The good, the bad and the ugly Muslim

The case of Sudesh Amman, gunned down by the police after stabbing two random passers-by in Streatham, reminds us yet again of an uncomfortable truth.

When it comes to Muslim terrorism especially, our law is ordure because it proceeds from a wrong notion.

Western governments fall over themselves trying to ascribe every such atrocity to individual grievances or idiosyncrasies. Heaven forbid they accept that people’s actions just might be motivated by their faith.

Assorted leaders feel duty-bound to insist that the terrorists’ faith has nothing to do with their behaviour. The omnipresent mantra maintains that “Islam is a religion of peace”.

One wonders what it is about Islam’s history and scriptural sources that begets this counterintuitive belief. Actually, that’s not what feeds it at all. Our politicians just share a widespread philistine conviction that everyone is like them, give or take.

Most of them are Christians, but only nominal ones. Christianity in no way affects what they feel, think or do. It’s merely a badge of some vague group identity.

Such politicians may still be good people. But they are bad Christians.

Being predominantly philistines, they believe that most Muslims are also good people, yet bad Muslims whose behaviour is as little inspired by their faith as the politicians’ behaviour is inspired by theirs.

But they are wrong in general, although some soi-disant Muslims indeed have as little piety as most soi-disant Christians. But the key difference is between ‘some’ and ‘most’.

Some Muslims drink alcohol, treat women with respect, go to the mosque only on high holidays if then, and pay no attention to its 300-odd Koran verses that call for violence towards infidels.

They are bad Muslims and, as such, may very well be good people. Good Muslims are different, and the better Muslims they are, the more hostile they are to Christians, Jews and the West in general.

Good Muslims, many of them British, dance in the street whenever a London bus or train is blown up by their coreligionists. Good Muslims believe that Sharia should take precedence over the law of the land, and 40 per cent of all British Muslims agree.

Over the past 1,400 years Islamic violence towards Westerners has only ever been mitigated by the West’s strength and resolve to keep it in check.

The strength is still there but, judging by the litany of Islam being a religion of peace, the resolve isn’t. And without resolve, ability counts for nothing.

The world began with an idea, God’s, and it may well perish by an idea, its own. In this particular instance too, the particulars of yet another act of Muslim terrorism get much attention, while its metaphysical origin is ignored.

The case of Sudesh Amman shows how the craven failure to acknowledge that Islam as such is our enemy stamps common sense into the dirt. Or drowns it in blood if you’d rather.

In 2018, Amman was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for disseminating jihadist literature and openly calling for mass murder. Such a short sentence was derisory to begin with, but what followed was sheer madness.

He was released halfway into his term, which happens automatically unless the convict does something awful in prison. I don’t know if Amman had received some deradicalisation training, but he probably had.

Against every evidence of rampant recidivism, our governments insist that prisons should be mainly educational, rather than punitive, facilities, and that most criminals leave their cells rehabilitated and ready to do charitable work in hospices.

In this case, however, the authorities showed some lack of faith in the success of Amman’s rehabilitation. In fact, he was still considered so dangerous that his every step was monitored by as many as 25 police officers, some of them armed.

This explains why Amman was shot dead less than 60 seconds into his stabbing spree. However, while congratulating the officers involved, one can’t help asking, nay screaming, this natural question: “Why the hell was he at large in the first place?!?”

A government’s primary function is to protect its citizens from harm. Our government, hamstrung by its ideological wokishness, is remiss on this score.

Our ministers refuse to accept that, as far as we are concerned, good Muslims are ipso facto bad people who endanger our society. That’s why no measure currently mooted will succeed.

For example, the government is likely to abandon the provision for automatic early release. That’s good, but are we to understand that if, say, Amman had served his full three-year sentence, he wouldn’t have knifed anybody?

Also mentioned is a further educational effort aimed at converting good Muslims into bad. That too is doomed to failure because good, which is to say devout, which is to say fanatical, Muslims won’t be swayed by rational arguments.

If such measures won’t work, what will? What are we going to do about it? as Britons invariably ask.

My answer is let’s first agree on what it is. Once we’ve done so, the specifics will take care of themselves.

The Ammans of this world can’t be allowed to roam our streets, before, after or instead of their incarceration. Keeping them off can be achieved by various measures, none of which I can confidently predict will be taken.

I’d start with the old notion of protectio trahit subjectionem, et subjectio protectionem. Loosely translated, it means that citizenship, the right to be protected by one’s country, is contingent on one’s allegiance, submission to the country’s laws.

Since Amman and his ilk manifestly renounce such allegiance, their citizenship should be revoked, regardless of where they were born. Since they wish to live by Sharia law, I’m sure they’ll be happy to be deported to a country where it’s in force.

Then, any mosque or Islamic centres in which a single jihadist word is uttered must be summarily shut. The same goes for Muslim schools, newspapers and other media.

If a jihadist crime has been committed, the perpetrator’s faith must be treated as an aggravating, rather than extenuating, circumstance. The ensuing sentences would then be measured not in months or years, but in decades.

Also, the death penalty for jihadist murder must be reintroduced, bringing the criminals together with their 72 virgins gagging for it in paradise. If we feel justified killing murderous jihadists in Iraq or Syria, why can’t we do the same at home? If a moral distinction exists, it escapes me.

And so on, so forth, one exercise in futility after another. For no government will ever have the clarity of thought and the strength of resolve to do anything about the problem – nor indeed acknowledge its true source.

All we’ll hear is a companion mantra to “what are we going to do about it”: “something must be done”. And something will be done, to no effect whatsoever.

One wonders how Queen Victoria’s government would have approached this problem. Oh well, it’s best not to.