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Jewish World Review August 16, 2005 / 11 Av, 5765 Britain's great schism, the Blairs By Kathryn Lopez
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Cherie Booth, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has
certainly made a name for herself — and not one that suggests good
things for Britain or the war on terror.
Most recently, Booth has made headlines by cautioning Britain's
leadership that "the government, even in times when there is a
threat to national security, must act strictly in accordance with
the law." She was also seemingly opposed, following the London
bombings, to talk of even more tri-partisan, anti-terror
legislation, saying that such a response would "cheapen our right to
call ourselves a civilized nation."
Far from simply expressing a general caution about respecting
personal rights, Booth — a human-rights lawyer who uses her maiden
name professionally — made her comments even as Tony Blair was
talking about refusing "to give an inch to terrorism" — as he has
consistently said since Sept. 11, and reinforced following the
horrific July 7 attacks on London.
By voicing the less-than-subtle public warning to her husband,
Booth's statements were acutely irresponsible. Perhaps the worst
part of her comments is that she made them in Malaysia, no bastion
of human rights.
Some may try to excuse her remarks as impertinent, though seemingly
harmless. But Booth, especially as the prime minister's bedmate, has
become entangled in the frayed tapestry that is England's attempt to
deal with the current brutality of militant Islam.
One needs only to look to Booth's involvement in the Shabina Begum
case to understand the apparent schism in Blair and Booth's
approaches. Miss Begum is a Muslim teen who won a court victory
earlier this year with Cherie Booth's help. Cherie was the girl's
lawyer in a case that should have given the feminist Booth whiplash.
Begum sued her state school for not allowing her to wear her
full-length jilbab — attire that would have left only her face and
hands exposed. She had already been attending the school — under a
dress code which allowed for some but not all of the jilbab — for
two years. Critics, such as British writer Theodore Dalrymple
(author of "Our Culture, What's Left of It" (Ivan R. Dee, 2005)
intimates that "she was almost certainly put up to this by her older
brother, a supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Muslim party that seeks to
establish a Muslim world state, that believes democracy is
blasphemy, and that denies that the Western citizenship of Muslims
is real or meaningful, or confers any privileges or imposes any
duties."
After her legal victory, Begum said in a statement that the school's
pre-court dress code was: "a consequence of an atmosphere that has
been created in western societies post-9/11, an atmosphere in which
Islam has been made a target for vilification in the name of the
'war on terror'."
Booth called the ruling "a victory for all Muslims who wish to
preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry."
As British columnist Melanie Phillips wrote at the time, the court
ruled in favor of the full jilbab "despite the fact that her
headmistress warned that this would leave other Muslim girls
defenceless against targeting and intimidation by fundamentalists,
and despite the fact that this girl was backed by just such an
extremist group."
If the school's policy was in fact some kind of
"vilification"-of-Islam policy, it would, of course, be outrageous
and totally appropriate for Booth to fight. But in a country where
unbridled immigration is running into an identity crisis for a
culture that has embraced multiculturalism over some modicum of
sensible assimilation, Booth's involvement in the high-profile case
only adds to the problem.
If Britain is going to stand up against terrorism — which, hit at
home so recently, it should know full well like never before that it
has to send a clear message to those who would use religion to wage
war or oppress.
Booth sure hasn't sent that message. Tony should clue her, and those
Brits with similar views, in.
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