Islamophobia? Fears from the Right … and the Ground

I. “The truth about polygamy: A special investigation into how Muslim men are exploiting the benefits system in the UK,” by Sue Reid for the Daily Mail, September 2011

Ghulam is a taxi driver who lives in Blackburn, a once-booming textile town in Lancashire. He has a terrace house near his local mosque (one of 53 in the area), a silver Nissan car and a very complex private life. For, he has so many children that he struggles to remember their names, and five wives from various countries, including Yemen, Egypt, Turkey and his own birthplace, Pakistan. Ghulam’s latest bride is a shy 20-year-old called Hafeza. He brought her to Britain from Morocco, soon after his 45th birthday earlier this year. They married in an Islamic wedding ceremony called ‘the Nikah’ in her village in Morocco, with Hafeza’s pleased parents among the guests.

Two experienced Lancashire social workers say that in their estimation there are  20,000 bigamous or polygamous unions in the UK 

Thirty miles across the Pennines in Yorkshire, pizza delivery driver Wasim, 27, has an equally complicated domestic life.
 He lives in a part of Dewsbury called Savile Town, a network of 11 terrace streets dominated by one of the biggest mosques in Europe, where most residents are Asian with origins in Pakistan or India. Wasim has three wives, the first of whom lives with him and their three teenage sons. His other two wives have separate houses in Savile Town, one down the road and another round the corner. He visits each two nights a week.  The women have had several of Wasim’s children and he hopes the youngest bride (aged 19) will soon present him with another baby. 
I learned of Ghulam and Wasim this week while investigating a subject that is taboo in politically correct Britain. It is the huge rise of bigamy (having two wives) and polygamy (more than two) in our Muslim communities.

The issue was recently bravely highlighted by Baroness Flather, a crossbench life peer who was herself born in Lahore, now part of Pakistan. She warned the Lords (and also wrote an article for the Mail on the subject) about how our shambolic benefits system is being exploited by men hailing from Pakistan and other Muslim nations who indulge in multiple marriages — with taxpayers forced to foot the bill.

As Baroness Flather explained: ‘The wives are regarded by the welfare system as single mothers, and are therefore entitled to a full range of lone parent payments. ‘As a result, several “families” fathered by the same man can all claim benefits, as they are provided for by the welfare state, which treats them as if they were not.     Lady Flather also lamented the reluctance of politicians to address the issue: ‘It is certainly difficult to discuss this phenomenon of serial marriage and exploitation of the benefits system, with few people in Britain seeming to want to confront the disturbing truth.’

Two years ago, another peer, Baroness Warsi, born in Dewsbury to Pakistani parents, and now a Coalition Cabinet Minister, also voiced her concerns. She said cultural sensitivity was stopping politicians addressing the problem. Yet this week I found those — from within the heart of the Asian communities — who were prepared to speak out.

Although the Government says there are only 1,000 such bigamous or polygamous unions in the UK, two experienced Lancashire social workers — one of Indian-English heritage and the other with Pakistani origins — told me that, although it’s difficult to be precise, in their estimation the figure is closer to 20,000.

The social workers said the multiple marriages are encouraged by a welfare system which allows a second, third or fourth wife to be treated as a single mother who gets a house and an array of other state payments for herself and her children.

Controversially, it means that a man can take a new spouse (from anywhere in the world), sire any number of children with her, and yet have no responsibility for this family’s upkeep or care. To avoid breaking Britain’s matrimony laws, the men marry their extra ‘wives’ in an Islamic Nikah ceremony, either in their own homes or a mosques. These marriages are not recognised officially, so they do not appear in government statistics or have any status under the law. They also do not count when assessing welfare payments.

Another technique is for a couple to marry legally under British law but then divorce, leaving them then to have a Nikah ceremony and continue living together. The woman will then be entitled to welfare payments as a single mother and the man can then bring another woman from abroad and legally marry her in Britain.

Men also cheat the system by bringing brides from abroad as nannies for their children, or as carertakers for a sick relative. The bride gets a year’s visitors’ visa, disappears into a tight-knit local community, and is entitled to receive welfare hand-outs.

While it has long been a cliche for men to complain that their wives and children take up most of their income, the reality for polygamous husbands is that the more babies he sires, the more money pours in for him and his wives.

As Tariq Ali, the 45-year-old co-founder of Project BME (Black Minority Ethnics), a charity based in Darwen, Lancashire, admits: ‘There are thousands of bigamous and polygamous marriages in the UK’s Pakistani community — the same community into which I was born.  ‘Every single man of my age who I bump into seems to have a third, fourth or fifth wife.

‘The issue is going unreported but in the Asian communities this is becoming a way of life. I think the number of polygamous relationships must be 20,000.  ‘The men find second wives in the UK as well as any Muslim country abroad. The new favourite places to find women are Turkey and Morocco, because the men can drive there by car to meet them and bring them back.’

His colleague, Zed Ali, the manager of Project BME, added: ‘These arrangements satisfy a man’s sexual desires when he is trapped in an unhappy or sexless arranged marriage with a first wife and their families don’t countenance a divorce.

‘The first wives often accept the situation as a compromise. There is a limitless number of girls living in Muslim countries wanting to come to the UK for what they, and their parents, think is a better life even as a second, third or fourth wife.

‘What’s more, they are virgins — which the men like. But it means British laws are being abused, and something should be done by the Government. A first step would be the registration of Nikah weddings in this country at least.’ This would prevent many bigamous marriages.

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II. A Comment from an English friend in UK on the report above

From anecdotal and empirical evidence (e.g. medical statistics about cousin marriages amongst certain sections of Pakistani Asians but not limited to them) there’s more than a grain of truth in this story. The govt and social services agencies are terrified about researching this in case they get accused of racism by professional race theorists. There’s also another thing about the UK. Official govt policy for the last 30-40 years appears to have been to allow ethnic communities to do their own thing, even if meant breaking existing laws, as long as it was kept within their own community. A sort of ‘as long as it doesn’t frighten the horses, let them do what they want’, attitude. 
 
Anecdotally, a very good friend of mine used to be an activist in the Southall Black Sisters, a truly remarkable group who campaigned against domestic violence affecting women in the Asian community including forced marriages. This included cases of male family members attacking their daughters who’s had the temerity to enter into relationships with non-approved males i.e. black, white, Christians etc. It wasn’t confined to Muslim Asians, but also Sikhs, who attacked and sometimes murdered their own daughters to prevent ‘family dishonour’. A truly depressing, primitive and backward looking aspect of some segments of the South Asian immigrant communities. Some of the stories she told me, about what these poor women had endured left me speechless.
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III. Geert Wilders voices concern about Islamic take-over in Appeal to USA
In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: “Who lost Europe ?”
Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom The Netherlands , at the Four Seasons in New York , introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem ..Dear friends, Thank you very much for inviting me.I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.First, I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe . Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem .The Europe you know is changing.You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.

All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe . These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe , street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe . With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam , Marseille and Malmo in Sweden . In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.

In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.

Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear ‘whore, whore’. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.

In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin . The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.

In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels , because he was drinking during the Ramadan.
Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya , Israel . I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe . San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call ‘respect’. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.

The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators ‘settlers’. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages — at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.

Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam ‘the most retrograde force in the world’, and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz; second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.

This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines , Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan , Lebanon , and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. In my country, the Netherlands , 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America – as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and Jerusalem ….

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe, American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe ‘s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.

Please take the time to read and understand what is written here, Please send it to every free person that you know, it is so very important.

IV. How Procreation Rates & Muslim Immigration spell Islamic Take-over of Europe …. see “Sobering Video — Demographic problems

V. SEE http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/9963/dangerislam.jpg

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