There’s no difference between wearing a burqa or a crucifix. Both should be defended, says Ruth Davidson, reinforcing thereby her claim to future Tory leadership.
This airtight analogy was drawn in the midst of the knock-down, drag-out controversy I wrote about the other day: that nasty Boris Johnson sounding dismissive about the burqa, though stopping short of calling for a ban.
That is, when I wrote about that I didn’t realise there would be so much brouhaha about it. But the madness is now upon us, complete with calls for Johnson to be investigated, though not yet stoned or mutilated.
Fair enough, the opportunity was too good to miss. By castigating Mr Johnson and upholding multi-culti virtue, politicians can tick all the rubrics essential for a front-bench career.
Ruth’s ticks, however, are bigger and fatter than anyone else’s. Thus spake our PM a couple of elections down the road – and certainly the Conservative leader in the near future.
Miss Davidson’s credentials are unassailable.
First, she’s a shrewd political operator, which she demonstrated in 2016 by making the Tories the second-largest party in Scotland.
For Tories to come in ahead of Labour in Scotland is like a neo-Nazi party coming in ahead of Labour in Israel. So that electoral coup must have caught the eye of Tory mandarins and other fruits.
Then Miss Davidson is a member of four (!) oppressed minorities. A membership in at least one now provides a strong boost to a political career, and is well on its way to becoming an ironclad requirement.
First, Miss Davidson is a Scot and therefore a long-suffering victim of brutal English colonialism, as conclusively proved by any number of Hollywood films, all starring Mel Gibson.
Second, she’s a woman, which group is both oppressed and a minority – in the existential sense that transcends arithmetic. And women deserve political prominence as compensation for millennia of abject subjugation.
This isn’t specific to the UK. The American Republican Party, for example, has proudly announced its intention to nominate women as at least half of their congressional candidates. ‘Irrespective of any other qualifications’ was the implicit yet inevitable refrain.
Third, Miss Davison is a lesbian, who’s currently having an IVF baby with another woman. And if sexual deviancy can’t earn a person a place on the modern political Olympus, I don’t know what can. That too is fast approaching the status of a necessary (and sufficient?) job qualification.
In fact, I’m hereby starting a campaign to replace the outdated aphorism ‘divide and rule’ (divide et impera) with ‘deviate and rule’ (deviat et impera).
Fourth, Miss Davidson goes even further by belonging to an oppressed minority within an oppressed minority – and I know you’ll find this as surprising as I did a few days ago.
My eye opener came in a morning issue of Sky News, which featured in one of its top segments a lesbian woman complaining bitterly of the ‘T’ in the LGBT pushing the ‘L’ to an inferior status.
I’m a lesbian, explained the interviewee, meaning I’m a woman who likes other women. Those bloody ‘Ts’, however, aren’t real women but, because they capture public imagination to such a degree, they impose their own agenda on the ‘Ls’, depriving them of their God-given freedom of speech.
I’m not sure I followed every argument but, as a progressivist of long standing, I wholeheartedly agreed that the plight of lesbians within the LGBT ‘community’ qualifies them as a martyred minority.
Given her membership in four oppressed minorities, I’m surprised Miss Davidson felt the need to beef up her CV, but beef it up she did.
These days any candidate aspiring to lead our true-blue Conservatives must demonstrate total ignorance of (and ideally contempt for) British history, civilisation, culture and – most critical – constitution.
By equating the Cross and the burqa, Miss Davidson succeeded in doing just that, which turns her candidature into an unstoppable juggernaut. And this vehicle is further souped up by her general ignorance.
As Boris Johnson and that Oxford imam, whose name escapes me, correctly stated, the burqa has no scriptural justification in Islam. Therefore it’s not a religious symbol, but an ethnic and cultural one.
The Cross, however, isn’t just any old religious symbol, but one in whose name our civilisation was created. This isn’t an expression of faith but simply a statement of historical truth.
The Cross, furthermore, was the inspiration behind every successful effort to stop Islamic aggression in Europe, perpetrated by the very people who then decided to hide their womenfolk behind hideous garments.
Do the dates 732, 1571 and 1683 mean anything to Miss Davidson? I suspect not, which is most unfortunate.
Granted, Miss Davidson is entitled to her own opinions and her own faith – but she isn’t entitled to her own facts.
She is, however, entitled to ignorance, especially of the religious foundations of the West and hence Britain. But it wouldn’t hurt a professional politician to know the kind of basic information about the British political system that goes (or should go) into the citizenship test.
One datum that seems to have gone by Miss Davidson is that Britain is a monarchy and the Queen is its head of state. A related datum is that in Britain the church isn’t separated from the state, as it is, say, in the USA or France.
The existence of an established church makes Britain a Christian commonwealth not just historically and culturally, but statutorily. This was re-confirmed 64 years ago, during the coronation ceremony of Her Majesty, as this exchange shows:
“Archbishop. Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law?…”
Queen. All this I promise to do.”
Miss Davidson may bemoan the fact that Britain is a Christian commonwealth rather than a Muslim caliphate (where she’d probably be tossed off a tall building, but that’s beside the point), but that is indeed a fact.
In view of that fact, equating the Cross with the burqa makes Miss Davidson an ignorant, cynical opportunist. And an ideal candidate for Tory leadership.
The Oxford Imam you refer to is Dr. Taj Hargey. I have read some of his work and he is a very rare species: an enlightened, educated and reasonable Muslim. He doesn’t give me Islamophobic feelings. In fact, the very term Islamophobic belies the intentions of those who coined it, in that it means an irrational fear of Islam. My fears (and countless other’s) are very rational (which is why I shun air flight and travelling on the London underground). It was interesting to see who Boris flushed out with his heresy, sorry, sensible utterances. All the usual suspects and more besides. He should have gone further (as Dr. Hargey has suggested) and commented on other aspects of the religion of peace, e.g. non-stunning halal slaughter, FGM, etc.
Boris knew exactly what he was saying; he’s no fool, although he acts like one at times. His thoughts have resonated with a large part of the population, and I do like to see the Guardianistas/liberal elite/Westminster Bubblers et al wetting their knickers and jumping up and down in their faux outrage. Go Bojo!
For a moment, I thought that AB was sarcastically referring to ‘Mr. Bean’ or rather that character’s creator who knows a lot of jokes about religion. However, the real Imam is actually muddying the waters by classifying some primitive and offensive tribal habits as non-Muslim with the implication that the actual religion has no faults and is harmless and peaceful.
What I would like him to do would be to translate his holy book into unambiguous English and point out which horrible and disgusting bits no longer apply and those which unfortunately still do. I am sure that Mr. Bean would be glad to help.
The Christian church, quite early in its existence, classified the Sermon On The Mount as aspirational and not compulsory. You can hardly blame it considering what onslaughts it has received ever since the sermon was delivered.