A Page on the World: Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating a Terror State Within
Melanie Phillips shows that Britain has become a gathering ground for Islamist terror groups, while the British establishment is in denial (2006, ISBN 1594031444).
I would like to begin with the credentials of the author. Melanie Phillips is the leading political and current affairs columnist for the Daily Mail. Her insightful, common-sense assessments of modern political life in Britain are hard to equal in the world of British journalism because they are generally based upon the backdrop of the traditional values that built the United Kingdom.
Her latest book, Londonistan, points out that Britain has become the leading European gathering ground for recruitment and financing of Islamist terror groups. The sheer scale of these activities has earned the area the label "Londonistan" by antiterrorist specialists elsewhere in the world.
Mrs. Phillips addresses the overall problem from a number of different angles. For instance, she shows that radical Islamic demands are being appeased by multiculturalism and by a so-called replacement theology put forward by certain Christian theologians who seriously question the necessity for the state of Israel (Mrs. Phillips is Jewish).
Franklin Littell calls this replacement theology Christian anti-Semitism that "rings with the genocidal note. This is the myth that the mission of the Jewish people was finished with the coming of Jesus Christ, that 'the old Israel' was written off with the appearance of 'the new Israel.' To teach that a people's mission in God's providence is finished, that they have been relegated to the limbo of history, has murderous implications, which the murderers will in time spell out" (The Crucifixion of the Jews,1996).
The gravity of the problem
Although she allows that the majority of the Muslim community in Britain is law-abiding, Melanie Phillips does insist that "the evidence suggests that the numbers who do support either the aims or the tactics of the jihad are terrifying. According to British officials, up to sixteen thousand British Muslims either are actively engaged in or support terrorist activity, while up to three thousand are estimated to have passed through Al Qaeda training camps, with several hundred thought to be primed to attack the United Kingdom" (p. 9).
But why would Britain allow such reprehensible activities within its borders? Mrs. Phillips states the obvious when she notes that Britain is a country "where traditional morality has been systematically undermined and replaced by an 'anything goes' culture in which autonomous decisions about codes of behaviour have become unchallengeable rights" (p. 25).
This reminds one of the descriptions of ancient Israel in the days of the judges when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6; 21:25).
The author also takes pains to point out that the threat is not just from a few radical extremists who might rarely succeed like they did when suicide bombers wreaked havoc on the London Underground with the loss of many lives. She believes that the British establishment is in denial about how widespread the threat really is.
Too many erroneously pin the blame on the United States, Israel and even on Britain itself instead of the guilty culprit, which she identifies as radical Islamic ideology.
Melanie Phillips concludes that "the West is under threat from an enemy that has shrewdly observed the decadence and disarray in Europe where Western civilization first began" (p. 285). Those weaknesses are now being exploited on many fronts by those determined to bring down Western civilization as we know it and replace it with a worldwide "umma"—a global community of Islamic believers in submission to Allah.
She further points out that Britain has been the cradle of Western liberty, but urgently needs to squarely face this growing problem and counter it with policies based on "absolute consistency and moral integrity, which arise from the strength of belief in the values that are being defended" (p. 273).
This book review highlights a few crucial points, but cannot really do justice to the massive evidence proffered within its pages that identifies the causes of this disturbing trend threatening Britain's—and Western civilization's—stability and way of life.
The recent deadly train bombings in India, plus a fresh outbreak of violence by terrorist groups against Israel (involving Gaza and Lebanon) that prompted a response unprecedented in recent times, underscore the importance of her warnings and the peril our Western democracies face. WNP
An Article from:
World News and Prophecy: August 2006
Course Content
John Ross Schroeder
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
