Government stoking Muslim tension

Telegraph reported "There is a disproportionate amount of discussion surrounding us," he says. "The air is thick with suspicion and unease. It is not good for the Muslim community, it is not good for society."

What are you doing to improve the situation.

The 53-year-old special needs teacher has a gentle manner and a quiet voice - he describes himself as a "community spokesman" rather than a "religious leader" - but he does not mince his words.

He says he is not a "religious leader" so he probably does not want to be confronted with quotes from the Qur'an.

Britain must, he warns, beware of becoming like Nazi Germany.

Not likely. The German Jews did not do any of the things Hitler accused them of. The Jews did not blow up any buses or subways or trains. They did not say they wanted to convert all of the Christians to Judaism, or subjugate them, or kill them. The Jews did not say that the Torah commanded them to take over the world.

"Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn't lead us to a time when people's minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, and poll after poll says that we are alienated, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable. We are seen as creating problems, not as bringing anything and that is not good for any society."

What are you doing, in your own community to try to change the situation? Robert Spencer suggested five ways To end “Islamophobia,” Muslims should:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
   
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.
   
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
   
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
   
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

There is, in his view, no such thing as Islamic terrorism.

There certainly has been plenty of terrorism by people who say that the Qur'an commands them to do what they are doing.

"Terrorists are terrorists, they may use religion but we shouldn't say Muslim terrorists, it stigmatises the whole community. We never called the IRA Catholic terrorists."

The IRA Catholics never quoted any bible verses ordering what they did. They never quoted a verse from either the Old Testament or the New Testament that said 9:29 Fight those who do not believe in God and the Last Day One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and do not forbid what God and his Messenger the Pope and his Bishops have forbidden — such men as practice not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book [i.e., Christians and Jews] are Protestants – until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled

Dr Bari thinks Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, made the extremists' job easier by giving a bleak picture of the threat on the eve of the Queen's Speech.

"I think it is creating a scare in the community and wider society. It probably helps some people who try to recruit the young to terrorism. Muslim young people are as vulnerable as any others. Under this climate of fear they will begin to feel victimised."

Then, as Robert Spencer suggested, you should:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
   
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.
   
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
   
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
   
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

Little Baby Ginn blogged Britain's march to a National Socialist future will halt the day Muslims assimilate to the culture of the country in which they've chosen to settle. It will also halt when the government and newspapers quit tiptoeing around the whining of these "community leaders" and issue some straight-talking statements.

Until then, the prescription for the U.K. and it's seething minorities is the same: assimilate with all due haste or perhaps you'd be better off elsewhere.

Robert Spencer blogged Nothing really surprising here. When have we ever seen a Muslim leader in the West say, "Yes, we have a serious problem in our community, and it's up to us to clean it up"?

Meryl Yourish blogged And they quote the ever-present Inayat Bunglawala, who is so quick to blame Israel for the problems of the Middle East, and even quicker to bring the conversation around to Jews whenever Muslims are criticized (because the Bible is just like the Koran with its calling for the stoning of adulterers except, gee, name the last time a Jewish or Christian society stoned an adulterer. Now name the last time a Muslim society did the same.