OP, I feel exactly as you do. I fear fascism, the erosion of democracy and the decline of our culture… with the twist that I 💯 agree with Reform and believe that people with opinions like yours are the ones being naive. Let me explain why.
I am from Turkey and am from a religious minority group there. In 1993, Islamists attacked and burned down Madimak hotel in Sivas province, killing 37 young intellectuals from my religion who were gathered for a special event. Turkey is a country riddled with sectarian violence and religion plays a big role in this. Christians, Jews and Alevis have managed to live side by side in peace and the Sunnis haven’t. They see us as infidels and constantly seek to gain dominance over us and they have succeeded.
In 1923, Ataturk created the Turkish Republic and one of its tenets was the separation of mosque and government. In fact, it forced modernisation on every citizen by suppressing religion in the hope that people would become secular. It worked for a while but eventually, secular families ended up having fewer children (2-3) from the 60s onwards with the introduction of the contraceptive pill and greater urbanisation. Rural extremist/conservative Muslim families had on average 7 children and their numbers ballooned. They started using democracy to gain national power and in 2002 became the ruling party after years of having Erdogan in the position of Istanbul mayor. They relentlessly pursued power by pretending to be meek and moderate when they were a political minority. When they came to power, they wooed voters with economic growth and development and intimidated secular Muslims by reminding them that they were Muslim first and foremost. They created divisions and polarised the population. When I went to live there in 2010, it was a fragile democracy/anocracy but now Erdogan has consolidated so much power that it’s not even an anocracy, it’s practically a dictatorship. With so much power, they then plundered the country and were very corrupt. Now, the economy is in tatters, with ridiculous inflation decimating people’s incomes.
I grew up in the UK and am grateful for everything in the West but I fear that it will succumb to Islamism. There are already 85
islamic Councils in the UK that ‘advise’ (in the future they would simply dictate) people based on sharia law. Sharia law states that a woman’s testimony is half of a man’s, that adulterers should be stoned, that apostates should be killed…
I don’t think western liberals or lefties can even get their heads around how unbearable it is to live in an Islamic country. Sure, it’s not as bad as North Korea in places like Saudi Arabia or Iran but it’s because people still have the freedom to visit the West and have access to media that connects them to western ideas and thoughts so it’s like having a window that opens whereas North Korea is like living in an underground bunker with an abusive family member with no hope of escape.
There is something fundamentally wrong with Islam and it can never be fixed because it is impossible to reform it due to its own blasphemy laws and customs. In the West, they seek to tie our hands and gag us with the made-up term ‘Islamophobia’. When we criticise it, we are met with anger and hatred from Muslims and a similar reaction from leftists who gaslight us. When we make very compelling, logical arguments against the religion, we’re lied to by ordinary Muslims who practice ‘taqiyya’ to further the cause of Islam. We’re dealing with a slippery eel that refuses to look you straight in the eye and instead attacks and disorients its opponent.
I am betting that this comment will get deleted.
The strange thing is, I’m not against immigration at all. I’m just against immigration from that religion. I voted for Remain because I love Europeans. I have nothing against people from the Far East, Latin America or Africa coming here in the millions and putting a strain on services or bringing their own culture with them… as long as they are not of a religion that wants to destroy the West.