In a somewhat chilling report in today’s Mail on Sunday, police are shown running away from pro-Hamas extreme Islamist protesters in Central London. The symbolism of this is huge. By giving up control of the streets to Islamists, the signal is being given that the democratic polity is too weak to withstand assault by those who wish to extinguish democracy altogether. By allowing extreme Islamist intimidation, violence and thuggery – to stalk the streets - the State is unwittingly giving a green light for the politics of intimidation to gain precedence over the politics of discourse. And we don’t have to look too far in history to know where that leads.
The failure to combat these missile throwing demonstrators is even worse than simple appeasement - because it shows that the state is too weak to confront those who seek to undermine it. What happened with this demonstration is the logical extension of refusing to confront Islamist extremism, in any definitive way culturally and politically. Each failure to deal with extremist Islamism, leads to these Jihadists pushing the boundaries still further. If they feel they now can control the streets in central London, laugh and abuse the police.... what next? To whom have we opened the doors?
