Views /Opinion

‘Father of Peace’ starts a war in Britain

It was a horrifyingly shocking crime: A 17 year old boy goes on a stabbing rampage in a dancing summer school for children in the quiet town of Southport north of Liverpool, England last month.

Three girls between the ages of 6-9 were killed on the scene and 10 others were seriously wounded including two teachers who tried to stop the massacre. News of the attack spread quickly throughout the social media. A misinformation that the attacker was a Muslim immigrant triggered riots and attacks targeting  mosques and Muslim women wearing Hijab (Headscarves) .

The riots quickly spread throughout English cities and towns and as far west as Belfast in Northern Irland. The riots also targeted hotels that temporarily house asylum seekers.

Thousands of them were staying in these hotels awaiting their immigration applications’ fate. Many thousands more face a similar wait throughout Europe, but the UK is the “promised land” for most.

The government of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak- a son of Indian immigrants himself- proposed a programme to “relocate” most of the “boat people” to the central African republic of Rwanda. The programme stalled, then came Kier Starmer labor government which abolished the programme totally.   

The riots continued for days unabated. The judge, before whom the  teenager was arraigned, ordered the announcement of his name in a desperate effort to quell the misinformation. Identities of defendants under the age of 18 were not to be released for their future well-being as children. It turned out that the teenager was born in Wales and is was raised by a devout Christian family; he is not Muslim.

The British Government expedited the judicial proceedings in order to restore public order. Hundreds of defendants were brought before courts throughout the country, and some were quickly sentenced to various prison terms amounting to three years. The British Home secretary, Yvett Cooper, threatened the rioters in a televised address and promised protection for the Muslims and their mosques providing a hotline number for urgent response by the police.

Unwittingly, some British Muslims added fuel to the fire. Instead of advocating secular and Western liberal ideals according to which they have come to Britain and thrived, some have counter protested, sometimes violently, against the British far-right shouting “Allahu Akbar”.

A pub thought to be a far-right hang-out was attacked by Muslims in Manchester. Such counter-provocative acts deter some ordinary Britons from condemning the “racist” far-right outrage. Unarguably, some Muslims do not serve in bringing about societal peace and peaceful co-existence.

Many observers warn that the unprecedented wave of violence and far-right looting and vandalism is a mere spark for an inferno yet to come. True, the riots have abated, but fire is still under the ashes. The UK and Europe as a whole have come to a dead-end: trying to marry multiculturalism and integration is not possible.

Western liberal democracies face a historic challenge in their effort to integrate immigrants who refuse to be integrated. Yet, under the pretext of multiculturalism, they breach the very basics of Western liberalism and democracy.

A compromise between integration and multiculturalism seems to be impossible, especially when targeting cultures that are totally different from the Western culture- extreme Islam is a mere example, but many others exist. The difficulty of compromise between integration and multiculturalism is particularly evident during economic hardships where the integrating camp seeks an “escape goat” in the multiculturalists for their economic problems.

The defendant of the Southport heinous attack is Axel Muganwa Rudacubana. It is bizarrely ironic that his first name stems from the biblical name of “Avoshalom”, which translate into “Father of Peace”. Axel ignited a war of hatred in Britain, but it was a war awaiting the spark and its drums continue to beat.