Londonistan Calling

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Christopher Hitchens goes back to visit his old neighbourhood and find that in one generation it has gone from fish-and-chips and cricket to shoe-bombers and burkas. It has become the breeding ground for a new phenomenon: the British jihadist and he is not happy. The article should be a wakeup call for all of us. The way he closes it is down right frighting. It is not just his neighbourhood at risk, it is our world that is being claimed. His words; "It's impossible to exaggerate how far and how fast this situation has deteriorated. Even at the time of the Satanic Verses affair, as long ago as 1989, Muslim demonstrations may have demanded Rushdie's death, but they did so, if you like, peacefully. And they confined their lurid rhetorical attacks to Muslims who had become apostate. But at least since the time of the Danish-cartoon furor, threats have been made against non-Muslims as well as ex-Muslims (see photograph), the killing of Shiite Muslim heretics has been applauded and justified, and the general resort to indiscriminate violence has been rationalized in the name of god. Traditional Islamic law says that Muslims who live in non-Muslim societies must obey the law of the majority. But this does not restrain those who now believe that they can proselytize Islam by force, and need not obey kuffar law in the meantime. I find myself haunted by a challenge that was offered on the BBC by a Muslim activist named Anjem Choudary: a man who has praised the 9/11 murders as "magnificent" and proclaimed that "Britain belongs to Allah." When asked if he might prefer to move to a country which practices Shari'a, he replied: "Who says you own Britain anyway?" A question that will have to be answered one way or another." We are all going to have to answer that question about our homelands soon. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/06/hitchens200706?printable=true¤tPage=all