Pseudo-Secularism UK Style: Lessons for and from India
Whilst India’s brave soldiers are working round the clock saving the lives of flood victims in the Kashmir valley and surrounding areas, the rabid elements of pseudo-secularism keep barking in the gullies of England just as they are doing in various parts of India.
David Ward, Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East, or to be more precise, the lackey of Mirpur West & Bradfordistan and the pet poodle of an aggressive minority vote bank has called a debate in the House of Commons on the “right to self-determination of Kashmiris”. Not on any old day,but this Thursday, on 9/11 of all days. How repugnant that a nation that has suffered its own 9/11 in the form of 7/7, not to mention the public beheading of soldier Lee Rigby in broad daylight or the spate of UK born fundamentalists skiving off to fight for the ISIS “cause” in Iraq and Syria should allow its parliament to be tarnished with such an exclusivist, separatist and terrorist-inspired agenda under the guise of “human rights”?
Is it not strange that Ward and his fellow left wing travelers find time to poke their grubby fingers into areas which are none of their business whilst remaining quiet on societal breakdown and allegations of sexual impropriety in their own backyard including places of worship – see http://www.asiansunday.co.uk/shocking-alleged-sexual-harassment-at-council-for-mosques/, and the rather well-documented cases of child sex grooming (sic) by Pakistan-originated Muslims involving drugs, violence and the systematic, industrial scale rape of minors as young as 12?
Why is there no fundamental debate on how a small town has 1400 child victims whose perpetrators came almost entirely from men in the 10000 strong community of the same ethnic background? Wonder whether Ward or his Liberal colleagues have spared a moment over the victims’ “self-determination.” Perhaps, they and their families do not matter as they do not constitute a vote bank?
It is said that for the chatterati, the British summer is one long snooze and even the media scratches around for stories to spawn infantile headlines like “London Bus found on the South Pole” or “A comedian ate my pet hamster”, but it makes one wonder where the doyens of liberalism have been these past few weeks? Where is the outcry from feminists? Where is that sex and race obsessed organization, Liberty? According to its web site, Liberty’s tagline is “Protecting Civil liberties, Promoting Human Rights” and it “campaigns to raise awareness of urgent human rights and civil liberties issues and influence national debate”. One would have thought that the goings on in Rotherham and by all accounts, from recent cases in Rochdale, Derby, and Oxford, also multiple other British towns, would be of interest to Shami Chakrabarti. However, for one who is never off the news channels when “celebrity” Human Rights issues are at stake, sham Shami seems to have gone underground these last weeks. So much for the Human rights and liberty of underage girls from working class families.
Of course, this pseudo-secular coyness, though largely the domain of the totally illiberal “chatterati” it is not confined to the left. Baroness Warsi, who only a few weeks ago fulminated at how the Tories made her feel unloved and resigned in a blaze of indignation over Gaza, seems to have no opinion on the depravity with which the nation’s children have been abused in towns in her Yorkshire neighborhood. She has also been deathly silent over the months-long unraveling of the Birmingham Trojan Horse scandal. Perhaps a crude tribalist fealty trumps standing up for truth?
The radicalization of children in Birmingham Trojan Horse schools, turning impressionable young minds against the very society which nourishes them is not a shouting matter, but the Lib-Con government’s policy of being critical of Israel and using global forums to seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians becomes a matter of principle on which to resign. In any case, even among admirers, there is a feeling that “call me Dave” Cameron, in a fit of minority appeasement, must have adopted the tick box principle of gender, race and religion to promote Warsi far above her station, but, not exactly being the brightest button in the box, her resignation is no loss to British public life.
Sadly, with a few exceptions, there has been little public debate on these issues and the police and local authorities have been conspicuous by their lack of visibility.Most culpable among them are the BBC and The Guardian newspaper who consistently whitewash (or should it be brown-wash?) their presentation of news. They first denied that the Trojan Horse scandal was true and over many weeks, dismissively reported the allegations as racism and Islamophobia.
While Trojan Horse was under investigation, both these organizations obsessed over Modi and the BJP, spending acres of ink and eons of airtime frothing about Hindu “Fascism” and even implied that the typical Indian voter was a bigoted ignoramus. Of course, they got quite a little help from their “progressive” Indian pseudo-secularist friends and Labour/LibDem MPs who hosted their anti-India cabal in the Commons to peddle their vile agenda. Even when truth began to emerge from Birmingham, there was evasion and Orwellian logic in their commentary and reportage. If it had not been for some solid investigative journalism by the Daily Telegraph, much of the scandal would have been buried under bureaucratic doublespeak.
The BBC has treated the Rotherham scandal much the same way as Trojan Horse. Only a couple of weeks ago, a helicopter load of BBC crew and journalists frenzied in a newsfest hovering over a celebrity’s home televising a police raid. In contrast,Rotherham got what one might call an “economy with both truth and budget news coverage” treatment.
A lot of this should sound familiar to those who follow events in India: the same politics of obfuscation, the same limp wristed media who dare not call out the guilty, the same chatterati classes who pontificate on the new religion of multiculturalism and disparage all that is good about Western civilization. Such political correctness is a recent innovation in Britain, for which, we have as principal architect, the Middle East peace envoy, one time warmonger and master of dodgy dossiers,Tony Blair and his acolytes to thank. They, with their “ethical Foreign Policy” cooked up the chicken tikka masala that is the multi-culti flavour of Britain today: Just like the nondescript dish that goes by that name in the UK, naa yahaan ka, naa wahaan ka, or to put it bluntly, neither fish nor fowl.
Even the police are not immune. See how they have used international treaties meant for terrorists to hound, arrest, handcuff and imprison the King family, all because the parents wanted what they consider the best medical treatment for their sick child, whilst the rapists in Rotherham are allowed to roam free on the streets, and some of the Trojan Horse coterie are still in situ, least that multi-culti feelings might get offended.
Don’t many Labour politicians sound and act like Congress, SP and BSP lowlives over the decades? Do the BBC and their favourite “expert” spokies not behave just like the anti-national media-wallahs in India a laBarka Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Arnab Goswami and their friends like Tiwari, Kavita Krishnan etc? Let’s make no mistake: they are filled with hatred and loathing for the indigenous culture, foisting their perverted notions of “tolerance” on the silent majority who freely embrace diversity in their society, not grudgingly, but because it is wired into their DNA?
The average Brit is a hardy sort: the stiff upper lip is not exclusive to the upper classes or the “white race”, the masses of all classes, creeds and races that make up a great nation have quietly tolerated the country being taken to war on false pretenses, seen barbaric practices like gender discrimination in schools and FGM go unpunished, and an explicit policy of separateness demanded through oppressive dress code and blind eyes being turned on animal cruelty in the matter of food all gain credence as “standard practice”. Doesn’t the average Brit sound like the average Indian, regardless of class, creed, of religion?
Hard-won gender equality legislation and common sense are being run roughshod over to please fundamentalist elements. Sounds perverse, but in another place and time, the world condemned Apartheid South Africa, but,in the Brave New World, voluntary apartheid must not only be not denied, it has to be enforced. Defence of the rule of law morphs into an enforcement of Political Correctness. For, to do otherwise would be tantamount to being “racist”, or, “communal”.
At a people-to-people level, race discrimination is largely a non-issue in Britain today – any stranger coming to Britain will witness this on the street and in the workplace. Not surprising, then, that antiracism legislation is not often invoked in community or personal disputes. So one can only conclude that the vocal storm troopers for multi-culti nonsense that infest politics, media and social services merely scream “racism” to halt any debate of the ills of voluntary apartheid which afflict society. The “race card” is thus a convenient ruse as a “stay out of jail” card. Why, only this week, a director from the Birmingham’s Equalities, Community Safety and Cohesion team (what a title!) was on BBC TV suggesting that press coverage of Trojan Horse had maligned a whole community and insinuating that many Muslims were facing hate crimes and discrimination as a result. Of course, he had no statistics to back his point, only the oft repeated refrain that Trojan Horse was only a small number of individuals in a small number of schools. Predictably, the BBC interviewer was so gentle and considerate he failed to challenge the Equalities bureaucrat that even with half a dozen schools, the scandal of radicalization would have affected thousands of impressionable young minds. Maybe, just to score a point, and in the interests of “Safety and Cohesion”, the welfare of these adult citizens of tomorrow does not matter?
In short: in the name of multiculturalism, a tolerant culture is being put upon to not only tolerate but to protect blatantly intolerant ideologies that are inherently inimical to fairness, decency and liberty.
So, what are the lessons for India? Or for Britain for that matter?
The multi-layered problems of society and the “public space” occupied by the chatterati are obvious peas in a pod, but at the common person’s level, there is a similar diversity, a similar respect for culture and values, an affiliation to tradition but with a humane awareness for what it takes for society to be “good”, a streak of individual rebellion that permits individuality, dialogue and living with differences, but above all cherishing liberty.
Therein lies the lessons for each country.Now is the time to stop experimenting with divisive ideas such as secularism and political correctness and go back to the core values that have sustained India through centuries of disruption and change, positive and otherwise.
Take the Dharmic tradition embodied in Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्, that the whole world is one single family which is fundamentally at odds with India’s modern secularism which thrives on promoting divisiveness and otherness. Entwine this with English gifts from the Enlightenment, which are so much at odds with the political correctness of today, and which are so richly captured in John Stuart Mill’s “The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it” and Bentham’s “No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion”.
With this mix, there can be hope that modernity can coexist with tradition–where the artificial equalization of the good with the bad and patently ugly, which multi-culti promotes, is pushed aside for what is a truly humane inclusive culture.
As a rather famous Indian poet wrote nearly 200 years ago:
बसकेदुश्वारहैहरकामकाआसांहॉना
आदमीकोभीमयस्सरनहिइंसानहोना
In life, “easy” and “simple” are not always the same
For, even for a human, it is difficult to be humane
