[Mb-civic] Muslims must do more than condemn terrorism >By Shahid Malik

[Michael Butler]

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Muslims must do more than condemn terrorism
>By Shahid Malik
>Published: July 14 2005 22:33 | Last updated: July 14 2005 22:33
>>

E-mail your questions on how the Muslim community should tackle radicals to
Shahid Malik at ask at ft.com. His answers will appear on FT.com on Wednesday,
July 20

At 12pm , along with millions of other Britons, I stood to observe two
minutes of silence in memory of those killed in last week¹s London bombings.
Poignantly, in my constituency of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, I observed the
moment with some of my constituents outside the home of one of the suspected
suicide bombers, reflecting on the horror and loss of life that resulted
from the evil act he is presumed to have perpetrated. We wanted to send out
a message of defiance to those who inflame discord and incite hatred in our
communities: that their actions, rather than divide us, have served to unite
us.

In reflecting on the events of the past week, I am profoundly aware that the
British Muslim community now faces its most difficult and profound challenge
yet. We have reached a dangerous crossroads, and the direction we choose
will prove to be a defining moment in our history.

The knowledge that the bombers were British Muslims, living what were, to
all appearances, respectable and unremarkable lives, has sent us a signal we
can no longer ignore, that there is indeed an ³enemy within². The battle for
the soul of the community has begun.

The stakes are high and the choice is stark: either we confront the voices
of evil, or we sit back and allow wider British society to regard us as a
community that condones such evil.

We must accept that the poisonous preachers of violence and hatred in the
name of Islam, few in number though they may be, have to be halted in their
actions. This means ending their access to, and their manipulation of,
impressionable and vulnerable young men.

We Muslims must overcome our fear that criticising radicals in our midst
gives ammunition to the far-right. In the past we have pretended not to see
or hear the fanatical fringe who hang about outside our mosques, because of
a genuinely held belief that their vile rhetoric could never manifest itself
in action such as that which led to the carnage in London. But we can ignore
them no longer. Their hate-filled rantings have now fuelled acts of hatred,
with devastating consequences for innocent victims.

I have frequently, along with other Muslim community leaders, been called
upon to condemn the extremists; often to my frustration, such words seemed
to fall on deaf ears. How often, I asked myself, must we as a community be
called upon to dissociate ourselves publicly from the words and deeds of a
tiny, unrepresentative minority? What did we have to do to convince the
British public that these people did not speak for Islam or for Muslims?

Yet despite my occasional frustration, I have voiced such condemnation:
challenging the poison of Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed and al-Muhajiroun, his
radical Islamist group, as I have challenged the poison of Nick Griffin and
the fascist British National Party that he leads. I have made clear that
there is no place for extremism of any sort in British society. But I
believe the time has come when words of condemnation are no longer enough.

In the House of Commons last Wednesday, I was conscious of taking a gamble
by calling on Tony Blair, the British prime minister, to help Muslims deal
with the issue of extremists within our midst. Some would no doubt say that,
in doing so, we are accepting some degree of culpability for the evil we
have spawned.

And yes, I did fear a backlash from irate Muslims ­ but, in reality, I have
been inundated with messages of support from all over the country, including
from West Yorkshire where the suspected bombers lived. The Muslim community
now realises it must unite in taking an unequivocal stance: we must confront
as well as condemn.

We know what drives these young men: the feelings of isolation and
disaffection, the political anger at what they see as the double standards
of the west in relation to international Muslim areas of conflict, whether
that be Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq or Chechnya, and, the hatred
propagated by domestic extremists such as the BNP. But none of this can ever
justify or excuse terrible criminal acts such as we witnessed last week, and
we must make this clear to our fellow Muslims in our words and deeds over
the forthcoming weeks and months.

This will not be an easy pill for the Muslim community to swallow. I have
already come to the conclusion that in the short term there will be much
discomfort and occasional pain, but now, standing at the crossroads, there
is only one path we can take.
>
>The writer is MP for Dewsbury. Readers are invited to submit questions to him
by clicking here
>
>
>
 
 
 
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