Londonistan: This time the crocodile won't wait

Asia Times Online :: Asian News, Business and Economy.: BOOK REVIEW
This time the crocodile won't wait
Londonistan by Melanie Phillips

Reviewed by Spengler

In retrospect, it seems oafish of Neville Chamberlain, Britain's prime minister in 1938, to have betrayed Czechoslovakia to Nazi rule in return for the empty promise of peace. Yet an overwhelming English majority looked with horror on the prospect of confrontation with Germany and a new world war, until Adolf Hitler forced England's hand by invading Poland. 'The appeaser hopes the crocodile will eat him last,' said Winston Churchill. Today's crocodiles may not be so patient.

Opposing voices in 1938 rang lonely and shrill, and just as shrill today sounds Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips in her portrayal of an emasculated Britain ashamed of its own national identity and anxious to appease the 'clerical fascism' of the jihadis. That will change, perhaps even before the print is quite dry on her new book. She warns that the West faces a religious war with Islam. I concur, and recommend Londonistan as indispensable background.

Britain, Phillips warns, is reaping what it has sown. A large minority of British Muslims are disaffected at best and seditious at worst. Phillips cites a 2004 Home Office survey finding that 26% of British Muslims felt no loyalty to Britain, 13% supported terrorism, and about 1% (up to 20,000 individuals) were 'actively engaged' in terrorism or support for terrorism.

Another poll found that 32% of British Muslims agreed that 'Western society is decadent and immoral and that Muslims should seek to bring it to an end'. In the event of a violent collision between the West and Iran, for example, civil conflict might arise in Britain on a scale resembling t"