All thanks to multiculturalism

Graeme Archer's piece in Saturday's Telegraph struck a chord with me and not just because I too am a Finkler and am reading Howard Jacobson's latest novel 'The Finkler Question'. If you read only one broadsheet article this weekend read Gareme Archer's, it sums so much of what Labour's obsession with multiculturalism as a means of 'rubbing the right's nose in diversity' has resulted in.

Here's an extract to give you a flavour:

'A few weeks ago, I crossed the road outside Sainsbury's in Whitechapel. Glued to the lamp-post was a rainbow poster, with a cross through it, decorated with the words "Gay Free Zone" and "Fear Allah". I felt sick. And, yes, resigned. Unconsciously, I mimicked the behaviour of Jacobson's Jewish Londoners: I tried not to think about the implication of what I had seen.

Such stickers soon appeared all over. Not to worry! We were reassured by civic leaders that it was wrong to link these manifestations of hatred with the increasing Islamisation of the borough. Didn't we realise, warned our betters, that by reacting, we might be allowing ourselves to be duped? They could easily be the work of a far-Right group, trying to stir up division on streets that would otherwise hum with quiet multicultural harmony.

They could even, said a "community leader", be the work of that bogeyman de nos jours, the English Defence League. So important was it not to draw the obvious inference (that untackled radical Islam makes the East End an increasingly hostile environment for gay people) that when a small counter-demonstration was proposed, its organisers were smeared as a front for – you guessed it – the EDL. Don't look at the posters; move along, please.

In Tuesday's paper, we read of the trial of five Muslim men, who admitted "grievous bodily harm with intent": that is, they attacked and maimed Gary Smith, a religious education teacher from an East End school. They were recorded on the way, saying: "This is the dog we want to hit, to strike, to kill." Mr Smith, in their opinion, had been insufficiently pro-Islam. But what's the scarred face of one schoolteacher when set against the need to keep the peace?

There's more, a lot more. A young Asian chemist has received death threats for refusing to wear a veil. You know, the veil that some people tell us is a sign of female empowerment. A Muslim councillor was given similar treatment, for dressing in too Western a fashion.

So I'll tell you what I never want to hear again. I never want to listen to a politician, living somewhere far, far removed from Bethnal Green, uttering a sentence like: "On the one hand, the Islamic extremists… On the other, the equally offensive English Defence League", as though the two have independent but morally equivalent aetiologies. I don't expect philosophical grandeur from any government. But I do expect its representatives to understand the difference between cause and effect.

The cause of all this is not just Labour's immigration policy, or the Human Rights Act, or the fawning of Ken Livingstone over Yusuf al-Qaradawi (a preacher who'd like to put me, and other homosexuals, to death). First, Labour enacted legislation that taught minority groups that their grievances had legal recourse (rather than suggesting that in a good society, we all need to be able to get on). This has spiralled into today's culture of fear – you think I'm not scared to write all this down? And when – as in Tower Hamlets – minorities come into conflict, the response of the rulers is entirely predictable: the group with the most votes wins.'

What's happening in London's East End is just starting to happen in Golders Green and other places in London will not be too far behind. Thanks to multiculturalism, militant Islam is on the rise in London and elsewhere in Great Britain and we will probably not be able to stop it. Thanks Tony, thanks Jack, thanks Labour.