Is Sharia Law Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?
Presumably the title is a rhetorical question. Source: Is Sharia Law Coming to a Neighborhood Near You? – Liberty Nation
Raheem Kassam, British political activist and Editor-in-Chief of Breitbart News London, addresses this issue in his new book, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You.
Kassam was born into Islam but has since become an atheist. He traversed both the US and Europe in researching his book, and he spoke about in on Liberty Nation Radio.
LN: The image on the cover of your book is the Statue of Liberty veiled in a full burka. Is this meant to imply or state outright that the American system of justice is in danger of bowing to Sharia law? Just how great is the threat you outline in your book?
Mr. Kassam: I think it’s a very grave threat, and in fact, the truth is the subtitle of the book should actually be, “How Sharia is already in a neighborhood near you.” That’s the point to which we have gone so far. You can see that all over the United States nowadays, all across Europe as well, and that’s exactly what I did, exactly what I want to do is find out where. Not just where there were large pockets of Muslim migration, but actually where that migration, that ghettoization, that self-segregation was turning into something more … that resembled a sort of dual track system of government, a dual track justice system, a dual track standard of living. Unfortunately, while I wish it were true and while I wish the Anderson Coopers and CNN’s of the world were right when they say these places don’t exist, I’m afraid they are incorrect.
LN: To what extent is Sharia law currently a factor in the American justice system as opposed to the many nations of Europe you visited in writing this book?
Mr. Kassam: Sharia law doesn’t try to be a factor in any other justice system. It holds itself up as a justice system in and of itself. It doesn’t need the authority and the approval of man-made law, as they call it in a derogatory fashion. You have in the United Kingdom, for instance, Sharia councils that exist, and they will weigh in on all manner of issues, be they local family disputes, business disputes, inheritance-related, divorce, marriage, all of that kind of thing.
Your question is a good question in the sense that in the UK we actually acknowledge the power of these councils and these courts because they find their legitimacy in the Arbitration Act, which is an Act of Parliament that allows religious communities to internally arbitrate their own disputes. Unfortunately, you can’t really guarantee fairness, safety, security, integrity when that goes on when you have a parallel justice system because they’re not being held to the same standard as the rest of us.
For instance, we know what the Quran says about women. We know that the Quran states that a woman’s testimony is worth half of that of a man’s. And therefore, when a woman is hauled before a Sharia council in the United Kingdom, her view is deemed to be half as legitimate, half as likely to be the truth, as perhaps the man she is trying to divorce or the man that’s trying to divorce her or the inheritance she’s trying to get, etc., etc.
Now, to use an old tactic from the left, “this is 2017.” You often hear that from the cultural Marxists out there, “This is 2017, how dare we have a Robert E. Lee statue up.” Well, why don’t we have protests against female genital mutilation? This is 2017. Why don’t we have protests against Sharia councils discriminating against women? This is 2017. Why don’t we have a protest against people that are being forced to wear the burka or the hijab or who are being beaten and lashed? This is 2017. But these arguments fall on deaf ears. They have this sort of moral and cultural relativism that they deal with when addressing Islam and radical Islam and fundamentalist Islam.
Part 2
LN: Let’s talk about the issue of the left and the incompatibility of their pronounced virtue signaling in favor of every form of cultural, racial and gender diversity with their protection of an Islamic tradition that places little to no value on the input of women. How does the left reconcile those seemingly irreconcilable points of view?
Mr. Kassam: Well I don’t think it does, but in the arguments, I have with people about this…they tend to argue, “they’re different, you gotta leave them to their own devices, it’s Islamophobic if you say they can’t exercise their culture and their religion.” Of course, the United States has this incredible freedom of religion … acceptance. It’s built into the very fabric of your society, and of your country. But, when it gets to the point that people are being actively, seriously discriminated against, when women are being lashed, when children are being trafficked and sexually groomed and raped, as is the case in many of these areas…to what extent do we continue to allow this?
You have Maajid Nawaz in the United Kingdom, a former extremist himself, who has turned into a liberal leftist, who is now being shunned and shamed by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. They call him a hater, they call him an Islamophobe, and why? He’s still a practicing Muslim. And why do they call him an Islamophobe? Because he does not want Sharia law in the west. And those who think like him are called Uncle Toms; they’re called House Muslims, they’re called Islamophobes, you name it.
It’s not like we can convince the left that they’re wrong on this issue. But at least we can hold up a mirror to them.
LN: Now the issue you constantly bring to the forefront in your book and in this conversation is assimilation, and how Muslims are, or are not, assimilating into the nations where they live. And what you seem to be saying is that Muslims have to a large extent isolated themselves in Islamic ghettos where no non-Muslims, or infidels, are permitted to tread, for fear of what?
Mr. Kassam: Well I mean it’s not like they have a gatekeeper standing at the entryway to these neighborhoods, but it becomes extremely uncomfortable for non-Muslims, for documentarians or police, for journalists, for women, especially white women, and especially blond white women, and I’ve seen that with my own two eyes, to go into these neighborhoods. I know people in the United Kingdom who grew up in those neighborhoods who simply won’t go there anymore because when a non-Muslim goes into that neighborhood, they’re set upon. They can be spat at; they can be shouted at, as I have been. They can be threatened; they can be insulted. The insults, I can’t even say them on radio, that I’ve heard hurled at women in these areas are absolutely extraordinary.
And in some parts of Europe, police don’t even want to go into these neighborhoods anymore, and they certainly won’t go in twos, they will go in sixes, sevens, eights, maybe even ten at a times. The postal services will refuse to deliver to some of them. When I was on a bus in the northern parts of the Parisian suburbs, the bus wouldn’t stop in these neighborhoods because it was too dangerous.
This is…our new reality. I often hear, “Yes, Raheem, sure, but when the Irish came over they ghettoized them, and when the Italians came over they ghettoized,” and so on and so forth. And then the next generation is supposed to integrate, and they did, but the problem with Islamic migration and the difference between all those other migrant groups, whether your average Muslim on the street acknowledges it or even knows it, is that…they believe that their law is better, they believe that their law is God-given and that every other law is man-made and therefore they don’t have to abide by it.
———————-
The supremacy of Sharia law in Muslim communities has indeed become the west’s new reality. And it has happened because western leaders have permitted it, or even embraced it. Until such time as the west’s deference and tolerance about Sharia is tempered by equal justice under the laws of nations, the magnitude of this problem will only continue to grow.
Please Share & Help Wake America Up
