Chesterton’s Islamic England

William Kilpatrick, writing in Crisis magazine, points out how G.K. Chesterton, writing in a 1914 novel, The Flying Inn, foresaw the Islamization of England, with an insight that now seems positively prophetic:

G.K. Chesterton had a knack for anticipating future trends but when, in his 1914 novel The Flying Inn, he anticipated the Islamization of England, it seemed so far out of the realm of possibility that it was difficult to take it as anything but a flight of fancy.

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Roughly one hundred years later, Chesterton’s scenario no longer seems improbable.  Many observers believe the Islamization of England is just a matter of time.  For example, in her 2006 book Londonistan, Melanie Phillips presents a detailed description of the Islamic “colonization” of England now underway and shows how it is made possible by the governing class’ abandonment of cultural and spiritual values.  Chesterton was remarkably prescient not only in imagining that Islamization might happen, but also in envisioning how it would happen—through the instrumentality of a deracinated governing class.

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