BY JOHN MUSGRAVE
‘Enough is enough,’ is a phrase now increasingly heard on the lips of all good men and true. The follow-up phrase: ‘They really ought to do something,’ is overused and self-defeating.
The problem here is the word ‘THEY,’ a much-abused pronoun of dubious provenance. When we expect ‘them’ to do something we abrogate responsibility. In the real world ‘they’ don’t exist. Suits in their boardrooms or unelected leaders – like the PM and the Foreign Secretary – are not a cohesive group, far from it.
How many of us have watched the news with increasing alarm these last few weeks?
We watch as 100,000 pro-Hamas demonstrators flood our streets calling for the death of the Jews and the elimination of Israel. There in the masked cadres lurk Islamist fifth columnists intent on destroying the Free World. Websites for Hezbollah, Hamas, Boko Haram etc all say so.
Yet THEY do not see this and THEIR police do not intervene.
The October 7 attack on Israel marks more than the end of the much vaunted, two state solution.
No Israeli government will ever tolerate the creation of a terrorist state on its borders. Would any country? Still less a regime dedicated to the elimination of the Children of the Promise. Hitherto many did not understand that the forces of Hamas and its allies are equally hellbent on destroying what we should proudly describe as the Free World. How much more evidence do we need? We can enumerate their atrocities down the years. Charlie Hebdo, lorries slamming into Christmas markets and the continuing abuse and torture of young girls in our own country. We see the war raging in Nigeria, where terrorists are intent on eliminating the Christian south. Elsewhere AQIM, Al-Qaïda au Maghreb Islamique, spreads plague-like across the interior. Coptic Christians are routinely killed. Bombs go off in Kenya. It’s spreading and it’s the future for what we call the West. The supine British government has long chosen to ignore the enemy within our gates.
In power for 13 years now, the party which purports to enshrine British values and safeguard our Judaeo-Christian heritage has done no such thing. Meanwhile his Majesty’s Opposition is likewise more attuned to the aspirations of far left sexual radicals and a jihadi philosophy which has nothing to do with Britain.
Where does that leave us, the silent majority who just want to be left alone to get on with our lives?
Cut it anyway you like – freeborn, hard working, Brits are in for a rough ride over coming years.
The best guarantor of personal freedom is a strong nation state. Yoram Hazony writes well about this in his book, The Virtue of Nationalism. The life-germ of a successful country is the family which nurtures and encourages the individual.
The Far Left over the last 25 years has managed to wrongfoot decent people of all political complexions, colours and creeds. It is essential to identify the enemy for what it is. This is the crux of the matter. The underlying principle of the Far Left says: ‘I will tell you what is good for you. Obey or face imprisonment, torture or death.’ Theirs can be a vision of a world of darkness, a jackboot stamping on the human face.
Freedom is much more attractive. The idea of the individual as free is central to the Judaeo-Christian heritage – all 5,000 years of it. Basically a man or a woman elects to believe in God. We decide of our own volition not because we’re told to. Becoming a believer out of expediency or because of a cultural imperative doesn’t count. Pope John Paul II said, ‘We can only propose Christ, we cannot insist on him.’ Faith is personal, individual and for it to work you really have to understand it, not go along with the crowd. That our individuality is of divine origin is self-evident from our uniqueness. We each have separate fingerprints and DNA. Every man, woman and child is different.
The principle of resistance to the Far Left/Jihadism is that of the ability to choose how to react in any situation. Viktor Frankl described it as the last of the human freedoms. No SS guard can take it from you.
Therefore be proud to be British – whether you were born here or are recently naturalised. Britain has not been invaded for 1000 years, since 1066. You are a part of a 1000 year old tradition which brought the world responsible government, parliamentary democracy, free speech, free assembly, freedom of conscience, i.e. religion, and the right to trial by jury. You can’t be banged up by disagreeable policemen or a mad Baron. Freedom is at the heart of the British political experience; we let it slip at our peril. We need to reprise our liberties and rights without further ado.
If asked about any of the myriad of woke ideas, answer resolutely: ‘No good talking to me about all that sort of nonsense – I take my stand on 5,000 years of Judaeo-Christian witness.’ If you can claim to be a born again, river baptised, Roman Catholic or some-such then say so: ‘I take my stand on the historic teachings of the church, the testimony of the saints and the presence in my life of Christ, my Saviour and Lord and oh a Jew to boot.’
All that the wokestas are concerned about is covered by the second greatest commandment: Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself.
We may not march, neither do we fire flares at pensioners. We consider it rather vulgar to make our feelings known. Not for us hashtag campaigns or t-shirts saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ We have no political voice. Reviled by the politically correct, the legacy media disdain us. Nevertheless we number millions and together we are powerful beyond belief.
John Musgrave is a writer and, like this magazine, a steadfast supporter of Israel.