Those blissfully unaware of The Guardian, London’s daily fountain of cringe-worthy leftism, have likely missed some of the most brazenly ridiculous op-eds in recent memory. Sure, The New York Times may offer endless iterations of Maureen Dowd’s unfunny, un-insightful fluff, but that pales in comparison to The Guardian‘s typical array of columns.
These are the folks, after all, who regularly offer editorial-page space to Hamas members, the maniacal President of Iran–and, perhaps worst of all, Jimmy Carter. Yet the Thursday, January 4th number of The Guardian may just take the cake for the zenith of insipid editorializing.
In this particular issue of the newspaper, one finds the breathtaking article “Britain Should Integrate into Muslim Values.” Penned by one Safraz Manzoor, it casts aspersions at those who desire to assimilate Muslim foreigners into British culture, arguing that British culture should itself become more Islamic.
Naturally, Mr. Manzoor must ignore all sorts of unpleasant details to come to his conclusion: You know those little nugatory bits like honor killings, veiled women, Sharia law, vicious misogyny, and rabid anti-Semitism. Oh yeah, and terrorism–did we forget that one?
One would think these trifles would leave Muslim culture without too much to recommend it. Ah, but that’s where Mr. Manzoor, playing the British version of the CAIR card, offers a startling example of we can only call Muslim chutzpah:
Whether the danger is religious extremism, drugs or crime, those involved are largely third-generation Muslims who are so integrated into white society that they are emulating its worst characteristics. Integration did not save them, it created them.
Oh, we get it now: The Musliim world inherited all its pathologies from the evil West. Apparently the Islamic world lacks its own religious extremism, which must be imported by integrated European Muslims. Maybe they all learned about terrorism from the IRA? Or was it the Basques?
Obviously, this is complete rubbish. There are, to be sure, nice things about contemporary Muslim culture, a few of which Mr. Manzoor mentions. But this Blame the West for Everything nonsense shouldn’t be taken seriously by anyone.
We mean, come on: If Muslim culture were so superior to its pernicious British counterpart, why are so many people leaving Muslim countries in order to live in the UK? With the glories of Islamic civilization only an airplane ride away, why do so many Brits stay put in their crowded cities? It sure as heck ain’t the cooking.
(Note: The crack young staff normally “weblog” at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” where they are currently blaming the West for everything from lady bugs to the Tamil Tigers, to the fanfare of Guardian readers everywhere.)
