The Spectator’s Notes | 26 August 2006

Perhaps it will take allegations of ball-tampering to focus on the role of Pakistan in modern British life. There is a certain sort of upholder of national sovereignty who thinks that ethnic and religious problems can be solved if only the national borders are shaped to reflect the divisions. The British partition of India surely proves that life is not so simple, and we are now paying for our mistake. Partition created a confessional state, and gave that state a motive for acquiring a nuclear bomb, the only Muslim Bomb until we allow Iran to get there. Thus armed with righteousness and with actual kit, the state persecutes its small remaining minorities (mainly Christians) and helps foment trouble elsewhere. The Pakistani intelligence services backed the Taleban in Afghanistan and, despite President Musharraf’s robust declarations of support for Western allies, his country’s attitude to everything to do with terrorism is at best ambiguous. Because of Britain’s history, most of our Muslims come from Pakistan, and so we have become the prime field in Europe for their sometimes fanatical religious groupings. The latest to attract attention is Tablighi Jamaat (which means proselytising group). They run courses in Pakistan at which, it is alleged, terrorists have been recruited. Some of the 7 July bombers were members, and so are some of those detained in the recent swoops. Tablighi Jamaat wants to build a mosque in East London which could accommodate what is variously claimed to be 4,000 or 10,000 people as part of an ‘Islamic village’ in time for the London Olympics. Ken Livingstone thinks it is a wonderful idea, yet Tablighi Jamaat operates in conditions of almost total secrecy. It would be a grim revenge for the Raj if an Islamist cantonment were permitted to set up in our capital. 

Last week, A Levels; this week, GCSEs.