Londonistan: The Rise of Islam and the Decline of Churches in the UK

Oct 11, 2024 | In this video, we explore the transformation of London, often dubbed "Londonistan," where mosques are rising while historic churches are closing their doors.

Once dominated by Christianity, the city is now witnessing a surge in the Muslim population and the construction of over 1,800 mosques, replacing some of the oldest churches.

Is this a sign of Christianity's decline, or is it a reflection of a more diverse and inclusive society?

Join us as we examine the growing influence of Islam in the UK and what it means for the future of London. From Sharia courts to packed Friday prayers, we unravel the demographic shift that's shaping the capital.


If you found this short video depressing, I’m not surprised. One can but wonder how long it is going to take for a complete take-over of this ‘Sceptered Isle’? And when that happens, will Trafalgar Square be turned into ‘chop-chop square’ for public beheadings? There are other questions that need to be asked, too: When will the burqa become mandatory on our streets for British women? When will the drinking of alcohol be outlawed? And when will special licences be required for the dwindling ‘Christian’ population to be able to purchase their pork rations from the ever-fewer pork butchers?

If you conclude from this that our politicians have lacked spine, you’d be right. If you conclude from this that the concepts of wokeness and political correctness have been thought-up to spare our politicians the discomfort of taking difficult decisions, you’d also probably be right. And if you are wondering why the far-right are on the march right across Europe and the Western world, don’t! The growth of the far-right is perfectly understandable. The Occident is being turned into the Orient right before our eyes. — © Mark Alexander

Taliban Chief Orders All Afghan Women to Wear the Burqa in Public • France 24 English

May 7, 2022 • The Taliban on Saturday imposed one of the harshest restrictions on Afghanistan's women since seizing power, ordering them to wear the all-covering burqa in public.

Verwandt.

De Kaboul à Mossoul, l’extension du sentiment antiaméricain

Des manifestants antiaméricains brûlent la bannière étoilée, à Lahore (Pakistan), le 8 octobre 2001. STR/AFP
LE FIGARO : RÉCIT - Le mythe de l’Amérique bienveillante a volé en éclats depuis la campagne interventionniste de Bush, favorisant la percée des islamistes au détriment de la nouvelle génération qui a voulu croire aux promesses de démocratie.

Correspondante à Istanbul
Ce 13 novembre 2001, une tempête de joie balaye Islam Qala. Pendant la nuit, quelque chose de l’ordre de l’impossible s’est passé: chassés par les frappes américaines sur Kaboul, les talibans ont déserté le poste-frontière séparant l’Iran de l’Afghanistan. Entassés dans des voitures bondées de valises, les exilés filent sur la route cabossée qui les ramène à Hérat, tout juste affranchie du joug des islamistes. Au centre-ville, il pousse déjà des couleurs sur les visages, enfin rasés pour les hommes, enfin libérés de la burqa pour les femmes. Il fait froid. Le pays est à genoux. Mais la joie triomphe jusqu’au fond des jardins, où les habitants déterrent leurs instruments cachés en entamant quelques airs interdits. Aux nouveaux arrivants qui les assaillent de questions, ils racontent à l’unisson leur nuit blanche sur les toits, les yeux rivés vers le ciel, à applaudir les raids aériens initiés par George Bush pour se venger d’Oussama Ben Laden et pour garantir aux Afghans une fenêtre sur la démocratie. L’heure est à la reconstruction. À l’espoir. Au rêve américain. » | Par Delphine Minoui | dimanche 12 septembre 2021

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Afghan Women’s Defiance and Despair: ‘I Never Thought I’d Have to Wear a Burqa. My Identity Will Be Lost’

Outside a beauty parlour in Kabul last week; the burqa is synonymous with Afghan women’s identity worldwide. Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Women’s report in Afghanistan [WR]: Global development [GD]
THE GUARDIAN: As city after city falls to the Taliban, women fear that the freedoms won since 2001 will be crushed

In a market in Kabul, Aref is doing a booming trade. At first glance, the walls of his shop seem to be curtained in folds of blue fabric. On closer inspection, dozens and dozens of blue burqas hang like spectres from hooks on the wall. As the Taliban close in on Kabul, women inside the city are getting ready for what may be coming. “Before, most of our customers were from the provinces,” says Aref. “Now it is city women who are buying them.”

One of these women is Aaila, who is haggling with another shopkeeper over rapidly inflating burqa prices. “Last year these burqas cost AFS 200 [£2]. Now they’re trying to sell them to us for AFS 2,000 to 3,000,” she says. As the fear among women in Kabul has grown, the prices have risen.

For decades, the traditional Afghan burqa, mostly sold in shades of blue, was synonymous with Afghan women’s identity around the world. Usually made of heavy cloth, it is specifically designed to cover the wearer from head to toe. A netted fabric is placed near the eyes so that the woman inside can peer out through the meshing but nobody can see inside. It was enforced strictly during the Taliban regime in the late 1990s, and failure to wear one while in public could earn women severe punishments and public lashings from the Taliban’s “moral police”.

After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, even though many continued to choose to wear the burqa in adherence to religious and traditional beliefs, its rejection by millions of others across the country became a symbol of a new dawn for the country’s women, who were able to dictate what they wore for themselves again.

Today, there are burqas in the streets of downtown Kabul but women are also dressed in an array of different styles, many mixing traditional materials with colourful modern patterns and fashion inspiration from across the region. » | Zainab Pirzad and Atefa Alizada from Rukhshana Media | Sunday, August 15, 2021

Tory Islamophobia Report a ‘Whitewash’, Say Muslims in Party

THE GUARDIAN: Inquiry deems comments from PM were insensitive but finds no evidence of ‘institutional racism’

A long-awaited review into Islamophobia within the Conservative party has been condemned as a whitewash by Muslim Tories despite criticising the language used by Boris Johnson and the mayoral campaign run by Zac Goldsmith for being insensitive to Muslim communities.

The prime minister’s comments, in which he compared women wearing the burqa to letterboxes, were singled out in the review headed by Prof Swaran Singh.

The inquiry found that anti-Muslim sentiment was still present at local association and individual levels, but claims of “institutional racism” were not borne out by evidence of the way complaints were handled.

Senior Muslim figures within the party said the review was inadequate and failed to address deep prejudices in the party. Sajjad Karim, who was a Tory MEP for more than a decade and chaired the European parliament’s working group on Islamophobia, said: “The manner in which this inquiry has been conducted means it is nothing but an attempt to whitewash deep-rooted issues out of sight. » | Rajeev Syal | Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Switzerland to Ban Wearing of Burqa and Niqab in Public Places

THE GUARDIAN: Muslim groups criticise move, which they say will further stigmatise and marginalise their community

Switzerland will follow France, Belgium and Austria after narrowly voting in a referendum to ban women from wearing the burqa or niqab in public spaces.

Just over 51% of Swiss voters cast their ballots in favour of the initiative to ban people from covering their face completely on the street, in shops and restaurants.

Full facial veils will still be allowed to be worn inside places of prayer and for “native customs”, such as carnival.

Face coverings worn for health and safety reasons are also exempt from the ban, meaning face masks worn because of the Covid-19 pandemic will not be affected by the new law. » | Philip Oltermann in Berlin | Sunday, March 7, 2021

From Critic to Convert | The Joram van Klaveren Story: From Islamophobe to Believer

Sidi Joram van Klaveren shares his remarkable personal journey as a former far-right Dutch lawmaker who had been fiercely critical of Islam and why he chose to became a Muslim in 2019 while he had been penning a book meant to be anti-Islam.

Joram van Klaveren was a lawmaker in the Party of Freedom, led by Dutch anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders, from 2010 to 2014. During that time, he advocated a burqa ban, a ban on masjid minarets and a ‘de-Islamization‘ of the Netherlands.

In February 2019, he announced his religious conversion to Islam. The Islamophobic polemic he had been penning morphed into a rousing defense the the faith.

Dutch 'Burqa Ban' Rendered Largely Unworkable on First Day

THE GUARDIAN: Police and transport companies have signalled unwillingness to enforce face covering ban

The Netherlands’ “burqa ban” has been rendered largely unworkable on its first day in law after both the police and Dutch transport companies signalled an unwillingness to enforce it.

Under the terms of the Partial Ban on Face-Covering Clothing Act the wearing of ski masks, full-face helmets, balaclavas, niqabs and burqas is prohibited in public buildings, including schools and hospitals, and on public transport.

Wearers of the banned clothing are to be given the option to remove the offending item or face a police fine of between €150 and €415. There is no prohibition on wearing such garments in the street.

But the law appears to have been fatally undermined after police said its enforcement was not a priority and signalled their discomfort with the idea that veiled women could be put off from entering a police station to make unrelated complaints. » | Daniel Boffey in Brussels | Thursday, August 1, 2019

Boris Johnson Claimed Islam Put Muslim World 'Centuries Behind'

THE GUARDIAN: Anger as 2007 essay lamenting ‘no spread of democracy’ in Islamic world comes to light

Boris Johnson has been strongly criticised for arguing Islam has caused the Muslim world to be “literally centuries behind” the west, in an essay unearthed by the Guardian.

Writing about the rise of the religion in an appendix added to a later edition of The Dream of Rome, his 2006 book about the Roman empire, Johnson said there was something about Islam that hindered development in parts of the globe and, as a result, “Muslim grievance” was a factor in virtually every conflict.

Johnson’s argument was described as disconcerting and problematic by Tell Mama, which monitors anti-Muslim hate and said he had demonstrated a lack of understanding of the religion. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said many people would like to know if the favourite to become the next prime minister still believed “Islam inherently inhibits the path to progress and freedom”.

Last year, Johnson was accused of dog-whistle politics after he used a Telegraph column to liken women wearing the burqa to “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”. » | Frances Perraudin | Monday, July 15, 2019

Was France Right to Ban the Burqa? (2010)

The Burqa Battle (2010): Sarkozy's ban on burqa's has stirred up a lot of controversy in France, but what do Muslims actually think of it?

George Brandis Attacks Pauline Hanson's 'Appalling' Burqa Stunt

The Australian attorney general, George Brandis, rebukes the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, after she enters the Senate wearing a burqa as part of her campaign for it to be banned. ‘Senator Hanson, no, we will not be banning the burqa,’ Brandis says. ‘I can tell you, Senator Hanson, that it has been the advice of each director general of security with whom I have worked and each commissioner of the Australian federal police with whom I have worked that it is vital for their intelligence and law enforcement work that they work cooperatively with the Muslim community and to ridicule that community, to drive it into a corner, to mock its religious garments, is an appalling thing to do and I would ask you to reflect on what you have done.’

Pauline Hanson wears burqa in Australian Senate while calling for ban »

Burqa & Sharia Court Ban: UKIP Unveils New Agenda ahead of Snap Elections (Debate)

UKIP is calling for new measures ‘Islamization of the country’ ahead of June’s snap general election. UKIP also wants to put a ban on Burqas as well as Sharia Laws.

Ukip to Campaign to Ban Burqa and Sharia Courts, Says Paul Nuttall

THE GUARDIAN: Party leader tells Andrew Marr the security situation means ‘you need to see people’s faces’ and that it ‘is all about integration’

Ukip will push to ban the burqa and sharia courts, Paul Nuttall has said, though he denied the Eurosceptic party was reinventing itself as an anti-Islam party.

In a BBC interview, Ukip’s leader also refused to confirm whether he would stand in the 8 June election, having been defeated in the Stoke-on-Trent Central byelection weeks ago.

Nuttall said the party’s policies were not singling out Muslims. He said there were no similar proposals to ban Jewish religious courts because the Jewish population was smaller than the Muslim population.

Nuttall had previously said in 2013 the party should not pursue a burqa ban, but he told the Andrew Marr Show that circumstances had changed. » | Jessica Elgot, Political Reporter | Sunday, April 23, 2017

Burqas "Make A Mockery Out Of Islam": Raheel Raza (2015)

Ezra Levant of TheRebel.media talks with liberal Muslim activist and author Raheel Raza about the court's decision to allow women to wear face coverings while taking the Canadian citizenship oath.

Raza says the burqa and niqab should be made unconstitutional. She also points out that "Islamophobia" is really "an industry" invented by Islamists to attack the West. "The whole premise is based on a lie."

Levant and Raza tease out the contradictions in the pro-burqa arguments. She adds that when she debates this issue, it is always with Muslim men. "They can't even find a woman who will come and talk about this issue."

Calling for Burqa Ban

I am saying the reasons why every country should ban the Burqa or the face covering. I only talked about the Burqa not any other dress worn for religious reasons.

La burqa bannie du Maroc - La fabrication et la vente interdite

La burqa bannie du Maroc. Une circulaire du ministère de l'intérieur interdit la confection et la commercialisation, à compter de cette semaine, de ce voile intégral afghan qui couvre les yeux. Selon des médias marocains, une campagne de sensiblisation auprès des commerçants a été menée à Casablanca. Si le port de la burqa reste un phénomène marginal dans le royaume, son interdiction pose désormais la question de celle du niqab, plus répandue dans les régions plus conservatrices.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Calls for Burqa Ban

Angela Merkel: Burqa Has No Place in Germany

German chancellor Angela Merkel tells delegates at the Christian Democratic Union’s conference in Essen on Tuesday that a ‘full facial veil is inappropriate’ and should be banned. It is the first time she has endorsed her party’s call for a partial ban on burqa and niqab

Read the Guardian article here

Angela Merkel Calls for a Burqa Ban

Bulgaria Bans the Burqa

David Menzies says "Bravo" to Bulgaria for taking a stand against rising tide of Islamism by joining a growing number of European countries in banning the burqa.