A far right party unfortunately IS a solution to Muslim bigotry, but they'd just replace Muslim bigotry with their own bigotry.
Either way we're fucked.
This is why the Left needs to wake the fuck up. The Left loves to criticise religion when it's Christianity, but Islam is something we need to "celebrate" because it's oh-so "diverse".
I've always thought that a good part of the Left is inclined to be clear on this issue, but it doesn't have the language to do so, so it feels inhibited from doing so. The cat has got its tongue.
By that I mean, it has forgotten how to engage in the nitty gritty of debate on issues to do with secularism and a strong religious ideology, and the ideology of religious identity politics. Not only for the familiar reasons to do with simple fear of being seen to criticise Islam, being accused of Islamophobia etc - but because the Left in Britain takes secularism for granted, it has neglected to invigorate its rhetoric and counter-argument.
Basically, repudiating Islam and Islamism requires not only knowledge of Islamic theology, but it requires a willingness to get down and dirty and scrutinise and repudiate Islam in all its red in tooth and claw assertions.
The secular settlement is taken for granted. Christianity can be dismissed because it has been reduced to furniture, and has been castrated and made benign in terms of power. Its ability to intefere in the lives of individuals and society has been rendered down. A few scraps of meat to the Archbishop of Canterbury giving speeches at Easter and Christmas which everyone ignores. Those tough battles have been won. Monty Python's The Life of Brian danced over its operating table as it was being de-fanged, laughing at it, and represents pretty much the mainstream British view of Christianity - follow it if you please, but we'll mock, laugh, and render it irrelevant and there is nothing you can do about it.
And then in 1989, the Rushdie affair happened, and people lost their tongue, and it hasn't really been regained at all. Because repudiating Islam and Islamic identity politics and Islamism involves ferocious intensity and counterargument. Who on the Left is prepared for that ferocity of purpose and repudiation?
I'm not entirely pessimistic or optimistic. I think events and claims will require it to be confronted by the Left at some point. However, at the moment, some important players in the Left, like the Guardian, still don't get it. Which, given how obvious the need is at present, given all that has happened in the past 10 years, and the reality of how things are unfolding - that they have not awoken to it yet, speaks volumes about the ostrich-ness of these parts of the Left, and how they have abdicated their responsibility to deal with this issue, and refusing to take ownership of it, are actively making the scenario worse.
Topic: muslim minority countries/cities