I’m somewhat surprised that the blogosphere hasn’t had more to say about Policy Exchange’s survey of British Muslims (BBC). The findings are, I would think, more than a little troubling. The most worrisome part is the fact that younger Muslims in the UK (aged 16-24 in the survey) are easily more radical than older Muslims (aged 55+).
The first lesson learned is the most obvious: “multiculturalism” is far worse than assimilation (no surprise to yours truly, and something the aforementioned think tank also makes plain). In fact, in the very thing it was supposed to do, i.e., makes “outsiders” feel more welcome, the multicultis have done worse than the Anglophiles of yore. The other lesson is a bit harder to catch, unless one is aware of Central Asian history.
The largest ethnicity within British Islam, by far, is Pakistani (Times of London, cited by Ice Viking). When taken into account, the difference between older and younger Muslims is all the more striking. Those in the “over-55s” – as the Brits call them – entered adulthood in the early 1970s at the latest, while no one in the 16-24 category was even born before 1982.
Why does that matter? Because the most important years in recent Pakistani history were the late 1970s. It was during that period when General Muhammed Zia ul-Haq took power in an army coup (1977) and began implementing the step-by-step Islamicization of Pakistan (aided by Saudi funds and Wahhabist support). It should be noted that Zia also maintained a strong friendship with the United States until the day he died in a suspicious 1988 plane crash, and according to Daniel Pipes, he eased up on the Wahhabization toward the end of his regime. That said, Zia still allowed his nation to be infected with a Wahhabist-tainted radicalism that led future Pakistani leaders (including Pervez Musharraf) to support the Taliban and al Qaeda until 9/11/01 (and to a lesser extent, keep and “hands-off” policy on the Taliban to this very day).
Now we can see that Zia’s Wahhabization not only made Pakistan more problematic for the current W-B-K war, but also allowed the infection to spread to the largest Pakistani diaspora - Great Britain. Here in the United States, where the Saudis have used their wealth to ensnare more than 4 in every 5 American mosques (Jerusalem Post), this is a lesson we cannot ignore.
December 27, 2007 at 2:28 pm |
[...] so successful that countries that have since become home to Pakistani immigrant populations (i.e., Great Britain) are having more trouble assimilating younger ethnic Pakistanis than [...]
April 3, 2008 at 11:34 am |
[...] Britain has been more open to Pakistani immigrants than the rest of Europe. This has led to a high-speed Wahhabization of the British Muslim community, with all of the expected problems that would [...]