The Struggle to Reach People

I received a letter from a woman named Cheryl who lives in Wales, UK. She only recently found out about orthodox Islam's supremacist agenda and I asked her what caused her to awaken. I am intensely curious about the circumstances that lead to an awakening, and if you would like to write to me about how you came to realize Islam has not been "hijacked by extremists," I would love to hear it. Write to me here.

I asked Cheryl if I could excerpt some of her letter in an article, and she said yes. Here's what she said:

The first time I became aware of things was when some people at Mass at my church said the UK would be Islamic within 50 years, the way things are going. After hearing this a few times I began looking it up on the net, being skeptical but just wanting to see why they said that, and to prove them wrong. Well of course I soon found that there was no real counter-argument and that in fact it's a lot more like 10 years. Maybe less.

I then took a deep look at the history and teachings of Islam itself. By this time I had joined the British National Party and was receiving relevant material, videos, etc., from them and other websites like JihadWatch and LionHeart.

When I told my daughter we are in danger of becoming Islamic she said, "So what?" She didn't even want to know about how it isn't exactly the picnic she imagines. She accused me of racism and is disgusted at my nationalist leanings. She's 21 and at college.

My son is 23 and has a six-week old baby girl, who is a real blessing and a joy. First of all, my son was interested in all this but very surprised at my views, and said that if civil war broke out the police and MI5 would look after us. For a time I was comforted by that. But then I began to see that these people who we've traditionally relied upon will in fact not help us, though I do believe MI5 are trying to foil bomb attacks, but I have no faith in the police. I don't know about the army.

But it seems to me no one would do anything much to stop us being killed. I showed my son a film called Islam's Not For Me but very soon, he got fed up, said it was all hate propaganda and he didn't want to discuss this whole topic any more. It depressed him, and even if I'm right, he said, the problem seems so advanced and the odds stacked so heavily against us that we may as well just enjoy however many years we have left, and stop worrying, otherwise "the Muslim bastards are winning now, robbing us of our peace and happiness."

I am now banned from any Muslim conversation with my family. They feel sorry for me, that I'm in this state of worry. All my family are clueless about Islam. They think it's a bunch of guys who worship a guy called Mecca who lives in Mohammed.

Mind you, I've no room to talk...I knew very little about Islam either. I had the usual vague idea that it was similar to Judaism and Christianity. Even while staying in Egypt and Turkey, I never bothered to look into it.

I actually studied theology at university but Islam wasn't covered in that. Maybe it would have been in comparative religion, I don't know. Anyway, although I've looked at many religions and cults, for some reason I never looked at Islam. Obviously, I have now and I can see how it's unlike any other belief system. I actually think it's demonic and a counterfeit Christianity.

Some of my friends think I've been brainwashed and Islam will never take hold here. One friend believes that even if I'm right, God will stop this happening. This friend has a sense of peace about it all and is sure I'm worrying unnecessarily. He doesn't see it being resolved by war or violence at all. He lives in London and is surrounded by Muslims but really feels that, in some way we can't begin to imagine, just like a few years back we couldn't have dreamed what's happening now, the situation will change in our favour. He thinks they might convert, or return to their own lands due to something we can't see yet, or maybe they'll all die from some plague or virus through their dreadful halal meat. He doesn't give them the satisfaction of worrying. As for making plans to move to a remote part of Scotland or something, he thinks that's crazy.

But this same friend cannot accept that Muslims hate us and deceive us. I have another friend, from Ireland who thinks the whole thing will dilute, as many young Muslims, especially women, enjoy the freedoms they have here and want to keep the Western way of life. They like our clothes and don't want to wear the burqa. They will see that their religion is junk. Actually, a lot of them here say they do see that, but how can you trust them?

Some people I've spoken to agree with me, but they already had that view. So in other words I'm not conveying the message very well.

I moved to North Wales a long time ago from Manchester. There are many English people here but it's still a Welsh place, with Welsh being spoken and still some very anti-English attitudes. There are, by comparison with other areas of the UK, very few Muslims. However, there are some. An extended family from Pakistan have bought at least 12 convenience stores, sometimes with post offices as well, all across the area in different villages.

I think the main hurdle I had, in coming to grips with the Islamic situation, was that I couldn't understand their hatred for us. I actually felt a sense of of personal hurt, and then outrage when I realised how they've conned us.

Some Muslims can now have 4 wives here and dozens of children, all sponging off our welfare. If these marriages happened in Islamic countries we have to recognise them.

At this point, Cheryl went on to discuss other matters. The reason I wanted to publish Cheryl's letter is because her description of the responses she has gotten from the different people in her life seem to correspond with the whole gamut I have personally experienced, as well as the experiences I have heard about from other people who have written to me.

In other words, when someone first hears about basic Islamic teachings, they have one of several different kinds of reactions:

1. They might be interested and curious, realizing that they really don't know anything about Islam. This is a very rare response unless you are very good at presenting the information.

2. Like Cheryl's daughter, they might wonder what difference it would make. This stems from an ignorance of both Islamic law and our own culture.

3. Like Cheryl's son, they might think the experts — the military, the police, the politicians — will take care of it, so we don't need to worry about it.

4. And also like Cheryl's son's second response, many people want to write it off as "hate propaganda." Or the subject is so depressing, they want to avoid talking about it. Or that our best response is to ignore it, because if it bothers us "then the terrorists win."

5. Like one of Cheryl's friends, another response you'll get is the belief or hope or ardent wish that God will take care of it. Or that luck or fate will intervene and save us.

What all of these responses have in common (except the first one) is a desire to avoid having to deal with it. People are hoping it's not true. They want to write you off. They desperately desire to ignore this issue because they've got a life to live, and nowhere in their plans have they included time spent dealing with such an unpleasant topic.

On top of that, the underlying belief in all the responses except the first one is that there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. Worrying certainly doesn't help. What else can we do? They don't know. And because they don't know, and it seems to them (in their haste to write it off and stop thinking about such a distressing subject) that nothing can be done about it, what's the point of being upset just to be upset?

But all of these notions contain thought-mistakes. The hopelessness is mistaken. The feeling of helplessness is mistaken. We are not helpless in this, and that is the message we must hammer home when we talk to people. Address the issue directly. We've got to continue to try to reach these people, constantly improve our delivery, and turn them around. Failure is not an option.