Saturday, March 31, 2012

Demographic coup of Islam: Agony of Hindu Civilization


by R K Ohri

India faces a major demographic upheaval. The sharply rising Muslim numbers, both in absolute and percentage terms, and a corresponding decline in the population of Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists has the potential to escalate fault-line conflicts and create a Lebanon-like situation. Data from the last six censuses held since 1951 suggests that in percentage terms there has been a relentless increase in the population of only one community, the Muslims; all other communities are in a declining mode. Since 1981, Muslim population growth has been in a fast forward mode, growing at almost 45% higher rate than Hindus and Christians. In terms of percentage, Sikh population has recorded the steepest decline since independence.

Census 2001 put the decadal growth rate of Muslims at around 36%, while Hindu growth rate declined from 23% to 20%. On the eve of the Maharashtra Assembly elections, an unseemly political controversy was manufactured by the government on the ground that since no census had taken place in J&K in 1991, the conclusions drawn in terms of Census 2001 data were faulty. This led to a very clumsy fudging of Census 2001, by omitting from the census 3.67 crore people living in Jammu & Kashmir and Assam, States having high Muslim population.

In 1981, no census could be held in Assam due to disturbed conditions, but that did not result in any political ruckus, nor was fudging of census data done at that time because no elections were due then. The most extraordinary aspect of this fudging of the population profile was the deletion with retrospective effect of population data of these two sensitive states from every Census held since 1961 - something never done before in any democratic country.

In a lucid article, professional demographers, late P.N. Mari Bhat and A.J. Francis Zavier, wrote that “the fertility of Muslims, which was about 10 per cent higher than that of Hindus before independence, is now 25 to 30 per cent higher than the Hindu rate”. This means the Muslim population is now growing at a rate nearly 45% higher than that of Hindus.

The authors added that the assertion in a section of English media that Census 2001 had revealed a higher reduction in the growth rate of Muslims than Hindus was incorrect. The decline in Hindu growth rate was higher at 12.2% as against 10.3% decline in Muslim growth. Fast growth of Muslim population, especially in non-Muslim countries, is a global phenomenon, they averred.  

There is no truth in the assertion that higher Muslim fertility was due to poverty or illiteracy. Since 36% Muslims live in urban areas, as against only 26% Hindus, and as Muslims have a higher life expectancy at birth than Hindus, logically their fertility should have been lower than Hindus. But Muslim fertility continues to be higher despite their greater urbanization and lower incidence of infant and child mortality. Within 7-8 years, the gap between the longevity of Hindus and Muslims has widened to 3 years, i.e., 68 years for Muslims as against only 65 years for Hindus [National Family Health Survey of 2005-2006].     

Acceptance of family planning by Muslims is lower at least by 25 percent than Hindus and other Indic communities. Late Mari Bhat and Francis Zavier highlighted the fact that in non-Muslim countries there is a general trend towards higher growth rate of Muslim populations. 

According to the National Family Health Survey-2 of 1998-99, in Kerala where the literacy level of the two communities was almost equal (and due to large remittances from Gulf countries Muslims are economically better off than Hindus), the growth rate of Muslims remained much higher than Hindus by almost 45 percent. Analysis of Census 2001shows that on an average every Muslim woman is giving birth to at least one  more child than her Hindu counterpart. 

Indians must understand the mindboggling import of Statement 7 of Census 2001 Religion Data Report (page xlii) which gives the religion-wise breakup of children in the 0-6 year age group. It shows that the percentage of 0-6 year old Muslim cohorts (a term commonly used in demographic parlance) is 21% higher than Hindu cohorts. This gives Muslims an advantage of 7.6% over Hindus as and when these cohorts enter reproductive age, say roughly between 2012 and 2016.

This gives a vital clue to the demographic crisis likely to engulf India anytime after 2011 or latest by 2021. These 0-6 yrs old cohorts (enumerated in 2001) will become reproductively active between 2012 and 2016 and continue to reproduce for the next 30-40 years. With a 21% higher cohort population and at least 25 percent less acceptance of family planning, the growth in Muslim population during the next few decades is likely to become even more fast-paced.

The Census 2001 Religion Data Report further reveals that among all religious groups, the Muslim population of 0-6 year cohorts was highest at 18.7%. The lowest percentage was seen among Jains (10.6%) and Sikhs (12.8%). In coming years, the percentage increase in the population of these two religious groups, important components of Indic civilization, will be slower than the growth recorded in Census 2001, and their share in the population will decline further, possibly at a faster pace.

In terms of percentage increase, the biggest quantum jump in Muslim population in coming decades will occur in Haryana where the ratio of Muslim cohorts is almost 60% higher than Hindu cohorts! Next in descending order registering fast Muslim growth will be Assam, West Bengal, Uttaranchal, Delhi, Nagaland and Bihar. 

A further analysis of 0-6 year cohorts’ data reveals that out of 35 States and Union Territories listed in Statement 7, the percentage of Muslim cohorts was higher than Hindu cohorts in as many as 31 States and UTs. The percentage of 0-6 year Hindu cohorts was marginally higher than Muslims only in Sikkim and Madhya Pradesh and the UTs of Daman & Diu and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. In coming decades, Muslim population will grow at a higher rate than that of Hindus in 31 States and Union Territories.  

Statement 7 of Census 2001 Religion Data Report is self explanatory and vividly depicts the looming shadow of future demographic changes across India.

Trapped in a suicidal cult of political correctness, most Indian intellectuals refuse to understand the reasons which prompted former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to advise all British couples to opt for the 5 children norm. Incidentally, his wife Cherry Blair gave birth to their fourth child while her husband was Prime Minister. Indeed, in recent years many European countries have announced liberal cash bonuses to couples who opt for more children. Peter Costello, Australia's Chancellor of the Exchequer, urged every couple to have at least 3 children, preferably more – “one child for father, one for the mother and one for the country”. Apprehensive of population growth in Indonesia, Peter Costello announced an incentive of 2000 Australian dollars for every child born after June 2004. Many keen observers of global population trends like Niall Ferguson, Bernard Lewis, Robert Costello, Bruce Bawer and Mark Steyn are alerting their countrymen to the threat posed by demographic changes to their civilisational values.

India has many bleeding heart liberals who will ask why this global panic? The answer is that in 1900, Muslims constituted only 12% of the world population; they grew to 18% in 1992-93 (when Huntington published his first thesis on clash of civilizations). Today Muslims constitute 24% of global population. Samuel Huntington pointed out that by 2025, they will constitute 30% of world population. [Source: Spangler, The Decline of the West].

According to some demographic estimates, Muslims might constitute 37% to 40% of world population by 2100 AD. In recent years the number of jihads worldwide has also multiplied; Thailand is the latest entrant to the growing list of jihadi conflict zones.

In India, the Hindu birth rate is fast approaching the European average. According to Census 2001, the decadal Total Fertility Rate of Hindus of Kolkata district (West Bengal) was barely 1.0%, much lower than the birth rates of Germany, Italy and Spain. In Kerala too the Hindu TFR at 1.64 is below the replacement level of 2.1in 2001.

Kerala has witnessed a massive increase in Muslim population from approx. 23,75,000 in 1951 to 78,64,000 in 2001. During the same period the population of Hindus grew from 83,48,000 to 1,79,2000, while that of Christians increased from 28,26,000 to 60,57,000. During the last five decades the Hindu percentage in Kerala’s population declined from 61.61 to 56.28, while that of Muslims rose from 17.53 to 24.70 percent. The percentage share of Christians declined from 20.86 in 1951 to 19.02 in 2001. 

The Indian middle class and opinion makers must grasp the long term consequences of the demographic crisis. In a different context, while analyzing socio-economic aspects of   Census 2001, demographer Ashish Bose estimated that in 49 districts Muslims already constitute more than 30% of the population. A back-of-the envelope calculation made in the light of Muslim growth rate in the last two decades shows that Muslims will attain majority status in all these 49 districts between 2091 and 2111, perhaps even earlier. 

According to a study published by the Centre for Policy Studies, around 2061, the total Muslim population of the sub-continent (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, counted together) will exceed the total Hindu/ Sikh population. This could lead to a fierce struggle for supremacy in the sub-continent.

This is already visible in the chorus for more unmerited concessions for Muslims. The Sachar Committee admitted, perhaps unwittingly, that by 2101 Muslim population in India will be around 32 to 34 crores.  It was 13.8 crores in 2001 and barely 3.77 crores in 1951.

In recent times, there have been strident demands by Muslim leaders for greater share in jobs and elected bodies. In 2006, Mohammad Azam Khan of the Samajwadi Party called for carving a Muslim Pradesh out of Western UP, instead of a Harit Pradesh advocated by the Rashtriya Lok Dal. 

A similar demand to create four or five Muslim-dominated enclaves was voiced by Dr. Omar Khalidi in an interview published in The Times of India, New Delhi, June 2004. He later wrote in The Radiance, mouthpiece of Jamaat-e Islami. He was assiduously following the roadmap for another partition of India. Advocating the creation of Muslim-dominated enclaves in the Mewat region of Haryana, certain parts of UP, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Dr. Khalidi demanded reservations for Muslims on the pattern of Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The late Dr. Khalidi was in the forefront of the lobby seeking proportionate representation for Muslims in various services, especially in the defence services and para-military forces.  He and G.M. Banatwala of the Muslim League are believed to have indirectly used the Sachar Committee as a medium to mount political pressure for seeking jobs for Muslims in proportion to their growing population in government departments, especially the defence and para-military forces, besides greater representation in Parliament and State legislatures. 

Muslims are fully aware of their future empowerment through sharp growth in their numbers.  Many have started pushing the claim to disproportionate political power in India. Sometime ago when Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi visited Aligarh Muslim University, a student asked him how soon he visualized a Muslim becoming Prime Minister of India. Obviously, the battle lines are being drawn for another politico-religious conflict in India.

In conclusion, it would be in order to recall late P.N. Mari Bhat and Francis Zavier’s analysis that the fertility of Muslims was about 10% higher than that of Hindus before independence and is now 25 to 30% higher than the Hindu rate. Hindus have lost considerable ground since 1947. Yet no Hindu political or spiritual leader has tried to rouse the millions of ill informed Hindus about the looming threat of demographic decimation of their ancient faith and civilisational values.

The writing on the wall is clear. The Christians of Europe and Hindus of India have pushed themselves to the edge of suicide by failure to understand the dynamics of demography in this age of adult suffrage. Russian demographers describe the rampant recourse to abortion by their countrymen in quest of the small family norm as ‘do it yourself genocide’. 

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The mighty fortress of Brahmanism

by Vijaya Rajiva



“The mighty fortress of Brahmanism” is the phrase used by Monier Williams (author of the Sanskrit English Dictionary, 1899) to describe Hinduism. It is a mix of ignorance, hatred, fascination, racism, and the desire to overcome this religion by an ignorant colonialist of the 19th century, but it sums up the general ignorance of the Christian West regarding Hinduism, much like the seven blind men who tried to describe an elephant by touching one part of the animal and proclaiming that it represented the whole elephant!

 The exact quote from Monier Williams is:

“When the walls of the mighty fortress of Brahmanism are encircled, undermined & finally stormed by the soldiers of the cross, the victory of Christianity must be signal and complete” (Modern India and Indians, p.247).

The Indologist Max Mueller saw the Rig Veda as the root of all the problems that needed to be resolved (in a private letter to his wife). Macaulay destroyed Hindu education in 1835 by replacing it with English education. He had confidently predicted that Indians would in 30 years abandon their “paganism.” Alas, for him, this did not happen. As early as the 12th century, the Pope had been setting up councils to learn Indian languages so that the “pagans”, the “infidels” could be converted to the true faith, Christianity.

The mission to destroy Hinduism would not/could not/ will not succeed simply because of the lack of understanding of the religion. It was not “Brahmanism” at all. Even today, writers like Arundhati Roy mistakenly speak about the Brahmanic Hindu state. It is not Brahmanism, but the entire religious and social structure of Hinduism that originated with the Vedas and continued down the millennia. Its innate strengths could not be analysed or defeated. It was held up by the ordinary Hindu and the traditional acharyas, gurus and maths.

Thousands of Hindus lost their lives defending the sacred sites, whether Somnath or Ayodhya. Hundreds of Hindus continue to lose their lives in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Many brave the inclement weather to visit Amarnath…

Belgian scholar Koenraad Elst observed there is a constant ongoing low level violence against Hindus throughout India, which is not reported by the liberal media which, however, jumps up and down if even a single member of the minority communities is affected. Even P.N. Benjamin of the Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue has stated that the violence against the Christian community in Karnataka is exaggerated. It is rare and on a very small scale. Hindus have seldom initiated violence; it has almost always been retaliatory. Benjamin was speaking about the incidents in Kandhamal when the octogenarian Swami Laxmanananda was murdered along with four other sanyasi-disciples for having resisted the church’s conversion activities in that region.

We are not talking about the barbarian invasions. Those are in a category by themselves. The Nestorian Christians (7th & 8th centuries) destroyed Hindu temples; the cruelty, murder and mayhem of the Goa Inquisition of the 17th century is well documented, as is the first Vatican Council in that century, which planned to destroy Hinduism. Journalist Kanchan Gupta has called for an apology from the Church, but none has been forthcoming; indeed the Church in India went ballistic when the topic was mentioned.
Then came the Inculturation-ists, starting with Robert de Nobili in the 17th century, who tried to infiltrate the society by devious means and thus subvert the social and religious order, a process that continues under euphemistic titles such as interfaith dialogue.

It has never been understood why there should be an olive branch style dialogue from the Hindu side. Yet we have lofty rhetoric such as “understanding,” respect”, though it remains unclear why a tradition that has accepted and accommodated alien religious/ ethic groups into the country should tie itself up in knots with words such as ‘engage’ with a tradition best known for conquest and violence.

There has been much covert and overt conversion activity by the Church and evangelists through force, fraud and bribery. This is now couple with attempts by social and political groups to overcome Hinduism in various devious ways; with limited success so far.

Among recent assaults against the “mighty fortress” is the State encroachment on Hindu temples and their jurisdiction. This began most noticeably with the ascent to unaccountable power of an Italian Catholic at the Centre. This too is an ongoing process, with temple lands being brazenly stolen as under Chief Minister Samuel Rajshekhar Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. Only prompt action by the sadhu community stopped further incursions in the Tirupati hills some years ago.

Last year, there was a brazen attempt to appropriate the wealth of the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Trivandrum under the rubric of legalisms. The immense wealth generated by the Sabarimala pilgrimage disappears into private pockets.

The allied Communist-Congress-Islamic-Christian forces in Kerala are now seeking to deploy state power to remove the traditional priests in temples from their jobs and replace them with their own candidates. The ploy is to claim that this is being done in the interests of social justice. This claim must be seriously investigated.

Sadly, Hindu politicians have assisted in the enterprise in the mistaken notion that training non-Brahmin priests is the right way to go. While inclusiveness is a sound principle, such an exercise needs to be undertaken with extreme caution – with desiring candidates themselves coming forward to seek training and guidance from traditional priests and teachers, so that the sankaras necessary for such an arduous profession-cum-vocation, which is really a seva to society, can be properly ingrained in the mind of the disciple.

This cannot and should not be the consequence of political nepotism. Yet this is how it has been in Tamil Nadu, where this was first attempted under the DMK regime.

Kerala is now trying the same experiment in the reign of a Christian chief minister from the Congress party.

Non-Brahmins deserve all the social and educational and economic opportunities that all citizens of India should have. But they cannot be genuinely empowered by throwing out existing Brahmin priests! Such careless meddling with temple tradition is fraught with danger.

The writer Tamizhchelvan observes, “This ‘All Caste Archagas’ concept is a Christian ploy. They did the same in Tamil Nadu during the previous DMK regime, which passed a bill framing the “All Caste Archagas Act”. That was a well crafted political stunt by the DMK regime in the name of ‘social justice’ (whatever that means).

We have different types of temples in Tamil Nadu. They are the Agama Temples, Non-Agama Temples, Community Temples and Village Temples. The Agama Temples are the ancient ones which are built as per Agama Shastras and where the rituals are also conducted as per the Agama rules. Here the Sivacharyas (from Siva temples) and Bhattacharyas (from Vishnu temples) have been serving as traditional Archagas for centuries. The non Agama temples are those which are not built as per Agama Shastras and the Agama Shastras are not so strictly followed. The community temples are the ones built and owned by the various communities (castes) who mostly employ their own people as Poojaris. Some have opted for Brahmin poojaris. The Village Temples are mostly manned by Poojaris from the SC, BC, and MBC categories.

Barring the Agama Temples, in all other temples we have archagas from all castes employed for ages.”

It follows that there is per se no exclusion of non-Brahmins from performing temple rituals, and even serving as pujaris. So there is no need for such ‘social reform’, which is really an euphemism for political intrusion into the affairs of religion and a vulgar form of social engineering for no larger social good.

The preservation of ancient Hindu rituals must be left to families and groups trained in carrying them out as a religious duty. Attempts by deracinated secular Hindus to pervert Hindu dharma at the instigation of non-Hindu faiths is a recipe for disaster.

Post-colonial Hindus indoctrinated by Monier Williams, Max Mueller and Macaulay must refrain from such meddling with the Hindu tradition. Had they lived this great tradition, they would have understood that the complex diversity and continuity of the tradition erected the ‘mighty fortress’ sensed by Monier Williams. It was never the physical handiwork of any particular caste.


Friday, March 23, 2012

Prime Minister’s Package: The Long Betrayal

by Mohan Krishen Teng

Reports appearing in the Indian press, emanating from the statement made by the Home Ministry in Parliament, on the eve of the 22nd anniversary of the exodus of the community of Hindus from Kashmir, that not a single family living in exile had availed of the Prime Minister’s Package, should give no cause for any surprise. What should cause surprise is the belief that the Indian Prime Minister and the men around him harboured the thought that the Hindus of Kashmir living in refugee camps in Jammu and other parts of India should have returned to Kashmir to live in refugee camps there at the charity of the Muslims and the mercy of separatist flanks who are leading the so-called struggle for freedom of Kashmir from the ‘occupation’ of the Indian army.

Not only the Indian Prime Minister, the whole Indian political class knew the inherent conflict between the return of Hindus to Kashmir and the Muslim separatist and secessionist struggle, and the rumbling underground of the Muslim Jihad. The leaders of the Jihad and the Muslim separatist regimes never changed their stand that the Hindus had been driven out of Kashmir because they had always opposed the Muslim struggle in Jammu and Kashmir, and that they had been dealt with as they deserved.

At no point during the last two decades were Muslim separatist regimes prepared to abandon the strategic advantage of the demographic change in Kashmir, created by the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in 1990. The pretentious acceptance of the return of the Hindus by some Jihadi war groups, Muslim separatist regimes, and their over ground mentors in the Hurriyat conglomerates, with the rider that the Hindus would join the Muslim struggle against India, was a well-planned move aimed more to silence their protest in exile than open the way for their rehabilitation.

The ethnic extermination of Hindus was the first objective of the religious war, the Jihad unleashed in Kashmir. The Hindus had through the crucial days which followed the partition, offered stubborn resistance to the secessionist movements in the State and the Muslimisation of the government and society in Kashmir. The ethnic extermination of Hindus was therefore, the first strategic objective of the militant flanks which formed the vanguard of Jihad for the secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India.

After the war of separation triumphed, Jammu and Kashmir would, as part of the fundamental unity of the Muslim brotherhood, join the commonwealth of Pakistan. The terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir, as it spread, unfolded several aspects which were characteristically original to it. The terrorist violence had a wider portent: the expansion of pan-Islamic fundamentalism and the achievement of the Muslimisation of Jammu and Kashmir. The extermination of Hindus in Kashmir was a part of the Islamic revolution which the armed struggle aimed to accomplish.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the people around him could not have been unaware of the conditions the return package would push Hindu refugees into. It would be an irony of history if Indian leaders believed that Kashmiri Hindus would return to their homes and hearths to join the Muslim struggle against India. The sociology of the exodus of the Hindus of Kashmir needs to be studied in order to understand the impact of genocide on them, and the upturning their exodus brought about in their lives.

The Sociology of Exodus

The Hindus of Kashmir had fought shoulder to shoulder with the people of the Princely States for India’s freedom from British Paramountacy as also from princely rule. In fact, the first Plenary of the All India States’ Peoples’ Conference, held in Kathiawad, was presided over by a Kashmiri Pandit, Shanker Lal Koul, who, along with Lalla Muluk Raj Saraf of Jammu, represented the princely State of Jammu and Kashmir in the Conference. Shanker Lal Koul sounded the bugle of revolt against the Princes and their British mentors.

The Hindus of Kashmir fought alongside their Muslim compatriots against the princely rule. They were also at the center-stage of the Khilafat Movement launched by Gandhi, which took Jammu and Kashmir by storm and which shook the British, who were secretly conspiring to colonise more temperate regions of the north of India, including Jammu and Kashmir. In fact, the Hindus of Kashmir provided the main thrust to the State-subject movement, which was aimed to frustrate British efforts to colonise Jammu and Kashmir and convert it into a white enclave in India.

The Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir opposed the State-subject movement and in collaboration with the Muslims of Punjab beseeched the British to merge the State with British India. In spite of Muslim intransigence and singed by the anti-Hindu riots of 1931, the Hindus of Kashmir joined their Muslim compatriots to initiate a secular peoples’ movement for the freedom of the State. The leaders of the Hindu community of Kashmir alone dared to openly question Gandhi’s decision to refuse the request of the President of All India States’ People Conference, Shri N.C. Kelkar, to integrate the State peoples’ struggle in the princely states with the liberation struggle of India.

In 1946, during the turmoil that followed the Quit Kashmir agitation, the Secretary General of the All India States Peoples’ Conference, Dwarika Nath Kachroo, a Kashmiri Pandit, played a historic role to prevent a split between the National Conference and the Indian National Congress which was still committed to cooperation with the princely rulers. Meanwhile, the left flanks of the National Conference, predominantly Kashmir Pandit, who formed the core of the War Council the National Conference had constituted, carried on the agitation from its underground quarters under the leadership of Mohi-u-Din Qarra. The man second to Qarra in the War Council was Niranjan Nath Raina Saraf, a veteran communist and an intellectual, who turned to academics later and became one among the first nuclear scientists of post-independent India.

In the aftermath of the June 3 Declaration, which envisaged the creation of Pakistan, the Hindus of Kashmir lost no time to declare their commitment to the accession of the State to India. It is not a widely known fact that during those fateful days, while the National Conference maintained complete silence on the issue of accession, the leaders of the Yuvak Sabha, the premier organisation representing the Hindus of Kashmir, had a secret meeting with Congress president Acharya Kriplani, who had come to Srinagar, at the residence of Bal Kak Dhar. The next day, Shiv Narayan Fotedar, Professor Laxmi Narayan Dhar and Pandit Gana Koul, moved a resolution in the General Council of the Yuvak Sabha, calling upon the ruler of the State to prepare ground for the accession of the State to India and bring to a close the existing distrust in the State. The resolution was adopted unanimously by the Sabha and given to the press the same day.

Dwarika Nath Kachroo participated in the crucial Working Committee meeting of the National Conference in early October 1947, which took the historic decision to support the accession of the State to India. He cabled the minutes of the meeting to Nehru. The decision of the Working Committee of the National Conference was a determining moment in the unification of Jammu and Kashmir with India.

In the aftermath of the invasion of the State by Pakistan in October 1947, the Hindus of Kashmir joined the resistance the people offered to the invading columns. After the accession of the State to India, the Hindus put themselves into the forefront of the resistance against the long war of subversion that Pakistan and the pro- Pakistan Muslim flanks carried on in the state.

They gave ideological content to the political and economic reforms the Interim Government, constituted by the National Conference, embarked upon. They accepted the political and economic reforms with the hope that Indian Secularism would eventually triumph, though they knew that the reforms underlined Muslim precedence in the government and society of the State. They did not oppose the exclusion of the State from the constitutional organisation of India mainly because they were aware of the pressures the Indian government faced in the Security Council.

However, they threw away their caution and stormed the streets of Srinagar after the disintegration of the National Conference in 1953, in support of the second Interim Government, headed by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad. Indeed the Hindus formed the main flanks of resistance against the long struggle for self-determination that the All Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front spearheaded for more than two decades. For their audacity in opposing the Front, they earned their wrath and were branded as “unpaid agents of Indian imperialism”. The condemnation pursued them even after the conclusion of the Indira-Abdullah accord which restored the Front leaders to power in the State in 1975.

Long Betrayal

The dissolution of the Plebiscite Front and withdrawal of the movement for self-determination that the Indira-Abdullah Accord envisaged, did little to contain Muslim separatist movements in the State. On the contrary, the Accord broke up the plank on which the resistance to Muslim separatist movements was based.

The Front leaders reconstituted the National Conference after they dissolved the Front. In order to consolidate their hold on State power, they adopted a two pronged strategy. First, they put the National Conference on the right side of Muslim separatist movements to assuage the ruffled tempers of large sections of Muslim society which did not approve of the abandonment of the movement for self-determination.

Second, the National Conference leaders launched a surreptitious campaign to: (a) neutralize the Muslim flanks which had given support to the National Conference faction lead by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, State Congress party led by Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq and Syed Mir Qasim, and drive them out of State politics; (b) eliminate the left flanks, which had played a decisive role in the dismissal of the first Interim Government headed by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in 1953; (c) isolate the Hindus and other minorities to eliminate whatever influence they still exercised on the ongoing political process in the State; and (d) subvert the institutional framework which formed the basis of the support structures India had in the State.

The Accord broke up the main plank on which the resistance to Muslim separatist movements was based. During the days which followed the Accord, the Indian political class bent so low to seek compromise with Muslim separatist and secessionist forces that Hindus were pushed out of the frame.

The involvement of Pakistan in Afghanistan gave that country fresh ground and a new ideological plank for intervention in Jammu and Kashmir. The Islamic Revolution in Pakistan provided a new thrust to the fundamentalisation of Muslim society in Kashmir, a serious development which successive state governments chose to ignore. As Soviet power declined, Pakistan began the militarization of the separatist and the secessionist forces in the State. Not unexpectedly, Pakistan launched the Jihad in Kashmir towards the close of 1989. By that time the disintegration of Soviet power had become imminent.

Hindus of Kashmir were a witness to what happened around them. They cried in the wilderness. The Indian political class gloated over its dependence on Muslim support structures it claimed to have built on the basis of the recognition of the right of Muslims in the State to a separate freedom which placed them outside the secular political organisation of the Constitution of India.

Jihad struck Kashmir in January 1990. The support structures the Indian political class boasted to have built in the State vanished overnight. Hindus were left alone on the frontline. Indian security forces remained in the rear.

Hindus bore the brunt of the first assault mounted by the Jihad. In the midst of the holocaust, as death and destruction enveloped them, Hriday Nath Jattu, Chairman of the All India Kashmiri Pandit Conference, and his close associate Jagar Nath Sapru, waited upon State Governor Jagmohan. With tears rolling down their cheeks, they beseeched him to save the Hindu community. A few days later, Sapru was kidnapped by the militants. He survived the torture he was subjected to, dragged himself out of a gutter he had been thrown into, and crawled to a nearby house where from he was taken to the Military Hospital at Badami Bagh.

The Indian political class refused to recognize the real import of the jihad because it did not possess the courage to fight the religious war Jihad waged in the State. For a long time the Indian political class took recourse to subterfuge. When it could not hide its face any longer, it withdrew into the traditional trappings of its colonial past and offered to reach a compromise with the Muslim separatist flanks and their military regimes. The Hindus were hurled into oblivion.

Return Package

In the sordid drama enacted by the Indian political class as Jihad engulfed the state, the Hindus of Kashmir were the “dramatis personae” who fought on the battlefront, from where the nation of which they were “unpaid agents” had withdrawn without giving a fight. For more than four decades, they had borne servitude in the hope that history would set right the wrong done to them. They faced the Jihad with the fortitude of a people who refused to surrender after their defeat.

The veterans of the freedom movement in Jammu and Kashmir, Omkar Nath Trisal, Pran Nath Jalali, Reshi Dev, who had given the freedom struggle in Jammu and Kashmir its ideological content and imparted direction to the resistance against Muslim separatist movements and foreign intervention, met this author in their exile. A sob was stuck in their throats. They gave expression to their remorse and the hurt exile had caused them. A decade later, Makhan Lal Sher, who enlisted himself in the defence of Srinagar in 1947, and later played a key role in the resistance against Muslim separatism in the state, met this author in Jammu. He said in resigned tomes: “We have done our duty. If the people of India failed to fulfill their pledge, they will pay a heavier price than we have.”

The Prime Minister’s Return Package came as an affront to the hopes nurtured by the Hindus in exile. It did not seek to set right the wrong done to them. It did not envisage the reversal of the genocide. It did not promise the Hindus the restoration of their homes, their temples and the sources of livelihood lost in the holocaust that enveloped them. Nor did it promise them protection in a social environment which was politically unstable, ideologically regimented, and exposed to subversion.

The Hindus of Kashmir acted as “unpaid agents” for their commitment to the unity of their country. They could not be prepared to allow the Indian political class to use them as its errand boys. They gave the Prime Minister’s Return Package the consideration it deserved.






Thursday, March 22, 2012

Muslims in India are being misled: Salman Rushdie

Acclaimed writer Salman Rushdie, author of the controversial "The Satanic Verses" as also bestsellers like "Midnight's Children" and "Shame", on Saturday denounced "disgraceful vote bank politics" being practised in the country and said "95 per cent of Muslims in India are not interested in violence being done in their name".

Returning to India two months after he was stopped from attending the Jaipur Literary Festival, Rushdie spoke at the concluding dinner at the two-day India Today Conclave at the Taj Palace Hotel.

The event was marked by tight security presence but devoid of the kind of protests that had marred the Jaipur event by radical Muslim groups protesting his visit.

Rushdie, who was happy at the "lack of interest and protest in my visit" this time around to his land of birth, was, however, severe on politicians of the subcontinent, both in India and Pakistan, who pandered to "religious fanaticism" and indulged in "political opportunism", an allusion to those who cancelled their speaking engagements at the conclave because of his presence.

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, as well as Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan, stayed away citing "other engagements".

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf leader said he could not come to the same venue as Rushdie who had done "immeasurable hurt to Muslims" with his allegedly blasphemous references in "Satanic Verses".

Rushdie said "Deobandi bigotry" and "kneeling to mullahs" had not worked for the Congress, alluding to their recent loss in the state elections during which the party was accused was trying to win over Muslims in Uttar Pradesh with inducements of job quotas and other blandishments.

Rushdie, who addressed a packed hall that greeted him with frequent applause, spoke out strongly against "public apathy", against violence and intolerance of cultural freedom, saying: "Freedom is not absolute, if you don't defend it, you lose it. If you give in to the threat of violence, there won't be less violence, there will be more."

Rushdie began by joking at being "promoted" as the keynote speaker at the closing gala dinner after Imran Khan dropped out. But he then proceeded to target Imran with his verbal barbs, describing him as a "dictator in waiting", a person who is not very well read ("during his playboy days in London he was known as 'Im the Dim'") and also one who lied about not knowing that he would be here as the organisers had told him about his presence as far back as last month.

Rushdie said "immeasurable harm" was caused to Islam by terrorists who attacked India, by Osama bin Laden who had taken refuge in Pakistan and by fanatics like those who killed former Punjab governor Salmar Taseer, whose son, writer Aatish Taseer sat on the dias with Rushdie and was in conversation with him.

Rushdie said common people were more sensible than their leaders and 95 per cent Muslims in India were not in favour of the violence and the things being said in their name.

India always had a long and hoary cultural and religious tradition of accepting free speech. Everyday, there is a price for hooliganism by bigots," he said, taking a dig at the "disgraceful votebank politics taking place in India".
Rushdie said the customs ban on the import of "The Satanic Verses" in the age of the internet was absurd and said there was apparently no bar on his controversial book being published in India.

He said his notion of freedom was the freedom to propagate ideas, even though it might offend a particular individual or group, as long as it was done in a civil manner, without threat of violence.

"A writer is the adversary of power, but power is so scared of the writer that it ends up strengthening the writer," Rushdie said.

Asked whether India matched Pakistan in intolerance, Rushdie responded: "However bad things get in India, they will be worse in Pakistan."

Courtesy: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/muslims-in-india-are-being-misled-salman-rushdie/240187-3.html




Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Why should I respect these oppressive religions?


Whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents say they're victims of 'prejudice'

By Johann Hari

The right to criticise religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect" religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the side of the religious censors.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people". It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it "Western", Robert Mugabe calls it "colonialist", and Dick Cheney calls it "outdated". The countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it – but the document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate standard against which to check ourselves. Until now.

Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to "respect" the "unique sensitivities" of the religious, they decided – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within "the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community".

In other words, you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists.

Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN's Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he can seek out and condemn "abuses of free expression" including "defamation of religions and prophets". The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself.

Anything which can be deemed "religious" is no longer allowed to be a subject of discussion at the UN – and almost everything is deemed religious. Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union has tried to raise topics like the stoning of women accused of adultery or child marriage. The Egyptian delegate stood up to announce discussion of shariah "will not happen" and "Islam will not be crucified in this council" – and Brown was ordered to be silent. Of course, the first victims of locking down free speech about Islam with the imprimatur of the UN are ordinary Muslims.

Here is a random smattering of events that have taken place in the past week in countries that demanded this change. In Nigeria, divorced women are routinely thrown out of their homes and left destitute, unable to see their children, so a large group of them wanted to stage a protest – but the Shariah police declared it was "un-Islamic" and the marchers would be beaten and whipped. In Saudi Arabia, the country's most senior government-approved cleric said it was perfectly acceptable for old men to marry 10-year-old girls, and those who disagree should be silenced. In Egypt, a 27-year-old Muslim blogger Abdel Rahman was seized, jailed and tortured for arguing for a reformed Islam that does not enforce shariah.

To the people who demand respect for Muslim culture, I ask: which Muslim culture? Those women's, those children's, this blogger's – or their oppressors'?

As the secular campaigner Austin Darcy puts it: "The ultimate aim of this effort is not to protect the feelings of Muslims, but to protect illiberal Islamic states from charges of human rights abuse, and to silence the voices of internal dissidents calling for more secular government and freedom."

Those of us who passionately support the UN should be the most outraged by this.

Underpinning these "reforms" is a notion seeping even into democratic societies – that atheism and doubt are akin to racism. Today, whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately claim they are the victims of "prejudice" – and their outrage is increasingly being backed by laws.

All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don't respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead. I don't respect the idea that we should follow a "Prophet" who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him.

I don't respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don't respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of "prejudice" or "ignorance", but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal.

When you demand "respect", you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade.

But why are religious sensitivities so much more likely to provoke demands for censorship than, say, political sensitivities? The answer lies in the nature of faith. If my views are challenged I can, in the end, check them against reality. If you deregulate markets, will they collapse? If you increase carbon dioxide emissions, does the climate become destabilized? If my views are wrong, I can correct them; if they are right, I am soothed.

But when the religious are challenged, there is no evidence for them to consult. By definition, if you have faith, you are choosing to believe in the absence of evidence. Nobody has "faith" that fire hurts, or Australia exists; they know it, based on proof. But it is psychologically painful to be confronted with the fact that your core beliefs are based on thin air, or on the empty shells of revelation or contorted parodies of reason. It's easier to demand the source of the pesky doubt be silenced.

But a free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs – but the price is that I too have a right to respond as I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be protected from offence.

Yet this idea – at the heart of the Universal Declaration – is being lost. To the right, it thwacks into apologists for religious censorship; to the left, it dissolves in multiculturalism. The hijacking of the UN Special Rapporteur by religious fanatics should jolt us into rescuing the simple, battered idea disintegrating in the middle: the equal, indivisible human right to speak freely.

Courtesy: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-why-should-i-respect-these-oppressive-religions-1517789.html  

Monday, March 5, 2012

A Future for Britain Free from Islamization: An Interview with British Freedom Party Chairman, Paul Weston

by Jerry Gordon 

The United Kingdom, or as Daily Mail pundit, Melanie Phillips calls it, Londonistan, has been mired in massive demographic change and concomitant Islamization brought on by its recent "open door" immigration policy. This was graphically evident in the July 7, 2005 London underground and bus system attack by four British Muslim suicide bombers who took the lives of more than 52 innocent victims and injured over 700. It was also reflected in the condoning of the more than 85 Shariah courts by the UK legal system and controversial Church of England head, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Deeply disturbing has been the de facto creation of what former Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali called "no-go areas" where native Britons are not welcome, especially if they happen to be homosexual or Jewish.  

The current government coalition, led by Conservative PM David Cameron, officially admitted the failure of the long history of Labour and Conservative governments’ multi-cultural policies. In February 2011, Cameron criticized30 years of failed multi-cultural policies that may have partially given rise to Muslim extremism. These policies have fostered massive immigration of Muslims who have rejected traditional British values of tolerance and fair dealing while placing an intolerable burden on the national health and welfare systems. During the past decade this has led to protests by groups such as the English Defense League, and most disquieting, the rise of racist, antisemitic leadership of the British National Party (BNP), founded in 1982 from what remained of the ‘whites only’ National Front.

The BNP leader Nick Griffin castigated Islam’s rise in the UK, as a “wicked, vicious faith.” He had previously engaged in anti-gay vitriol and Holocaust denial, alienating voters who rejected the Party’s leaders and their extremist views. He was convicted in 1997 for distributing antisemitic literature calling the Holocaust, “the hoax of the 20th Century.” Griffin was exonerated in 2006 from charges brought by the General Teaching Council for alleged religious intolerance stemming from his anti-Islamic views. 

Recent polls in the UK expressed the hope that a more centrist party would emerge espousing traditional British values, while recognizing the threat of Islamization. These hopes were based partly on fears that current demographic trends if left unchecked might ultimately lead by mid-century to native Britons being eclipsed by third world, mainly Muslim immigrants, whose rising influence might foster ruling political coalitions in the Westminster Parliament reflecting what many British consider their intolerant demands. 

A glimmer of that hope for mainstream Britons was realized in the fall of 2010, when several leaders of the BNP, Peter Mullins, Peter Staffords and Simon Bennet, broke ranks and resigned along with many party members. On October 18, 2010 these former BNP leaders registered the British Freedom Party. 

The British Freedom Party mission is: to defend and restore thefreedomstraditionsunity , identity, democracy and independence of the British people, to establish full sovereignty over all our national affairs by restoring the supremacy of the British Parliament, to withdraw from the European Union, to promote democratic British nationalist principles, to promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural interests of the British people and to preserve and promote the ancestral rights and liberties of the British people as defined in the British Constitution.
Prominent among the social and economic issues in the 20 point platform program of the British Freedom Party are:
·              Introduce a US style First Amendment guaranteeing Free Speech.
·              Leave the profoundly undemocratic European Union.
·              Abolish the Human Rights Act, which benefits only foreign criminals/terrorists.
·              Halt any further immigration for a period of five years.
·              Deport foreign criminals, seditious dual nationality Islamists and illegal immigrants.
·              Abolish all multicultural and equality quangos (quasi- nongovernmental organizations financed by the government yet acting independently of the government).
·              Halt and turn back all aspects of the Islamization of Britain, including Shariah finance.
·              Drastically reduce crime – criminals should fear the consequences of their behavior.
·              Repair the damage wreaked by the progressive educational establishment.
Paul Weston is the current chairman of the British Freedom Party. He identified himself as a "classical liberal" in an increasingly illiberal country. He resides in central London where he runs a property development/investment company. Weston stood for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2010 general election for the constituency of Cities of London& Westminster. He left the UKIP in 2011 due to the party’s failure to confront Islam. Weston assumed the chair of the British Freedom Party in Nov 2011 after ensuring that any founding officers with previous BNP connections stood down.

Weston has conferred with many leading members of the trans-Atlantic counter- jihad network at the Brussels Counter Jihad Europa Conference  in October 2007. He discussed their importance to Britain and the West on the Gates of Vienna website. He maintains friendships and a common ideological agenda with Freedom Party leaders on the Continent. He is a self- described fan of the Hon. Geert Wilders of the PVV, The Freedom Party in The Netherlands. Weston spoke at the Amsterdam Free Speech Rally in October 2010 on behalf of the International Free Press Society.

In February 2012 Weston crossed the Atlantic and gave several acclaimed  presentations in Nashville, New York and Toronto. (See Weston’s speech before a private audience in Nashville in the current NER edition).  He was also recognized at a session of the Tennessee State legislature. 

Watch this YouTube video of an interview with Weston by Michael Coren of Sun TV in Toronto during his recent visit there.

Weston has set the British Freedom Party on a course for fielding a party list of candidates in local council elections in 2012 to gain recognition for future general elections. While the Party’s expectations remain low about the outcome of these elections, the reception it has received has generally been favorable.

We had the good fortune to interview Weston prior to his leaving Toronto on the final leg of his return to the UK.

Jerry Gordon:  Paul Weston, thank you for consenting to this timely interview.
Paul Weston:  Thank you for affording me this opportunity.
Gordon:  What are the origins of the British Freedom Party?
Weston:  It was set up in 2010 as an offshoot from the British National Party. It was an offshoot because the four founders were expelled from the party because they rejected the whites’ only policy of the British National Party. They believed that culture, not color, was the important thing in Britain especially multi-cultural Britain. We can have one culture and it's not important about what color or race you come from. So they set this up having been expelled and we have rolled on from there. (Editor’s note: All original British Freedom Party founders from the British National Party stood down when Weston became Chairman.)
Gordon:  What is the current relationship with the English Defense League and its leader Tommy Robinson?
Weston:  We have been in talks with Tommy for a number of months now and we support the English Defense League in principle. We are not going to have some sort of signed alliance with them. However, in principle we support them because the working class in Britain has been completely betrayed by the Labour party. It's the working class of course who are protesting the loudest. Although the Labour party claims to act in the best interest of the working class in Britain, they certainly don't. We decided that if we were going to become political we would certainly support an unwritten alliance with the English Defense League.
Gordon:  What is the present status of the British Freedom Party with regard to party registration, organization and preparations for fielding a slate of candidates in the 2012 local elections?
Weston:  We are fully registered with the electoral commission. In terms of organization, clearly we are a very new party. Nevertheless, we already have some 20 regional officers working, and they are preparing a slate of candidates for the 2012 elections. These are the local council elections you are talking about, not the general election. We are going to stand for election. How many, we are not quite sure yet. We are going to get as many as we possibly can and hopefully gain some recognition. You know, we are not really expecting to do terribly well, because no one knows who we are yet, but this will be good for us in terms of getting our name out. Good for us in terms of making sure our policies are actually recognized by the electorate.
Gordon:  You characterize the British Freedom Party as being centrist and affirming traditional British values. What do you mean by that and could you give us some examples?
Weston:  We are determined not to be labeled far-right because there is nothing far-right about us at all. I believe we are centrists. I mean, for example, we want to introduce a U.S. style First Amendment guaranteeing free speech. There is nothing right-wing about that. It's a very central policy. We want to leave the undemocratic European Union which I think is a semi-totalitarian organization. We can't vote the commissioners out. We certainly didn't vote them in, so there is nothing far-right about that. In terms of affirming traditional British values we promote morality, marriage, the family and the community. All good healthy things, which is why I reject the far-right label. These are traditional British values and traditional British norms. As far as I am concerned we are centrists, and we refuse to be labeled far-right by the far-left that now control much of the media in Britain.
Gordon:  What are some of the more significant points in the British Freedom Party platform?
Weston:  It comes down to multi-culturalism and mass-immigration, which I think are the more significant ones. We are a tiny little island. Less than one percent of the world land mass, less than one percent of the world population. We have effectively opened the doors to billions of people who are poor. They come from the third world, and we have a very generous welfare state. If you do those things, if you open the doors to all of these people from around the world, you are going to be swamped. We say no more mass immigration. This is one of our central points.
Gordon:  Do you think the platform of the British Freedom Party will attract voters in the UK?
Weston:  They had a survey late last year which was aimed more at the British National Party than anything else, because we didn't exist then. They asked the question: If you had a political party that rejected multi- culturalism, that wanted to put an end to mass immigration and promote British values, would you vote for it? The majority of people said "yes", they would. They were then asked the following question: Why given some of the policies of the British National Party, would you not vote for the British National Party? They said the British National Party has a leader who is a Holocaust denier, and that it has a history of genuine racial bigotry. They would love to see a party that emulated some of the British National Party policies, but not these absolutely terrible, racist, antisemitic views that the British National Party leadership holds. Among the rank and file British National Party people there are some very nice people. However, the leadership is absolutely rotten and corrupt to the core and as I say, antisemitic and genuinely racist.
Gordon:  The UK has an unwritten constitution. How can you implement a U.S. style First Amendment with what we value here, freedom of worship and guarantees of free speech?
Weston:  You know, we don't have a written constitution, but we do have legislation. It is quite simple just to introduce and pass legislation saying that you will not be censored for speaking the truth, no matter that the truth might offend other people. If you do say these things, you will not be tried under hate crime laws, you won't go to prison. Nick Griffin of the British National Party was tried for saying that Islam was a wicked faith. He predicted the bombings which actually occurred in 2005, the London transport suicide bombings. He predicted that the bombers would come from an area within 20 miles of where he was making his speech, and sure enough, they did. Nevertheless, he was still tried for inciting racial hatred. When they couldn't get him on that charge, because the defense was Islam is not a race, it's a religion, they introduced a new law about inciting religious hatred and they tried him again. These are not the marks of a free and democratic country. Roger Scruton, the philosopher, said some time ago that “when words no longer have the desired affect, then words will be replaced by deeds.” Freedom of speech is an outlet; it is a pressure relief valve that allows us to state our views, and to do so in a calm, rational and non-violent manner. If they clamp down on this, and they push us under the normal levels of discourse, then you are going to get huge amounts of pressure building. It is absolutely imperative that we introduce legislation that guarantees our free speech.
Gordon:  The British Freedom Party believes that there are troubling demographic and economic trends in the UK. What are they?
Weston:  This all comes from the last Labour government, that essentially just opened the doors completely, and the resulting demographics are one of these touchy subjects. EvenThe Guardian newspaper is now admitting that by 2060 the traditional native British are going to be an ethnic minority in their own country. They talk about this across all age groups. The majority of the native British are aged over 50 and the vast majority of the new immigrants are aged under 50. Below the age of 40 we may become an ethnic minority by 2030. To me, this is population replacement and in non-polite terms it is a bloodless genocide. It is ethnic cleansing. A deliberate dilution of the native population by political means. 
Gordon:  What motivated the UK Labour and Conservative parties to open up immigration leading to the influx of Muslims?
Weston:  The Labour party really did it for two reasons. The hard-left favorably viewed completely opposite cultures such as Islam. They thought they could use these people as political pawns to further their longed for desire for a Communist revolution. That was the hard-left position. The softer left thought, well this is good, because 90% of immigrants vote for Labour. If we manage to get enough of them in we'll never be out of power because they are always going to vote for us. The Conservative party was going to reduce immigration down to the tens of thousands. However, last year 500,000 people came into the country and the Conservative party refused to talk about it. They know it is not a vote winner with the immigrants. There are so many immigrants it is important that you appeal to them, and they refused to talk about it. They even manipulated the figures when they said there were 250,000 net immigrants last year. When they say net immigration, what that means is 250,000 presumably native Brits left the country fed up with multi-cultural Britain. Perhaps, a quarter of a million native Brits leave, 500,000 third world people come into the country and the Conservative party say net immigration therefore is only 250,000.
Gordon:  Has the influx and growth of Muslims in the UK contributed to both domestic and international Islamic terrorism?
Weston:  Yes, of course, it has. I don’t think first generation Muslims that started coming into Britain in the 1960's, were coming here with the view of taking over the country and imposing the doctrine of Islam and Shariah law on us. However, the second and third generations have been indoctrinated in the mosques and in the madrassas by Saudi Arabians, the most hard-line Wahhabist, Islamic funded imams. Saudi Arabia has funded radicalism with huge reserves of petro dollars. I think the CIA came out a few years ago and said that ninety-billion dollars had been poured into Europe and the West to promote fundamentalist Islamic ideology, with a view to eventually enforcing their global Caliphate. The second and third generation Muslims have been radicalized, and yes they are a tremendous threat. We see our security services saying they are thwarting four, five, six terrorist attacks a month on the mainland. In America, an ex-CIA officer, Bruce Riedel, came out and said that the greatest threat to a mainland America terrorist attack came from Britain under the Visa Waiver Program. Pakistani Muslims can travel without any prior vetting to America and this is now seen as a threat. Britain now poses the greatest threat of terrorist attacks to mainland America than any other country in the world - and they're British. It's quite astonishing. The answer to your question is "yes" domestic and international Islamic terrorism has been driven purely by the influx and growth of Muslims in the UK.
Gordon:  How would the British Freedom Party change the UK immigration system to reduce the rate of Muslim growth in the population?
Weston:  We want to stop mass immigration completely. We are going to say if you are an American, or a Canadian, or an Australian, then you are welcome to come into the country. You are welcome to come in and marry and you can become a British citizen. However, if you are coming from hard-line Islamic countries like Pakistan or Afghanistan, then you are not coming in anymore. It is going to sound terribly unfair. Why are we stopping only you? Well, we are stopping you, because you pose a long term threat to us.
Gordon:  How has the UK Welfare System been abused by Muslim immigrants?
Weston:  This is a huge issue with the working class in Britain. Can you imagine that your parents and your grandparents fought and died for your country? You have hit hard times personally, you have two children and you lose your job, there is supposedly a safety net that says that you will be housed and fed by the state. The state in Britain now sets a priority on the number of children you have. If you are a Muslim family with eight children you will go straight to the top of the housing list and you will be housed in a palatial sized building to accommodate your eight children, all of which is paid for by the state. Even worse than this, is that polygamy is illegal in Britain. However, it is not illegal if you married your third or your fourth wife, or indeed your first and second wife in an Islamic country and then brought them over. Thus one Muslim male can have four wives and 16 to 20 children, and live in four different houses, all costing thousands of pounds a month. It is simply unsustainable. I believe these statistics are correct when they say that 50% of Muslim males do not work and are claiming welfare, 75% of Muslim females are claiming welfare. (Editors note: Figures are correct, sourced from Equalities Commission.) You have to bear in mind that we are already a bankrupt country. We are over a trillion pounds in debt. In 2008 the government statistics office said that the Welfare Bill was 170 billion pounds and the PAYE (tax deducted at source from employees) for that year was 150 billion pounds. There are obviously more stealth taxes that come into play, but the amount of money raised in taxes in that year did not even cover the welfare payments let alone our armed forces, education and the hospitals. It's totally unsustainable.
Gordon:  There are more than 85 Shariah courts in the UK. Why did the UK legal system recognize Shariah and how could that be reversed?
Weston:  The UK legal system did recognize Shariah, and yet again it was the Socialists and the British Labour Party that recognized it. We simply have to stop it. We have equality before the law in our country. Everybody is equal before British law. We are not going to have Shariah law courts operating in the UK. It is that usual thing of going down the slippery slope. They say today that they are only going to be legislating, if that's the right word, for applying Shariah on divorce, marriage and financial settlements. However, that is only the beginning. What are they going to do in ten years time? How long is it going to be before we start seeing the more violent elements of Shariah law entering into our liberal democracy of Britain? How can it be reversed? We simply say equality before the law. That is it. The Shariah courts are closed out. This is Britain. It is not Saudi Arabia. It's not Pakistan. You are in our country and you adhere to our laws which incidentally are the best, most humane laws. You know British common law is famous for it is the most decent moral system of law recognized in the world today. If you don't like it then go somewhere else.
Gordon:  Why did the Church of England support Shariah?
Weston:  I don't know if you are aware of Baroness Cox, who sits in the House of Lords. She initially fought against Communism and is a very brave woman. She is now fighting against Shariah. My mother met her some years ago. She was telling my mother that when she (Cox) was a university lecturer, the lecturers coming into the universities back in the 60s and 70s were hard-line committed Communists. She said exactly the same thing was happening in the Church of England. Now we have Archbishop Rowan Williams, who not only supports Shariah, but also supports a Socialist state. He is not actually a Communist Party member, but he supports that sort of thing. The Church of England, like pretty much every single institution in Britain has been infiltrated by the hard-left. The left supports Shariah because Shariah operates against the interests of traditional Britain.
Gordon:  The former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, had warned about so called "no-go areas" where Muslims exert self rule under Shariah. Why has the national government in the UK tolerated it and how would the British Freedom Party change that?
Weston:  The Labour government of course not only tolerated it, they promoted it. The Conservative government we have today also tolerates no-go areas. When Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali came out and said this, he was immediately issued with death threats. He was told that having warned about no go areas, if he ever went into one, they would try to kill him. How would the British Freedom Party change that? What you have to do is get the police out of their police cars and back on the street. To make sure that everybody in this country obeys the laws of the land. Simple as that.
Gordon:  Muslim immigrants in the UK have been active in the international Class A drug trade. How would the British Freedom Party bring this illegal drug trade and money laundering by Muslim immigrants to a halt?
Weston:  Interesting that you say Muslim immigrants, because the worst of the drug problem is heroin. Heroin kills an awful lot of people, and I believe this is driven principally by Turkish gangs in Britain. How do we stop it? It's incredibly difficult. I think we have to make a two tier system. If you are caught dealing marijuana and cocaine, I think you deserve a lengthy prison sentence. If you are dealing in heroin, we believe that you should go to prison for life.
Gordon:  UK prisons have become a fertile ground for conversion of inmates to Islam. What would the British Freedom Party recommend to curtail that?
Weston:  I think you should lose all your rights the moment you go to prison. If you happen to be a Muslim, then I'm afraid to say that when you go to prison you will not find separate prayer rooms. We are a Christian country. We will have a prayer room. If you don't want to use our prayer room then you are not going to have your own. The idea that we allow hard-line imams in all of our prisons is unfortunate. Muslims are very much over represented in British prisons, and we have got to stop imams visiting prisons. You know, you can have a priest, you can have a Christian padre, but we are not going to allow any more imams proselytizing in British prisons.
Gordon:  To what do you attribute the rise of antisemitism in the UK and how would the British Freedom Party combat it?
Weston:  We have 250,000 Jews in Britain. I mean it's a very small proportion of the population. When you read the newspapers every week, you never see stories about violent Jewish gangs dealing in drugs, or Jewish gangs stabbing Pakistani gangs. You know, the Jews in Britain have integrated utterly. They were very poor, and they've risen mostly to the middle class now. They get on with their lives. They get on with their jobs. They pay their taxes and they're wonderful people. There have always been antisemites in any country. How do we combat it? I don't believe that the native British are antisemitic in the slightest. If they are, then there are not very many of them. The rise of antisemitism in the UK comes from Islam. We now have Shariah enforced no-go zones in various parts of the country, and they actually say "no Jews allowed." No homosexuals, no alcohol, no Jews. “Judenrein” I believe is the expression, meaning free of Jews. What do we do about it? We prosecute imams in the mosques who are calling for the murder of Jews. We close down the mosques that are doing this. We should go all out to make sure that if these Muslims want to live in our country, they accept the Jews in exactly the same way that the native British have accepted Jews.
Gordon:  The British Freedom Party has adopted an anti-EU position, akin to that of the UK Independent Party. What are the British Freedom Party's reasons for holding that position and how do they differ from the UK Independent Party platform?
Weston:  In terms of the anti-EU position, we don't differ from the UKIP at all. The only difference between UKIP and ourselves is that we are taking it to the next level and confronting Islam and mass immigration. The European Union is a totalitarian organization. If you look at Italy now, their elected politicians have been replaced by European Union apparatchiks who have never been voted into a position of power, and here they are now running the country. I didn't vote for Mr. Juan Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission who is an ex-Maoist Communist from Portugal. He is apparently unashamed, despite Mao's great leap forward that took tens of millions of lives. Mr. Barroso is the most powerful man in Europe. I didn't vote for him and I can't vote him out. They are incrementally taking every single piece of power and sovereignty from my country. Vladimir Bukovsky describes the EU as being equivalent to the Supreme Soviet and the Politburo. The people who are doing this are, in the main, Socialist and Communist sympathizers, so we have to get out of it. It's not free. The British Freedom Party believes in freedom and democracy. We do not see that with the European Union, so we want out.
Gordon:  What relations do you have with leaders in the various European Freedom Parties?
Weston:  Over the last two or three years I have met with all of them. Geert Wilders of The Netherlands, Rene Stadtkewitz of Germany, Heinz Christian Strache of Austria and Filip Dewinter of Belgium - at various conferences around Europe. We get on well. We share the same views. We share the same aspirations. It is an alliance of ideology. I hope that between all of us in Europe, we are going to be able to do something about it.
Gordon:  What is your assessment of the Honorable Geert Wilders and why the Freedom Party, the PVV in the Netherlands, has garnered such popular support?
Weston:  I'm a huge admirer of Geert Wilders. Holland, I don't think, is as far gone as Britain, but Holland has huge problems. We saw Pim Fortuyn speak out about this and get murdered, and Theo Van Gogh speak out about it and get murdered. They have huge problems, and the people in Holland recognize that someone like Wilders is able to articulate the worries, the concerns of the Dutch, in a civilized manner, and this is why he has such large support. He is essentially a liberal until it comes to Islam. You can't be a liberal that supports Islam because Islam is itself illiberal. Wilders is appealing to the basic decency of the Dutch people and the inherent liberalism that we've always associated with Holland. He is pointing out that their liberal society is threatened by a totalitarian illiberal ideology called Islam, and the people have reacted to this, hence his amazing popular support in Holland.
Gordon:  You spoke recently in the U.S. and Canada. What venues did you speak at, and what was the reception like for the British Freedom Party?
Weston:  We spoke in Nashville at the Tennessee State Legislature. It went down very well. I was astonished by the reception that we received. We were introduced the following day at the Senate, and it was an astonishing and humbling experience. I'm not up to speed on American state politics, but I assume they are basically comparable to our local governments', our councils in England. We started our visit in the House with the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and an invocation by a priest. When these Americans stood there, they put their hands on their hearts, they took the pledge and their backs stiffened, I thought, you know, what I would give to have British people behaving like this. They received us with great warmth and said they agreed completely with what we were doing. It was an absolutely inspiring and humbling reception.
Gordon:  What future would you see for the UK if the British Freedom Party becomes part of a ruling coalition in the Westminster Parliament?
Weston:  First and foremost, I see a peaceful future. I have spoken about the illusion of permanency that Samuel Huntington wrote of in his Clash of Civilizations. Th e illusion that tomorrow will be the same as today, and next year will be the same, and the year after that will be the same. However, civilizations do collapse. The aggression, violence and desire for a global Caliphate that is being instilled in the minds of our growing Muslim community in England signals the likelihood of possible Civil War before 2050. For me the most important thing is that we do not get dragged into a horrific Civil War similar to that of Lebanon - the Civil War in Lebanon - and the breakup of Yugoslavia which of course fractured on racial, religious and tribal lines. I would also like to see our children educated properly as they used to be back in the 1950's and 1960's. I would like to see morality re-introduced, because what they (the left) did in Britain was undermine religion and come up with moral relativism, which said there is no such thing as morality. Now if you take away religion and its guiding moral principles, and you declare morality to be null and void as well, you end up with what we get in British towns and cities every Friday night. This out of control, decadent group of young people who have no conception of honor and decency, of patriotism, civility and appropriate behavior. It is quite awful. We are the worst country in Europe for this. It is like hell on a Friday and Saturday night. People are frightened to go into town centers. I see the basically good British people betrayed. Now the young have been betrayed. It is not their fault that they are like this. They have been essentially raised to be like this. I would like to completely reverse that. I would like to see morality reintroduced. Now, I'm not going to say I want to see Christianity rammed down everyone's throats. I just want to see the morality of Judeo-Christian values re-introduced and linked to the 10 Commandments. It is almost like wanting to take Britain back to the 1950's but without some of the more overt problems that we had back then, such as the anti-homosexual laws. We were not perfect in the 1950's, but dear Lord we were so much nicer people then than we are today. I would like to see us go back to the standards of the 1950's.
Gordon:  I want to thank you Paul Weston for this engrossing interview and the message of pushing back against Islamization in the UK.
Weston:  I know exactly what you mean. We can't do it just by ourselves. We need all the help we can get. We are up against possibly something that we can't beat. We're going to give it a damn good try and the more help we can have the better, so are grateful for what you are doing here.
Gordon:  Well, consider this as a multi cultural version of Dunkirk.
Weston:  Britain's finest hour.
Gordon:  Yes.
Weston:  Thank you so much for that.




(British Freedom Party Chairman, Paul Weston)