Multiculturalism = Balkanization

British Muslim leaders, apparently perfectly happy to capitalize on the growing threat of "radicalized" UK Muslim youth willing to murder other Britons, are now requesting, among other concessions, that Muslim holidays be recognized and that Muslim Sharia courts be created to handle domestic law for British Muslims. These things, they told UK Secretary of State for Communities Ruth Kelly, would mitigate the rising levels of extremism amongst UK Muslims.

Dr Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organisations of the UK and Ireland, said he had asked for holidays to mark Muslim festivals and Islamic laws to cover family affairs which would apply only to Muslims.

Dr Pasha said he was not seeking sharia law for criminal offences but he said Muslim communities in Britain should be able to operate Islamic codes for marriage and family life. "In Scotland, they have a separate law. It doesn't mean they are not part of the UK. We are asking for Islamic law which covers marriage and family life. We are willing to co-operate but there should be a partnership. They should understand our problems then we will understand their problems."

He said that Ms Kelly had said she would "look sympathetically at all the suggestions" that had been made. He added: "She agreed with my suggestion [that] it should be a partnership approach."

The mere existence of a "Secretary of State for Communities" demonstrates the unspoken, but all too apparent reality that British society is fragmenting under the strains of mass immigration. There is no longer one Britain. Now there are many British "communities." Of course, the fact that these "communities" exist on British soil and that their residents carry British passports, don't make them British in the common meaning of the word. The Muslim leaders' requests simply underscore this. They want separate holidays and a separate judicial system to further isolate their people from common British culture and strengthen their Islamic cultural identity. This will only increase radicalism, separatism and violence, but the Muslim leaders understand this. They are counting on it to increase their political clout. They do not wish assimilation. The do not want to be British. They might say that they do, but the definition of British they are willing to accept negates the definition that the rest of the world has accepted for the past thousand years. Contrary to Dr. Pasha's statements, separate laws mean separate communities. Differing standards of law based on religion or ethnicity do no unite a society; they divide it. But that, of course, is exactly the intention.

Instead of dismissing the Muslim leaders' demands out of hand, as any British official should have, Ms. Kelly mouth the predictable, politically correct evasions.

Ms Kelly said she did not accept that British foreign policy should be dictated by a small group of people.

"What I do accept is that there is a lot of anger and frustration out there in the community that needs to be properly expressed and vented through the democratic process," she said.

British Muslims are attempting to leverage the threat that members of their communities will commit appalling acts of violence in order to win political concessions specifically designed to encourage and reinforce Islamist thinking and practice in their communities and all Ms. Kelly can do is talk about "venting" frustration? This is how far Britain has fallen. This is what four decades of mass immigration has done to the UK - and to Europe as a whole. The US - which has opened its borders to tens of millions of Mexicans and other Latinos - should take careful notice. Britain is experiencing the only logical outcome of multiculturalism: ethnic division and rising tensions leading to a cultural breakdown. But the worst hasn't happened yet. Violence is coming to Britain. And not merely on airplanes, but in the streets and between the hedgerows. The left's ideological timebomb is close to exploding.