LOUISIANA governor Bobby Jindal has said there are 'no-go' areas in Britain where those who are not Muslim do not feel safe.
In a speech to the Henry Jackson Society, in London, on Monday (January 19), the Indian-American Republican governor said "radical Islam is a threat to our way of life".
His remarks follow similar comments made by a US pundit on terrorism who told Fox News last week that Britain's second largest city, Birmingham, was "totally Muslim".
"In Britain, it's not just no-go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in," Steve Emerson said.
Emerson apologised for his comments, but Jindal insisted that 'the huge issue, the big issue in non-assimilation is the fact that you have people that want to come to our country but not adopt our values, not adopt our language and in some cases want to set apart their own enclaves and hold onto their own values.
"I think that's dangerous," the governor, who is apparently considering running for the White House, told CNN in London.
"I knew that by speaking the truth we were going to make people upset."
In his speech, Jindal said his parents came to the US from India four decades ago to become Americans, not Indian-Americans.
He invoked his ethnic heritage to make a call for immigrant assimilation and described people who talked about skin pigmentation as the "most dim-witted lot" around.
"My parents came in search of the American dream, and they caught it. To them, America was not so much a place, it was an idea. My dad and mom told my brother and me that we came to America to be Americans. Not Indian-Americans, simply Americans," Jindal said.
"If we wanted to be Indians, we would have stayed in India. It's not that they are embarrassed to be from India, they love India. But they came to America because they were looking for greater opportunity and freedom," Jindal said, explaining the reason why he does not like to be called or described as an Indian-American.
"I do not believe in hyphenated Americans. This view gets me into some trouble with the media back home. They like to refer to Indian-Americans, Irish-Americans, African-Americans,
Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and all the rest. To be clear – I am not suggesting for one second that people should be shy or embarrassed about their ethnic heritage,' he said.
"I am explicitly saying that it is completely reasonable for nations to discriminate between allowing people into their country who want to embrace their culture, or allowing people
into their country who want to destroy their culture, or establish a separate culture within," he said.
"It is completely reasonable and even necessary for a sovereign nation to discriminate between people who want to join them and people who want to divide them. And immigration
policy should have nothing at all to do with the colour of anyone's skin. I find people who care about skin pigmentation to be the most dim-witted lot around. I want nothing to do
with that," he said.
"The first step for America, and for any nation that wants to protect its own freedom and encourage it everywhere is to have a strong economy. When the United States became a
major economic power at the end of the 19th century, it had the means to become a major military power and to become a leader in the free world," Jindal said.
The governor said the first tenet of American foreign policy must always be freedom, and the relentless pursuit of freedom for our people, and for all people, regardless of
race, creed, religion, ethnicity, or any other artificial divisions, which humans use to divide one from another.
"America must always be a beacon of freedom throughout the world. I'm not naive enough to suggest that the entire world will ever be free, but I'm also completely opposed to
ever giving up on the notion that all people everywhere in the world deserve and desire to be free," he said.
"The next principle is of course security. America must and will pay any price to defend itself and to defend its allies. No two countries are the same, but those countries
that value freedom and democracy and civility and decency must band together, and must defend each other," he said.
"Those countries that desire security and harbour no ill-will toward their neighbours must stick together in an increasingly dangerous world. The third principle that is
crucial is truth. We must speak the truth, to each other, and to our own countrymen," he said.
"When a country or a movement is behaving badly on the international stage, we must not pretend otherwise. You cannot remedy a problem if you will not name it and define it. One of
the most prominent examples in our day is ISIS and all forms of radical Islam. These people have no legitimate claim, they have no justification for their cowardly, barbaric, and
inhuman behaviour, and we must not pretend otherwise," Jindal said.
