Joel Hilliker's Fear Mongering of British Muslims (2006)

Back in 2006 PCG's Joel Hilliker wrote an article in which he talked of people he opposed as being like a disease, like cancer and malignant. But does Hilliker try to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent? Let's see what Hilliker has to say.

The article is entitled "The Sickness in Britain's Heart". The sickness Hilliker refers to here are extremist Muslims and the British left for believing in things that Hilliker disagrees with.

The British have enabled extremist Islamism to infect their nation from within. It threatens to do them in.

Now at first it may be tempting to say that he is only talking about Al Qaeda like terrorists. But does Hilliker make a distinction between those who commit acts of violence such as the London bombing of 2005 and those who are innocent? As will be seen later Hilliker condemns the idea that "terrorists are just crazy fringers" among Muslims and instead builds up the supposed influence of Al Qaeda like terrorists among British Muslims.

When immunity is sufficiently disabled, a person faces certain death. Such is the sick state of Britain today. 

The United Kingdom is irreparably infected with a host of pathogens cultural, moral and spiritual. Though many of these hurt the national body, one is particularly deadly: the spread within British borders of aggressive, hate-filled, violence-loving Islamist extremism. This deep, creeping cancer has grown in Britain’s bowels for decades virtually unnoticed.

How strange it is to say that Britain faces "certain death" because of some extremist Muslims present within Britain today. What does he mean by this? That extremist British Muslims will somehow kill everyone in Britain?

Of course he does not believe this but this type of extreme rhetoric is merely emotive and prevents us from understanding what is happening in the world.

Historically when people wished to oppress others they were denigrated in various ways, including being compared to a disease. As will be seen later Hilliker downplays how pathetically marginal the terrorist bombers actually were among British Muslims.

Though the malignancy of radical Islamism is spreading in many non-Muslim nations—throughout Europe, North America and Southeast Asia in particular—in Britain the problem is uniquely bad. For its pathetic response to the incursion of militant Islam, commentator Daniel Pipes calls it the “weakest link in the Western chain.”

Official response to the July 7, 2005, terrorist attack in London provided a perfect CAT scan of the advanced state of the disease. Reportage of the event quickly produced a politically correct, Islam-free version of the murders: The perpetrators were “bombers,” not “terrorists.” That they were Muslims who had been recruited at a British- and EU-government-funded Islamic youth center known for its radical politics was glossed over.

Daniel Pipes is a notorious demagogue infamous for vilifying Muslims. He is part of what some have called the Islamophobia Network and he has been cited many times by PCG in their articles. The PCG leadership trust Daniel Pipes.

There is nothing wrong with condemning acts of violence and murderous terrorists. But we must be careful to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent.

So often in times past when people wished to justify treating other people in an oppressive way the victims were denigrated and insulted. Sometimes even compared to a disease.

British officials give the impression that they are far less afraid of terrorism than they are of being accused of racism or religious discrimination—hanging offenses under political correctness.

Notice how Hilliker condemns being accused of racism but Hilliker ignores the problem of racism. Hilliker acts as though racism is not a problem worth discussing.

Also it is should be noted that being condemned as being racist is not like hanging someone. This is a bizarre comparison.

Also as far as I know Hilliker has never lived in Britain. It is hard to be certain considering how reclusive PCG's leaders tend to be about themselves. How can Hilliker be sure he knows what is happening in Britain?

Thus, they flee from anything that could be remotely construed as such. One of the most common and predictable means of proving one’s credentials as an officially tolerant person is to insist—surely if one says it loudly and often enough it must be true—that the vast majority of Muslims detest what the terrorists are doing, and that violence is anathema to the imminently peaceful religion of Islam.

It is hard to ignore the fact, however, that these statements always issue from white, non-Muslim types—never from the leaders of this supposedly vast body of “moderate” Muslims.

This is absurd. Hilliker does not know what he is talking about. The fact he would denigrate British Muslims in such an ignorant and misleading way shows the contemptuous attitude Hilliker bears towards Muslims in Britain.

The Muslim Council of Britain said that it "utterly condemns" the "indiscriminate acts of terror". (Reactions to the 2005 London Bombings, Wikipedia.)

And it was not just Muslims in Britain who condemned it. Many Muslims all over the world condemned those murderous bombings. Here is one article from Sky News that shows this fact. Sky News is a media outlet partly owned by Rupert Murdoch, a right wing leaning media mogul.

Iran and Syria, both on Washington's list of states sponsoring terrorism, joined an unbroken chorus of condemnation, as did the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah guerrillas.
"The use of violence to achieve aims is condemned," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.
Syrian President Bashar al Assad, in a message to Prime Minister Tony Blair, condemned "these detested acts". (Sympathies From Middle East Countries, Sky News, July 7, 2005.)

Even Hamas and Hezbollah condemned these terrorist attacks.

Hamas, responsible for many suicide attacks on Israelis, said there could be no justification for the London bombings.
"Targeting civilians in their transport means and lives is denounced and rejected," Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy chief of the group's political bureau, told Reuters in Damascus.
A Hizbollah statement on the blasts denounced attacks on civilians, citing humanitarian, moral and religious grounds. (Sympathies From Middle East Countries, Sky News, July 7, 2005.)

How did Hilliker miss all this? What sort of information bubble is Hilliker living in to ignore these many events and misinform his readers in such a way? Hilliker has done his readers a terrible disservice by misinforming them in such a way.

We now continue with Hilliker's article.

Hilliker then insists that many British Muslims sympathize with terrorists.

That a silent majority of European Muslims believed in democracy and despised terror was by now a truism,” wrote Bruce Bawer in While Europe Slept. “Observers found themselves thinking, however, that if that silent majority existed at all, it had to be one of the most silent majorities ever.” 

I will not comment about this particular book but the message Hilliker implies with this quote is wrong considering so many Muslims condemned the terrorist attacks.

In fact, polls such as those revealing that one in 10 British Muslims supported the 7/7 attacks—that one in four sympathized with the “feelings and motives” of the attackers—that more than half could “understand” why someone would blow himself up in order to kill innocent people—belied the idea that terrorists are just crazy fringers, motivated by something entirely separate from their religion.

Those murderers who bombed London were in fact extremists. But how can one get attention for oneself by saying that most British Muslims are just normal people who wish to live in peace? Instead Hilliker tries to scare the reader by making him or her think British Muslims cannot be trusted.

This statement shows that Hilliker makes little attempt to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent.

Hilliker then accuses leftists of apparently collaborating with Islamists terrorists just like the murderous bombers in London.

In the end, whatever the reasons, the effect of the left’s sympathy with Islamism is the same: When people—Muslim, Christian, secularist or anything else—are endlessly flooded with such messages, they are bound eventually to have increased hostility, even rage, against the U.S. and Israel, as well as any British policy that aligns with them.

This is an ugly attempt to demonize the left. PCG is right wing but instead of simply stating their stance they demonize the left by comparing them with the murderous bombers. What an extremist view it is to vilify half of political society by insinuating that they sympathize with the terrorists who bombed London.

Today, however, traditional British values have been almost wholly replaced by a rabid devotion to the hollow ideals of tolerance and multiculturalism.

So being pleasant towards ethnic minorities is vilified as "a rabid devotion" and as some sort of betrayal of "traditional British values". Standing up against racism is ridiculed.

Hilliker ends this article by insisting that all will be well in the end.

The disease is too far advanced; the body too weak. But they will not turn to God—the God who first gave them all their national blessings and who alone could restore them to health—not at first, anyway. Hosea’s prophecy is that first, like the Jews, the British will instead turn for help to the Germans. And that, as several dozen other prophecies plainly tell us, will prove to be a fatal mistake.

But the biblical narrative doesn’t stop there! Prophecy also tells us that, once the British have learned the invaluable lesson that those who trust in man are cursed—once they have suffered through the plagues that come as a result of their faithlessness—the remnant of them will turn in heartfelt repentance to God, and He will re-establish them as a strong, robustly healthy nation!

Of course this is largely nonsense. The British are not Israelites. The Germans are not Assyrians. And the false prophecies of Armstrongism based on British Israelism will never be fulfilled. And considering that Germany is supposed to be the problem for Britain why be so contemptuous (and ignorant) towards British Muslims?

We need to educate ourselves about is really happening in the world. We must avoid racist, stereotypical thinking and be sure that when we condemn acts of violence and terrorism we do not use this to slur innocent people. We must be careful to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent instead of letting scaremongers make us fearful of innocent people. It is wrong to vilify innocent people and use guilt by association rhetoric to condemn innocent people.