When you're the Prince of Wales, what's not to like about Islam?

By Aussiegirl

Julie Burchill write a devastating piece on the fondness of Prince Charles for the excesses of Islam. I wonder if he brought his prayer rug -- the one with the royal seal.

Julie Burchill Times Online

THE American jolly that the Prince of Wales is undertaking has drawn a fair bit of comment, not least because of the 30 frocks that the Duchess of Cornwall has taken with her. Thirty frocks, eh? — bang goes all that eyewash, then, about down-home Camilla not being high maintenance like that uppity piece, Diana!

Oh, leave them alone!, tut the suckers-up. But in this case, the personal really is political. It is said that one of Charles Windsor’s aims during his tour of the United States is to make the country more understanding towards Islam, a religion in which he has shown an inordinate interest for many years now. This would be the poor, persecuted underdog Islam, I take it, which already rules 56 nations on this earth of which only a handful — that’ll be a hand with amputated fingers, in Sharia style — are democracies.

That would be the Islam that oppresses its own people — the Lord forbid they should have anything as subversive and grown up as the vote! — and which in Sudan, Bali and beyond murders people of all faiths who have had the sheer nerve to attempt to straighten their necks from under the yoke of the theocrats. This would be the Islam that leads Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth, lest its example of obdurate democracy gives the serfs of the Muslim fiefdoms all around it ideas about freedom.

I wonder why Prince Charles seeks to big up powerful, theocratic Islam — which already controls so much land and wealth and yet will kill and kill to gain more — and not vulnerable, pluralistic Israel? Why doesn’t he invest as much energy in defence of the persecuted and murdered Christians who suffer for their beliefs under Islamic regimes? Well, I think I know why; because cleaving to Islam is the one way that men who wish to appear liberal and enlightened can promote reactionary ideas. Monarch-worshipping, woman-oppressing, non-democratic — what’s there not for Charles to like!

So many frocks to clothe your wife, so many stories to obscure the wrongs of Islam; dress it up how you like, it still stinks of privilege and potentates. But let daylight upon tyranny, and tyranny will wither; how alike they are in this, Islam and monarchy, and all the paranoid decadence their finery conceals!