READERS of NATIONAL REVIEW, I know, will jump to no hasty or unwarranted conclusions when I inform them that I happened to be in Toronto when 17 young Muslims were arrested there for plotting to blow up the Canadian parliament and behead the prime minister, and in Birmingham when nine of its young Muslims were arrested for plotting to kidnap and then behead a British Muslim soldier. It is simply that there is quite a lot of plotting to behead selected infidels and alleged apostates going on: assuming, of course, that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the British antiterrorist squad knew what they were doing, which is likely but not absolutely certain.
I was temporarily living in Birmingham at the time of the arrests, and my relations with the Muslims by whom I was surrounded were extremely friendly. They were quiet and well-mannered, and while one of them wore the beard of a mullah, he smiled a lot and mowed his front lawn dressed in a tracksuit and sneakers. I happened to call a taxi on the day of the arrests, and the driver, who was Muslim, had just collected his little girl (dressed in Western clothes) from school. She asked her father for a present and he asked her what she wanted. She replied, “An Easter egg,” and he said she could have one, but only at Easter.
Comments