The Israeli prime minister, genocidal fascist maniac and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has referred to the UK as “the Islamic republic of Britain”, adding that the UK was the “first Islamic republic to get a nuclear weapon”. It’s the same drivel as USA USA USA V/P JD Vance came up with two years ago when he declared that the UK was “truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon”. I suppose it comes down to your interpretation of what being an Islamist country actually means.
Something like 94% of the UK population are not muslims. We are of many different “faiths” and, these days, most of us have no “faith”. Quite how 6% of the population, which identifies with Islam, can be referred to as an Islamic republic is beyond me, but I do accept that for me basic arithmetic has never been a strong point.
That said, I have no truck with any form of religion. As my late father said, “On the first day Man created God” and I have come across no evidence that suggests he was wrong. Most religious texts were written long before people really knew what was going on in the world, before science began to explain things, like how we came about in the first place.
I have no objection to folk believing in the God of their choice for so long as it in no ways affects my own life. As long as the devout gain no special privileges as a result of their “faith” and live under the law of the land, then by all means, I say, enjoy your religious superstition. Better still, let’s end all “faith schools” so that children are not subject to proselytisation, which is to say religious brainwashing. Let’s be honest: just how many children are brought up in one religion then decide to worship a different one? The answer? Not many. It is not a coincidence.
As it happens, I am more troubled by more oppressive religions, like Islam, where women are treated as second class citizens at best, where homosexuality is regarded as a sin, where animals are cruelly killed by way of Halal. (The Jewish faith has a similar dark attitude to animal cruelty with it’s Kosher tradition.) One law, one land, one education system, one humane way of killing animals for food; no exceptions. It’s all very simple.
That’s not me saying, “If you don’t like it here, Mr or Ms Muslim, there are plenty of “Muslim” countries you can live in, so off you fuck“. It’s me saying this is how we do things in the UK and it applies to everyone. I do not see how this is controversial. But diversity, I contend, does have its limits. It is why I have trouble with the term multicultural, but not multiracial, multiethnic or any similar multi you can think of. There are some grim cultures out there.
What I am basically saying is that by becoming a fully secular country you signal the end of religious privilege: you don’t end the right to pray to the God of your choice.
I rather doubt that the 6% of Muslims in the UK feel that this is an “Islamist republic”. I know a couple of Muslims and frankly all they care about is putting some bread on the table for their families and being the best people they can be. They don’t wang on about the UK being an Islamic country that has nuclear weapons. There is a minority of Islamist nutcases who are violently opposed to the democratic freedoms we enjoy, but then there is a minority of homegrown nutcases who, for example, want to set fire to the homes of families with brown and black skin.
We have a nuclear deterrent because of the threat from the Russian Bear. Perhaps these days we need it also to deter maniacs like Netanyahu who are armed to the teeth, also with nuclear weapons. Given their current behaviour, what are the odds of Israel actually using their nukes? The nearer Netanyahu gets to the The Hague, who’s to say he doesn’t push the button?
The more people that come to the conclusion that God isn’t really there, the better. God is not the cause of every war, but ‘He’ is usually involved somewhere and not in a good way. And whether you do God or not, surely secularism is the solution to so many of our problems?
According to the scripts, Mohammad was a pretty bad bloke, but then, so was God, particularly the evil monster he was in the Old Testament. Let’s cut the crap and get on with life. God is not great and he’s not there, either.
May your God go with you.
