Triple Jeopardy for the West: Aggressive Secularism, Radical Islamism and Multiculturalism [Paperback]

Bishop Michael Nazir Ali: TRIPLE JEOPARDY (Pub 13.09.12) 17.09.12

I consider Bishop Ali as one of a few men in this world who has acquired a true grasp of Christianity (Anglicanism), Hinduism, and Islam and appreciate the differences in the cultures that each of these philosophies have produced. Hence I was interested in his latest book, mentioned above. He has not only lived in the environments mentioned but he has also studied in great depths the ideologies that have and will make a difference to all our lives in the future. Yet, I feel that, because of his ecclesiastical training, he still has the tendency to couch much of his controversial views with ecclesiastical political correctness, but on the other hand is as forthright as any clergy or politician I have ever heard in public in recent years. Too may are either too ignorant of the topic to dare to utter an opinion or are too politically correct in order to ensure their career.

Bishop Ali has contributed much to the understanding of the current dilemma Europe faces today and has in many ways has pointed to the solution in this book. It has become evident that the problem that faces the West is, "The retreat of the Judeo-Christian culture, and the aggressive resurgence of the alien Islamic culture that threatens to overwhelm it." He refers to the emergence of "aggressive secularism" accompanied with the aggressive indoctrination of "multiculturalism" and active and unrestricted emergence of "radical Islam." [Yet all this began after WWII with the formation of the European Union and their determination to unite with the Arab nations in order to establish their place in the world order again. This was because the Euro-Arab Dialogue and its subsequent effects, i.e., "political correctness," multiculturalism and "blatant appeasement" resulted. Thus the resurgence of Islam in Europe was brought on by the political, economic, and demographic planning and concurrence of the European Union in order to counter the pre-eminence of America dominance in world politics.]

But no one in the EU was aware of, or understood, the Islamic psyche of the Arabs who interpreted the withdrawal of opposition to religious, political, military or intellectual engagement as a willing capitulation of Western values to that of Islamic values, and so were emboldened to make greater demands as time passed. And that is exactly what has happened in Europe.

Bishop Ali has taken great pains to discuss Islamic ideology and their concept of Jihad and continues to stress that we should take cognisance of the differences between the meanings of "Muslims," "Islam," and "Islamism." [Also the confusion of the definition of a Muslim, a cultural Muslim and a renegade Muslim.] That we should recognise that there is considerable overlap of all these definitions. "A devout and pietistic Muslim can be influenced by extremist ideology, and Islamism certainly uses much in the fundamentals of Islam to argue its case. [There is also much confusion in differentiating of what some consider "extremist Islam" from what most Muslims would consider, "Quranic Islam."]

Despite Bishop Ali's intimate and academic knowledge of Islam he deeply believes in the possibility of creating a successful "interfaith dialogue" with Islam and other faiths. This is exactly the same approach taken by the members if the European Union that they would be able to influence the Arabic (Islamic) views. But no one in Islam has the authority to alter a single word of Allah as found in the Quran thus compromise in Islam is an impossibility. The only compromise that is possible is for the non-Islamic parties to capitulate to Islam just as has happened in Europe. Bishop Ali also suggested that changes could be affected by changes in the reform of Islamic education in particular in the Madrassas. This certainly would make a change for future generations but Madrassas have used the same format since they were formed centuries ago, and to alter that format is to ask Islam to alter its basis of Islam or the teachings of the Qur'an. Islam is unfortunately inflexible by the very nature of its construct.

However I fully agree with Bishop Ali that the only course for the salvation of the Western culture is for the revival and proper teaching of the Christian faith in all educational institutions so that we know our roots and our values and what is dear to us, our culture. We have to be strong in ourselves and also to be taught of what Islam is about and their ideology so that we know what we are countering. At the moment, the West have lost their identity and their respect for their own cultural roots and are lost. We need leadership that can renew our souls and belief values and want to defend what we value, our Judeo-Christian roots.

This is not a good book. The prose is readable and it is mercifully short but these are the only positive things I can say about it.

Michael Nazir Ali (interestingly he doesn't use his title Bishop on the cover) has set out to enlighten us about three threats to Western society; Islam, secularism and multi-culturalism.

His first task is to explain to us that Christianity is an integral part of British society. This ought to be the easiest part of his entire argument. Britain has been largely Christian since around 400 AD with later invaders such as the Angles, Saxons and Vikings coverting. However, the Bishop's arguments here are vapid. He claims that it is inconceivable that any idea of British identity could have existed without the civilizing influence of Christianity. This is obviously silly because a concept of Britishness did exist in Roman Britain before the widespread conversions of the 5th century. Arguably it was a foreign (Roman) invention but that is irrelevent. His arguments rely on the proposition that certain values fundamental to British culture are inherently Christian. His four values listed in the introduction are hospitality, engagement, service and friendship. It is hard to conceive of a poorer selection from which to make his argument. Presumably, Bishop Nazir-Ali believes non-Christians are incapable of friendship. In seeking to take on Islam and demonstrate that Christianity is morally superior choosing hospitality as a key Christian virtue (something he fails utterly to justify with a single biblical citation) seems to be the definition of hubris. Elsewhere he supplements these values with hardwork, sacrifice and individual freedom. How he gets some (in fact most) of these from the bible is unclear but his general view seems to be all that is good comes from Christianity and by extension that which comes outwith Christianity is bad. It is not a sophisticated viewpoint and he manages to shoot down his own argument inadvertently at several stages.

His next task is to show that these "Christian" virtues are not only superior but have actually made Britain a better place. Again his method is essentially to assert that all positive social movements (including the Enlightenment) were at heart Christian movements. He rarely makes anything more than a cursory attempt to justify this position but where he does he does so by assuming any Christian involvement in social change makes that movement Christian and utterly ignoring both whether the bible would support the change and the presence of Christians on the other side of the debate. The abolition of slavery which he claims as a Christian triumph is an excellent example but he tries to claim everything from the writing of Aristotle to democracy to the English legal system as a Christian achievement. Needless to say this wears thin rather quickly.

Having failed to establish Christianity as fundamental to Britishness or a good thing the Bishop begins his attack on other worldviews. His attack on secularism starts with the fundamental mistake of attacking Richard Dawkins as "The apostle of reductionism". For someone steeped in a religion declaring divine revelation it is of course difficult to understand that science doesn't work in the same way. Ideas stand on their own strength not on the popularity of the theorist who conceived them. The Bishop then goes into one of most witless attacks on evolution I have yet read exposing not only his ignorance of the issues but an unwillingness to engage seriously with the material. it comes as little surprise that his attack on evolution relies on an appeal to authority or that his attack on determinism is a thinly veiled appeal to consequence. Later he resorts both to the old and long discredited lie that the theory of evolution was born out of Darwin's sadness after the death of his daughter Annie (who wasn't born until after he had conceived the theory) and to the argument from irreducible complexity which he clearly doesn't even understand.

His attack on Islam relies heavily on attacking traditionalist and fundamentalist interpretations of Islamic scripture. There is some pretty vile stuff in there but what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and if Bishop Nazir-Ali wishes to cite the least pleasant interpretations of the least pleasant passages of the Qu'ran or the Haddith then he ought to apply the same standard to his own religious texts which also allow slavery, demand the subjugation of women and celebrate genocide. Viewed like that the only objection to Islam as a totalitarian ideology is that it represents a different totalitarian ideology to his own. One could engage on whether Christianity in its modern context is better than Islam in its modern context but the bishop doesn't really do so. Instead he claims that the abandonment of the death penalty for apostasy in the 20th century was due to Western influence - so even when the positive social change occurs in a Muslim country Bishop Nazir-Ali wants Christianity to take the credit. (Interestingly the inquisition does not get a single mention in the book)

Although the book purports to offer a rebuttal to multi-culturalism it fails to even define multi-culturalism. There is a curious absence of real argument against the positions he describes as a threat. Whilst the bishop is keen to throw out arguments against evolution which would be shot down by a GCSE biology student he fails to actually attack the consequences of secularism beyond some unsubstantiated assertions in the early parts of the book that Britain is going to hell in a handcart and it's the demise of religion (but notably not secular ideology) which is at fault. In fact whilst Nazir-Ali goes down some rabbit holes, such as attacking Mary Warnock's Dishonest to God, he never really manages to provide meaningful attack on the philosophical or intellectual foundations of either multiculturalism or secularism.

What he does appeal to are four ideas.

Firstly, that Christianity is a traditional part of British society and therefore needs to be preserved, however elsewhere he argues that an institution (and he cites the monarchy) being well established and old does not place it above criticism or reform.

Secondly, he argues that if people abandon Christian beliefs they tend to believe very "far fetched" ideas. More far fetched perhaps than a infinite god, sending his son who is also himself to a remote and backward region of the period's great empire in the guise of a man as a human sacrifice to himself in order to free future generations from the burden of original sin caused by a talking snake telling the first woman to eat a magic apple and thus enabling them to avoid eternal fiery torment he has ordained because he is perfectly loving?

Thirdly, Christian values are simply better than other religions values. If you take his line of arguing that anything you might define as good has a Christian root then he's right but it's an indefensibly crass position. And moreover it is one that he refutes elsewhere when he says that such values need not necessarily come about in a Christian belief system.

Fourthly, he argues that the moral underpinnings of society need a solid basis. He describes secular values of tolerance, fairness, mutual respect, opportunity and decency as "thin". He feels that they lack substance in comparison with religious values. An here he is more wrong than anywhere else. Secular values are based on two and a half thousand years of philosophical discourse, practical experience, human traits such as compassion, sympathy and empathy and the practicalities of organising a society. Most religious believers try and incorporate these sources into the moral discourse but that does not make them religious in nature. Rather they draw their moral guidance from divine revelation (less true of Eastern religions). If Bishop Nazir-Ali is unable to provide unassailable evidence that his god exists hen the moral discourse changes fundamentally but as he cannot it is his moral insights which are paper thin.