Andrew Doyle on Chesterton’s novel The Flying Inn (1914) which warned against the risks of unfettered immigration and what came to be known as “multiculturalism”:
The creed of multiculturalism has made it difficult to discuss the impact of unfettered immigration. The far right have always opposed it on the basis of racial prejudice and ethno-jingoism. Yet there are authentically liberal concerns to be raised about the problem of political Islam and how all discussions are stifled through accusations of “Islamophobia”. What happens when an essentially anti-democratic ideology is allowed to flourish within a society that otherwise depends upon democratic norms?
To help illuminate the troubles of our time, and in particular the perverted form of liberalism that ensures its own undoing, we might return to G. K. Chesterton’s The Flying Inn (1914), a whimsical novel about a future Islamic England. With today’s proliferation of sharia courts and the government’s determination to criminalise blasphemy against Islam by legislative stealth, one might call Chesterton’s novel prescient.
The key figure is Lord Ivywood, a politician who becomes enamoured of Misysra Ammon, an Islamic cleric who styles himself as the “Prophet of the Moon”. Ivywood is an exemplar of the zealotry of the progressive reformer, a prototype of the virtue-signaller, one who “did not care for dogs” but “cared for the Cause of Dogs”. He first introduces Ammon at a private event at the “Society of Simple Souls”, where he is able to preach his creed to the gullible bons vivants of the upper middle-class. The collective thrill of the crowd is pure orientalism, and they are easily mesmerised by Ivywood’s panegyrics.
Inevitably, Ivywood’s submission to Islam is framed in syncretic terms; not so much surrender as a beautiful fusion. “The East and the West are one”, Ivywood says. “The East is no longer East nor the West West; for a small isthmus has been broken, and the Atlantic and Pacific are a single sea.” Islam, he claims, is the “religion of progress”, a phrase that anticipates today’s oft-echoed slogan of Islam as the “religion of peace”.
This kind of doublespeak is ubiquitous among those activists who routinely strive to force the square peg of Islamic doctrine into the round hole of woke politics. This is exemplified by articles such as “Prophet Muhammed was an intersectional feminist” in Muslim Girl magazine, a piece that includes the inane claim that the founder of the religion “wanted to generate as much inclusivity as possible”. In similarly convoluted terms, Ammon in The Flying Inn argues that there is nothing more feminist than a harem. “What is the common objection our worthy enemies make against our polygamy?” he asks. “That it is disdainful of the womanhood. But how can this be so, my friends, when it allows the womanhood to be present in so large numbers?”
Today’s readers will recognise Chesterton’s depiction of the tendency of liberal politicians to kowtow to the demands of Islamic clerics in a bid to avoid causing offence. At one point, Ivywood explains that he has tabled the “Ballot Paper Amendment Act” in parliament to allow citizens to vote with a mark resembling a crescent rather than the traditional cross.
If we are to give Moslem Britain representative government, we must not make the mistake we made about the Hindoos and military organization — which led to the Mutiny. We must not ask them to make a cross on their ballot papers; for though it seems a small thing, it may offend them. So I brought in a little bill to make it optional between the old-fashioned cross and an upward curved mark that might stand for a crescent — and as it’s rather easier to make, I believe it will be generally adopted.
The main plot of The Flying Inn revolves around the innkeeper Humphrey Pump and the Irish sailor Captain Patrick Dalroy, who take it upon themselves to sell alcohol in spite of the new Islamic prohibitions in England. They find a loophole in the law that permits them to conduct their business so long as they first erect an official inn sign. And so we follow the pair as they dash from location to location, with their barrel of rum and a wheel of cheese on a donkey’s back, planting their portable sign wherever refreshment is needed.
Perhaps you have seen the recent footage from Dearborn, Michigan. Black clad muslim demonstraters crowded the streets in a show of absolute power and dominance. I have fond memories of Dearborn. My grandparents lived there. We took tours of the Ford factory, and visited the Ford Rotunda, once one of the major tourist attractions in the Mid-west. I remember Hamtramck, the Polish enclave as well. Now both are under muslim control, and American culture and the Christian faith have been exterminated. Yet I watched some of the footage on Instagram, which is mostly a hive of left wing villainy and scum. Of course the “progressives” cheered the islamic take over. After all, we have freedom of religion, and this’ll show those right-wing Christians who’s boss. One dissident commenter suggested that these people (the muslims) were going to take over, and some muslim replied, “Yes, just the same way you genocided the American Indians.” Of course, the liberal liberals gave this remark dozens of “likes.” After 9/11/2001, a great many Americans made it their business to learn the truth about this vile faith, and what it’s aims were and are. It seems that all of that has been forgotten. This fake “tolerance” for the evil this is islam may well be be the death of Western Civilzation.
JWM
Comment by jwm — July 12, 2025 @ 10:10
I haven’t seen that particular footage, but I’ve seen remarkably similar things from Toronto, Montreal, Paris, Frankfurt, London, and innumerable towns and cities in Europe. The passion among western progressives to “stick it to Dad” over Christian observance and belief is very much pushing against an open door — at least in large urban areas, Christianity is dead or in need of Last Rites. The clergy, to a persyn, have defected to the other side and almost everything they do and say is designed to undermine whatever remaining belief nominal Christians have in their faith.
To borrow that phrase from the Iranians, everyone prefers the strong horse, and that isn’t Christianity any more. Every now and again, someone makes noises about thinking they see the next Great Awakening getting underway, but each time I fail to see the evidence they claim to see.
Comment by Nicholas — July 13, 2025 @ 10:23