Social cohesion – excluding Muslims

Several UK newspapers on Sunday and Monday published alarmist stories based upon a new report entitled Islam on Campus by the Centre for Social Cohesion and a YouGov poll also commissioned by the CfSC. The website of the CfSC explains its purpose as trying to generate: “new thinking that can help bring Britain’s ethnic and religious communities closer together while strengthening British traditions of openness, tolerance and democracy.”

The headlines included “A third of Muslim students back killings (Sunday Times), One third of British Muslim students say it’s acceptable to kill for Islam” (London Evening Standard) and “Killing for religion is justified, say third of Muslim students” (Sunday Telegraph).

Clear enough?

Now I have blogged previously on Cif about my misgivings concerning the “findings” of several agenda-driven outfits falsely posing as thinktanks. And this particular case has proved to be no different. A look at the YouGov poll revealed that a far more ambiguous question was actually posed to the Muslim students who took part in the survey. The question was:

The responses were as follows: Are the results really that surprising given that “Yes, but only if that religion is under attack” can bear so many different meanings?

The director of the Centre for Social Cohesion is an excitable chap called Douglas Murray. He wrote a book a couple of years back called Neoconservatism: Why We Need It. More pertinent to this blog, he has publicly expressed views about Muslims that give us a better idea of what he understands by “social cohesion”.

In a February 2006 speech entitled What Are We To Do About Islam? delivered at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague, Murray asked:

Ah, those liberals, eh? So what did Murray propose to do then? Oh good, so let’s hear your number one option. Now we’re getting somewhere! Are all black people to be excluded too, or would advocating that position more obviously contravene our racial discrimination laws? Yes, I think it might, so perhaps it is best to stick to Muslims. Anything else you have in mind? A prophet! You appear to have anticipated Martin Amis’s outburst. But of course. And what about those Muslims who are born in Europe and have European citizenship but are convicted of terror-related acts, should we treat them like other criminals or can we be a little bit more stern? Mr Murray, you appear to have planned for everything! A solution for every eventuality. Almost a final solution one might say! How about those Muslims who are overseas though. Can’t we do something about them too? Yes, social cohesion, you say. You know I think I understand just exactly what you mean.