiq Khan. And Khan will not let a hot iron go cold: “What I’m hoping, Keir, is your experience as a prosecutor means you’ll be thinking about the strategy we can use to make sure we take action against those who break the law.” Yes, the first order of business is clear: make “Islamophobia” a criminal offence. What are Starmer’s chances of accomplishing that? Very high, I’m afraid.

Those who object to a law against “Islamophobia” as impractical in that it cannot be legally defined to sufficient exclusion of what is not “Islamophobia,” or that its vagueness could lead to erosion of the freedom of speech or lead to judicial abuse, fail to understand the purpose of such a law. Its vagueness and “vulnerability to judicial abuse” is exactly why Starmer and Khan need it.

Keir Starmer’s “stuff online” is the hate speech part of “Islamophobia.” While Sadiq Khan is ready to “take action against those who break the law,” more sophisticated Muslims sound notes of caution about such actions. American “revert” (the Muslim term for converts, since everyone is born Muslim, you understand) to Islam, Dr Jonathan Brown, warns:

“I do not think that Muslims should advocate laws that restrict speech …because the first people who will be restricted in their speech …will be Muslims. [If hate speech becomes illegal, then] the Qur’an itself becomes an article of hate speech.

...Hate speech laws are never used to protect vulnerable minorities like Muslims. They’re used to protect the powerful when minorities get out of line.”

This is way too sophisticated for someone who was raised Muslim, spent their childhood in madrassa and has been surrounded by Muslims their whole life. It requires several distinct concepts to be coherently strung together, something most Muslims simply cannot do.

Dr Brown’s concern would only apply where there are no hate speech laws or bans on “Islamophobia.” The vagueness of a ban on “Islamophobia” will allow judges to discriminate in favour of Muslims and against non-Muslims, as is proper under Shari’a. In any legal dispute between Muslim and non-Muslim, the Muslim will always win, because that’s the law, Islamic law, that is. The judge will speak kindly to the Muslim and harshly to the non-Muslim, because that’s the law, Islamic law. Go on, vote Labour. Your parents voted Labour. Your grandparents voted Labour. Your great-grandparents voted Labour. Of course you’re going to vote Labour. And you are getting Shari’a.

In an otherwise mostly puerile discussion of the Starmer-Khan one-act play on The New Culture Forum, one notable highlight was Rafe Heydel-Mankoo reminding the audience of Winston Churchill’s warning about the Labour Party:

Famously, Churchill jumped the shark, in our language, in 1945, when he said it would require a Gestapo to basically enforce what [the] Labour [Party] wanted to do. So I think about that and I think, well, maybe some of this is hyperbole, but then, when you look at all the things we talk about all the time in all parts of our state, you should think, actually, it’s not hyperbole. Churchill was ridiculed for using the Gestapo when Clement Atlee was the most mild-mannered, meek person you could imagine. But I’m sorry, we may not have a Gestapo on the streets, but one might say a Stasi, certainly, or, when you look at the degree to which we have two-tier policing, we have people being imprisoned and charged and arrested, convicted for tweets and so forth, the stifling Newspeak that exists, being forced to use compelled speech. We are living in that sort of a dystopian future. Nineteen Eighty-Four was actually just thirty years too early. It’s 2024, and we’re going to actually see that sort of a world coming to pass in this country and I think we should all be worried about it.

Most maddening about these accurate, crucial and timely words is how Heydel-Mankoo smothers them: “I think about that and I think, well, maybe some of this”, “but then, when you look at”, “we may not have a Gestapo”, “one might say a Stasi, certainly”, “when you look at the degree to which”, “we’re going to actually see that sort of a world coming to pass.” Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan openly discussed closing that circle in two weeks time and the British chattering class discourse remains hesitant, cautious, hedged, qualified, uncertain, timid.

By the way, there is no such thing as "two-tier policing". That kind of thinking gets you into arguing the toss over whether what the government, the state, the police or politicians, etc., claim is or is not true. You are acting as if there is still fairness in the society. You are playing by rules that no longer exist.

The conceit of “Islamophobia” is a totalitarian masterstroke. It is its own red herring. Of course, the term is semantic nonsense. A phobia is an irrational fear, and there is nothing irrational about fearing either Islam or Muslims. Many have pointed this out. But the term’s semantic nonsense is a trap that ensnares many a critic who gets bogged down in arguing over the meaninglessness of “Islamophobia”. The inherent nonsense of the term makes it impossible to define, and that impossibility is precisely the point: it is meant to be impossible to define. The purpose of its indefinability becomes clear when we consider it in light of, for example, the UK’s police state policies.

When the police in Britain asked the public to be on the lookout for and to report “hate crime” even if they have no evidence and even if no crime has been committed, we see put in place the infrastructure within which “Islamophobia” makes perfect sense: it does not have to be a crime and as such it needs no definition. Control becomes completely arbitrary. Arbitrary control is the conditio sine qua non of totalitarianism: anybody, for no reason at all, can be done away with. All you need to do is point your finger, utter “Islamophobia”, and it is done. When we agreed that there should be such a thing as “hate speech,” we put our fate entirely into the hands of whoever wishes to feel slighted, or for some reason or other, needs us done away with. We conceded that anyone and everyone has the right to police us. This has always been the business of totalitarianism, whether Islam, Nazism, Communism, multiculturalism, or the Party.

The intellectuals, those custodians of empathy, science, progress, and the finer things, are letting the only light that can save their civilisation die out while they flatter Islam’s attack dogs with respect. They ought to meditate on what Year Zero means for anyone who is educated, anyone with a modicum of culture, anyone who still remembers a Golden Rule and anyone who still thinks rather than simply obeys whatever totalitarianism they happen to be enslaving themselves to.

Their world and way of life is about to be destroyed and, despite reminding us about Churchill's prophetic words, Heydel-Mankoo’s best advice is, “I think we should all be worried about it.” Depressing as this is, it is his co-panelist, Amy Gallagher of Stand up to Woke (whatever she means by “stand up”) who’s the long-dead canary still chirping in the coal mine. Here is Gallagher’s Agincourt speech:

I think people are just going to, just almost, I’m feeling it’s almost, that I’m just sort of accepting that, that we’re going to be living in tyranny. I’m just sort of thinking, yeah, you know, it’s going to be, we aren’t going to have any kind of real democracy, um, you are, we aren’t going to be able to challenge these institutions, or the law, and you've just got to sort of work out, of function within that framework, essentially.

What was that other Churchill thing again? “We shall never surrender!” Absolutely true, because we already have. All we're doing now is apologising for our existence.

Comments:

On 25 June 2024 at 11:55, Ben Dor A. wrote:

Dear Anjuli Pandavar

It's only a matter of time that Eurabia will be under Shariah.

Best Regards

Ben Dor A

On 25 June 2024 at 12:34, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:

Sadly, I have to agree. Whom do I blame? Ex-Muslims.