He realised that the liberal traditions of tolerance and freedom, while valuable, had an Achilles’ heel: they can be turned against you. In his book The Open Society and Its Enemies, he articulated the most pertinent diagnosis of his age and perhaps ours, too: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant [such as Nazis] … then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”
I suggest we see this pattern afresh today. The legal immigration systems of western democracies have been described as “welcoming” and “liberal”, but in the name of freedom and tolerance we have opened our doors to those who hate these values and wish to destroy them. The names of Abu Qatada, Omar Bakri Muhammad and Abu Hamza are perhaps familiar; worse, because more widespread, are the dangers of Muslim bloc voting and creeping sharia. It is nether racist nor divisive to state that this is a form of self-annihilating madness dressed up as enlightenment. Yes, it’s true only a minority of western Muslims are Islamists; but it is also true that we have utterly failed to confront those who are. We have effectively been made to pay taxes to fifth-columnists who wish for our demise.
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Britain’s ‘national treasures’ have adopted a suicidal empathy for Islamist nutjobs and religious fundamentalists.