How critical theory silenced the quarter million girls abused by Pakistani grooming gangs in UK
Last week, a group called Restore Britain released a summary report of an inquiry into the widespread and systematic sexual exploitation of vulnerable working-class women and children across the nation. At least a quarter of a million girls were sexually assaulted, trafficked, tortured, and even killed, mostly by gangs of Pakistani Muslims. The details in the report are so horrifying that it is difficult to believe they are true.
As shocking as the reports of abuse are, the descriptions of the response by British authorities, including police, teachers, social workers, doctors, and politicians. Evidence of the abuse and reports by victims were downplayed and ignored. When Prime Minister Kier Starmer, who resigned Monday, was Director of Public Prosecutions and the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, he dismissed 13,000 cases of suspected child sexual offenders with a warning letter rather than attempting to prosecute.
British citizens who spoke out about the abuse or expressed criticism of mass migration were often prosecuted, especially if the criticisms were directed at Pakistani or Muslim communities. In some cases, fathers attempting to rescue their daughters from abusers were even arrested. Last year alone in Great Britain, approximately 12,000 people were prosecuted for social media posts, some for longer periods than those who committed the crimes they were protesting.
Underlying the British response and the silence by media outlets both in Britain and in the U.S. is a cultural mood common among elites and shaped by Critical Theory. Western culture is assumed to be oppressive, and minorities, especially immigrants, are assumed to be victims of Western oppression. Thus, minorities cannot be expected to be held to the same standards. Their behavior results from their oppression, and identifying criminals within a minority group, it is assumed, will foster even deeper racism and Islamophobia — a term coined by the Muslim Brotherhood to shut down criticism of Islam. In this morally upside-down world, racism and Islamophobia are worse crimes than the sexual exploitation of children.
The gangs that have been operating in Britain have deep ideological and cultural roots shaped by Islam, including Sharia law. While most Muslims are law-abiding and many imams have condemned these gangs, the scale of abuse is so widespread that it must have been known. And yet, it was allowed and even enabled in some communities.
Also ignored is the difficult truth that Islam, on its own terms, allows child sexual exploitation and trafficking. According to Islamic teaching, Mohammad received the Quran directly from Allah through dictation from the angel Gabriel. Thus, Muslims claim, it is the perfect and unchangeable expression of how Allah wants us to live, and Mohammad was the perfect exemplar of that way of life. Therefore, Muslims should pattern their lives after him.
Mohammad, who claimed divine approval for himself, was a polygamist and a slaver. He promised his followers unending sexual bliss in paradise, along with wine and other goods they were forbidden to have in this world, if they followed him and fought along with him. He married a 6-year-old girl and consummated the marriage when she was 9.
Many Muslims believe that, under Sharia, the same behavior is permitted with children today, and that Muslims are permitted to take non-Muslim women, married or not, as slaves. They are also permitted to abuse and humiliate them, including prostituting them for the benefit of their owners. All this is part of Sharia.
What these gangs have done to at least 250,000 women and children in Britain is allowed by these extreme interpretations of Sharia. Many of the young men responsible for these atrocities believe they are answerable to Sharia, rather than to British law. They believe what they are doing is approved by Allah, especially when done to an enemy who is oppressing them. This is something radical Islam has in common with Critical Theory.
This terrible story reveals why it is foolish to suggest that all cultures and religions are morally equal. They are not. Though every person is made in the image of God and has fallen into sin, some cultures and religions encourage sin and fallenness, including the abuse of other image bearers.
Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims. In Great Britain alone, the victims of Islam and Critical Theory number in the hundreds of thousands.
Originally published at BreakPoint.
John Stonestreet serves as president of the Colson Center
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