Melanie Phillips: The West can’t wrap its head around Islam

“The whole of the West views Islam … through a Western cultural prism,” and that’s a problem, says British author and commentator Melanie Phillips.

With terrorism, extremism, and antisemitism surging throughout the West, people are looking for answers. They’re trying to understand why our leaders and institutions are failing to stand up to this threat.

Phillips, one of the clearest voices sounding the alarm about these issues, joins Inside Policy Talks to share her assessment of the problem.

As a journalist, Phillips has championed traditional values in the culture war for more than three decades. She is the author of numerous books, including her 2006 best-seller Londonistan, about the British establishment's capitulation to Islamist aggression. Her latest book, Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege, was released earlier this year.

On the podcast, she tells Casey Babb, director of The Promised Land at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, that the West’s “ignorance” of Islam is one of the key factors leading to the extremist threat going unchecked.

“They think (Islam) is a private matter between the individual and the Almighty,” says Phillips. “I'm sure that is part of the religion of Islam, but Islam is also a political project. … If you're a pious Muslim, you have a religious duty to Islamize the non-Islamic world.”

“The West can't get their heads around that at all.”

She says Western governments must show leadership by standing up for their own cultures.

“I don't think it's coincidence that governments that have gone down this bad road of not defending their culture properly have descended into – certainly, as far as Britain is concerned – a mire of absolute incompetence,” says Phillips. “They can no longer keep the show on the road.”