I met a friend last week for a few drinks in London who was over for a few weeks from Sri Lanka. He's Sri Lankan and it was the first time he has ever visited the UK. He's a great guy, very smart and I was asked him what he thinks of the UK. I was quite astonished when he said he was very surprised by how many foreigners were here and how many Muslims.
Well, fair enough he has been staying in London but it was a very interesting and enlightening conversation. I would describe my friend as an early middle aged, well-educated, liberal-minded family man. He is Sinhalese, very mild-mannered and he has never struck me as a far right bigot but I imagine that is what he would be called if your standard issue London liberal had been listening to our conversation in the pub.
He was very candid on his views and one thing that struck me was how similar he thinks the issues in Sri Lanka are with what I think the issues we are facing in the UK with regard to Islam.
He told me that in Sri Lanka the Muslim population is growing at a far more rapid pace than the Sri Lankans, that they have many more children and that they are generally poorer than the average Sri Lanka because of it. He said that most people he knows, from work colleagues to friends and family do not like the Islamification of Sri Lanka and feel threatened by the growing amount of Muslims in the country.
When I asked him why, he said that they are loud, they wear highly visible religious clothing, they make a lot of demands of everyone else for their culture and they never integrate. And he said they have got a lot more vocal and loud since the October 7th massacre (of which he is very much on the side of Israel in that affair).
I have never spoken to him before about this and I shared my similar views with him about the situation in the UK. What he said surprised me even more. He said from what he had seen over the last few weeks in London he was very worried for the UK, that Islamification here was much more advanced, that it was much more visible than even in Sri Lanka and he was astonished at the amount of head scarves, niqabs he has seen. He was really struck by seeing women in burkas which is seldom seen in Sri Lanka. This struck cord with me.
This is just anecdotal evidence if you will between two guys from different countries on opposite sides of the planet and yet it seems to me, that wherever you get a significant Muslim population in a non-majority Muslim country you get the same issues.
What he said really opened my eyes to what is going on in the UK and the very rapid acceleration of Islamification that we are seeing on the Streets. I have noticed it more and more and a trip around Croydon this afternoon just confirmed my fears. It certainly did not feel like being in an English town.
In the big cities it is impossible to get away from Islam for more than a few moments. Even the men are now wearing Islamic clothing, pretty much every Muslim woman now wears at least the hijab and just last week I saw a small child maybe 5 years old in a Niqab. That is terribly frightening to me. That a child will be brough up in the UK with her face covered up whenever she is outside in public. Incredible.
The young Muslims are getting more and more conservative, some might say radical and they are bringing up their children in a fully Islamic environment from day one. The more hijabs there are the more people will feel comfortable wearing niqabs and the more niqabs the more burqas - and I don't think there has ever been a more sinister attire than a sheet worn in public that covers your whole face, eyes and body.
It makes me very uncomfortable to be around someone in a burqa, I cannot imagine ever striking up a conversation at a bus stop dresses like that and that is very sad. For me, it has no place in an open and free society and I find it highly offensive.
We are losing something very precious in our society - openness, cohesion, shared history, shared values, shared identity, even shared fashion - and that sense of being English and when walking around an English city of being in your homeland.
Am I wrong for not liking it one little bit?
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