Britain: Muslim 'Cultural Sensitivity' Runs Amok

London Metropolitan University's Vice Chancellor, Malcolm Gillies, says it would be unwise to "cling" to a "nostalgic" view where the vast majority wants alcohol to be available. Instead, he says that he believes the university should take account of diverging views, namely those of Muslims, who now comprise 20% of the university's 30,000 students.

"Many of our students do come from backgrounds where they actually look on drinking as a negative. We therefore need to rethink how we cater for that 21st-century balance," Gillies declared in an interview. "What we don't want is the tyranny of a majority view," he added.

Gillies' proposals to re-engineer social life on campus have, not surprisingly, generated a mostly negative response from students, many of whom say a ban on alcohol smacks of politically correct pandering run amok.

Muslims, too, are unhappy with Gillies. Far from thanking him for his multicultural activism, Muslims say they are "offended" by his "generalizing about their beliefs."

To be sure, London Metropolitan University is not the first institution in Britain to bend over backwards to avoid "offending" Muslims. In fact, hardly a day goes by in which Britons are not surrendering some aspect of their culture and traditions -- not to mention their rights of free speech and free expression -- in order to make Britain safe for Islam.

British schools increasingly are dropping the Jewish Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, according to a report entitled Teaching Emotive and Controversial History, which was commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills. British teachers are also reluctant to discuss the medieval Crusades – in which Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem -- because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.

British social welfare offices have banned novelty pig calendars and toys lest they offend Muslims. Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, for example, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.

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