Meeting the Challenge of Political, Militant, Strategic Islam: Part I—The Situation

Baroness Caroline Cox of Queensbury has provided distinguished humanitarian aid and human rights service around the world, particularly in Armenia, Sudan, Burma, Nigeria, and Indonesia. Named a Life Peer in 1982, she has been a deputy speaker of the House of Lords and a vice president of the Royal College of Nursing. She has been honored with the Wilberforce Award and with Poland’s Commander Cross of the Order of Merit.

The following remarks are selections from her taped address to workshop participants, gathered in New York City for the Kairos Journal Award in January 2007.

I believe that Western civilization, with our religious heritage, our political freedoms, our culture, is under the greatest threat it has ever encountered, with a political and militant Islam that is thinking strategically.

United Kingdom

As far back as 1999, a film was shown on British television.¹ It showed two of our Islamic teachers . . . at the Friends Meeting House in London, a Quaker meeting house. There was nothing peaceful about this meeting; they were promoting militant jihad. There were several hundred young men, hatchet-faced, in that hall, and one sheik essentially said, “We don’t believe in the laws of this land; we don’t believe in the laws of democracy. We believe in the laws of Allah. We’re not going to waste our bullets on the Kafirs. We’re going to slaughter them.” . . .²

George Carey, our former archbishop of Canterbury, made a very responsible, a very realistic speech on Islam in Rome.³ He was stigmatized and labeled as an “Islamophobe.” Such measures are very inhibiting and do inhibit many people from speaking the truth which we need to hear. . .

In Britain, when Muslims convert to Christianity, they are at risk, and we’re not doing enough to protect them. There was one man who spoke at a conference recently, saying he’d been on the run for fourteen years because he was a non-Muslim who went out with a Muslim girl. . .

I visited a theological college in Wales early this year. The first thing you see when you go in is a thank-you plaque to some sheik and a picture of a mosque. It obviously received Islamic funding. Is that theological college likely to teach a realistic and honest appraisal of the true nature of Islam? I doubt it.

Sudan

We went to see a primary-health-care clinic and the bishop’s proposal to build a hospital. That primary-health-care clinic was the only one for a 50-mile radius. So if you had a child with malaria or a woman with childbirth problems, they’re not going to make 50 miles. I had a surgeon with me who said, “Bishop, you don’t need a hospital. You need 15 primary-health-care clinics.” He said, “I know, but if I don’t build that hospital, Saudi Arabia will. There will be a gleaming hospital there, and we all know that, in Islam, aid is conditional. If you go and you want medicine, you want education, you have to convert. You have to become a Muslim. We have to build this hospital in order to prevent Saudi Arabia being here and converting people because they have no choice or Christian alternative.” . . .

He had in his possession, as did the Anglican bishop of Maradi, a very formidable proposal. It was the official proposal and budget for the Islamization of Sudan.

Nigeria

Very recently, the bishop of Jos in Plateau State in Nigeria suffered a horrendous attack. He wasn’t there, but militants went to his house. They beat his two sons, one unconscious. His wife Gloria, a great friend of mine, they abused appallingly—violated her with broken glass, splintered wood. Beat her unconscious. She lost her eyesight. She had to walk naked through the town of Jos. . .

Throughout the Developing World

They will set up their health clinics, but in order to get the care, you have to convert to Islam. The children will go in as Mary and Joseph; they will come out as Fatima and Ibrahim. It’s conditional, and it’s one way. They’re offering jobs, but you’ll only get the appointment if you convert. They’re offering micro-credit; you won’t have to repay the loan if you convert. They’re offering Muslim support for votes in elections, but, of course, you’ll have to convert. And when we were in Bauchi State in northern Nigeria, we heard about a Christian politician who had been offered Muslim support and votes if he would convert, and so he had.

Militant Islam is thinking strategically.⁴ It’s pouring money into Africa, into Asia.

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