The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease

Osman · **The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-05-2008

Suspicion of the Muslim community has found its way into mainstream society – and nobody seems to care.
By Peter Oborne

Three years ago, four young suicide bombers caused carnage in London. Their aim was not just to kill and maim. There was also a long-term strategic purpose: to sow suspicion and divide Britain between Muslims and the rest. They are succeeding.

In Britain today, there is a deepening distrust between mainstream society and ever more isolated Muslim communities. A culture of contempt and violence is emerging on our streets.

Sarfraz Sarwar is a pillar of the Muslim community in Basildon, Essex. He is constantly abused and attacked, and the prayer centre he used has been burnt to the ground.

Mr Sarwar, who has six children and whose wife is matron of an old people's home, is a patently decent man. His only crime is his religious faith. He and his fellow worshippers now meet in secret to evade detection, and the attacks that would follow.

The first abuse that Mr Sarwar's family suffered was in October 2001 – just after the 9/11 attacks – when pigs' trotters were left outside their door, the walls of their house were covered with graffiti and two front windows were broken.

Since then, the family has suffered many attacks, including a failed fire-bombing. In February, the tyres of Mr Sarwar's new car were slashed; in March his windows were broken again. He has now installed CCTV cameras, replaced his wooden back door with one made of steel and erected higher fences.

An investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme discovered many violent episodes and attacks on Muslims, with very few reported; those that do get almost no publicity.

Last week, Martyn Gilleard, a Nazi sympathiser in East Yorkshire, was jailed for 16 years. Police found four nail bombs, bullets, swords, axes and knives in his flat. Gilleard had been preparing for a war against Muslims. In a note at his flat he had written, "I am sick and tired of hearing nationalists talking of killing Muslims, blowing up mosques and fighting back only to see these acts of resistance fail. The time has come to stop the talking and start to act."

The Gilleard case went all but unreported. Had a Muslim been found with an arsenal of weapons and planning violent assaults, it would have been a far bigger story.

There is a reason for this blindness in the media. The systematic demonisation of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion, that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed.

Why? Britain's Muslim immigrants are mainly poor, isolated and alienated from mainstream society. Many are a different colour. As a community, British Muslims are relatively powerless. There are few Muslim MPs, there has never been a Muslim cabinet minister, no mainstream newspaper is owned by a Muslim and, as far as we are aware, only one national newspaper has a regular Muslim columnist on its comment pages, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of The Independent.

Surveys show Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications of any faith group in the country. This means they are vulnerable, rendering them open to ignorant and hostile commentary from mainstream figures.

Islamophobia – defined in 1997 by the landmark report from the Runnymede Trust as "an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, which results in practices of exclusion and discrimination" – can be encountered in the best circles: among our most famous novelists, among newspaper columnists, and in the Church of England.

Its appeal is wide-ranging. "I am an Islamophobe," the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote in The Independent nearly 10 years ago. "Islamophobia?" the Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle asks rhetorically in the title of a recent speech, "Count me in". Imagine Liddle declaring: "Anti-Semitism? Count me in", or Toynbee claiming she was "an anti-Semite and proud of it".

Anti-Semitism is recognised as an evil, noxious creed, and its adherents are barred from mainstream society and respectable organs of opinion. Not so Islamophobia.

Its practitioners say Islamophobia cannot be regarded as the same as anti-Semitism because the former is hatred of an ideology or a religion, not Muslims themselves. This means there is no social, political or cultural protection for Muslims: as far as the British political, media and literary establishment is concerned the normal rules of engagement are suspended.

"There is a definite urge; don't you have it?", the author Martin Amis told Ginny Dougary of The Times: "The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. Not letting them travel. Deportation; further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or Pakistan. Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children." Here, Amis is doing much more than insulting Muslims. He is using the foul and barbarous language of fascism. Yet his books continue to sell, and his work continues to be celebrated.

And we found the language of Islamophobic columnists such as Toynbee, Liddle, or novelists such as Amis, duplicated by the British National Party and its growing band of supporters.

All over Europe, parties of the far right have been dropping their traditional hostility to minorities such as Jews and homosexuals; in Britain, the BNP has come to realise that anti-Semitism and anti-black campaigning won't work if they are serious about electoral success.

To move to mainstream respectability, they need an issue that allows them to exploit people's fears about immigrants and Britain's ethnic minority communities without being branded racist extremists.

They have found it. Since 9/11, and particularly 7/7, the BNP has gone all out to tap a rich vein of anti-Muslim sentiment. The party's leader, Nick Griffin, has described Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" and has tried to distance himself and the party from its anti-Semitic past. Party members are now rebuked for discussing the Holocaust and told to focus on terrorism, the evils of Islam, and scare stories of Britain becoming an Islamic state.

Griffin's strategy has been inspired by the press. He said: "We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it's the thing they can understand. It's the thing the newspaper editors sell newspapers with."

Last month, we visited Stoke-on-Trent, a BNP heartland with nine BNP councillors, a council second only to Barking and Dagenham in far-right representation. The party has made this progress in large part by mounting a vicious anti-Muslim campaign. Stoke has one of the lowest employment rates in the country since the pottery industry collapsed. The BNP has tried to link this decline to Muslim immigration.

Other campaigns have focused on planning issues over mosques, a flashpoint elsewhere too. The BNP accuses the Labour council of cutting special deals with Muslim groups in exchange for support. Wherever we explored tension between Muslims and the local community we tended to discover the BNP was present, fanning discontent.

Many categories of immigrants and foreigners have been singled out for hatred and opprobrium by mainstream society because they were felt to be threats to British identity. At times, these despised categories have included Catholics, Jews, French and Germans; gays were held to subvert decency and normality until the 1980s, blacks until the 1970s, and Jews for centuries. Now this outcast role has fallen to Muslims. And it is the perception that Muslims receive special treatment that fuels the most resentment. When we investigated clashes at a Muslim dairy in Windsor, we found the perception that police had failed to investigate what seemed to be a racist attack by Asian youths on a local woman played a powerful role in fanning resentments.

But by the same token we believe that Muslims should be given the same protection as other minority groups from insults or ignorant abuse. This protection is not available. Ordinary Muslim families are virtually a silenced minority.

We should all feel ashamed about the way we treat Muslims, in the media, in our politics, and on our streets. We do not treat Muslims with the tolerance, decency and fairness that we often like to boast is the British way. We urgently need to change our public culture.

Peter Oborne's Dispatches film, "It Shouldn't Happen to a Muslim", will be screened on Channel 4 at 8pm on Monday. The pamphlet Muslims Under Siege, by Peter Oborne and James Jones, is published next week by Democratic Audit

Click here to have your say

Source

**Woodrow** · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-05-2008

We need to be more vocal in showing that Islam is not about hate, fear or terrorism. When we stay hidden and quiet, people only see what they think are Muslims. terrorists are as much our enemy as they are an enemy to the rest of the world.

Osman · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-05-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Woodrow

We need to be more vocal in showing that Islam is not about hate, fear or terrorism. When we stay hidden and quiet, people only see what they think are Muslims. terrorists are as much our enemy as they are an enemy to the rest of the world.

I agree.

For more information on the Dispatches programme that airs on Monday, see this thread (Dispatches: It shouldn't happen to a Muslim)

Chuck · 09:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Woodrow

We need to be more vocal in showing that Islam is not about hate, fear or terrorism. When we stay hidden and quiet, people only see what they think are Muslims. terrorists are as much our enemy as they are an enemy to the rest of the world.

Muslims are pretty vocal but it goes unnoticed in media too, even if they became more vocal I doubt much will change. Terrorist you find in every community in times of conflict Tamil Tigers, IRA, etc... General population opposes with some in minority opinion sympathetic to them; similar situation is in muslim population. There will be always people that would exploit these things and find the weakest target. If you search jews and terrorism in the news before the Holocaust you will find similar labels were levied on jewish population at that time in Europe.

OP article mentioned some key points, imo. I think the only solution is that muslims need to be better muslims. They need to define what means to be a muslims and what are Islamic values and where they are missing on these values. It is not just praying five times or moving in and out of mosques, but it also includes good education, business ethics, social responsibility toward their brothers and sisters, staying productive (as opposed to idling) to name few. Being a Muslim is not an easy job -- it is a life of principles, values, and discipline.

**Woodrow** · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-05-2008

Jazakallah Chuck, you are CORRECT.

We have been vocal and it goes unnoticed. It is through our life style and actions we need to show what it means to be Muslim.

Osman · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-05-2008

For those people who say that Muslims aren't vocal enough in condemning terrorism, we should refer them to this page:

http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php

Keltoi · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-05-2008

I think what causes the concern is not the belief that all Muslims are terrorists, but the fact that we don't know who they are or where they will come from. Their only common link is the religion of Islam, as they see it of course. There will be a cloud of suspicion for a long time, that is the result of terrorism, and that is the point of terrorism.

Aaron85 · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-05-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Osman

Three years ago, four young suicide bombers caused carnage in London. Their aim was not just to kill and maim. There was also a long-term strategic purpose: to sow suspicion and divide Britain between Muslims and the rest. They are succeeding.

Yes its true, it would be good if muslims understood that it is fault of such people like London terrorists, not some islamophobic monsters.

The_Prince · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-06-2008

yeah, we need to start standing up for ourselves! and fight back and give it back to these thugs, they slap u, throw bricks at you? slap back, throws bricks and bottles back and watch them run or cry like turds.

i seriously WISH i meet some of these peeps on a street, i always pray for it, but never happens

S1aveofA11ah · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-06-2008

The whole terrorism thing has been blown way out of proportion deliberately to push imperialism. Its been pushed to set into people's minds as the number one topic - the number one issue. The way it is in vogue in recent years one would (perhaps rightly) think it is the biggest threat to the well-being of the human race. It isn't. So keep your suspicions to yourself.

With the same logic (that every Muslim is a potential bomber) every man, women or child I meet in the street could be a potential murderer or rapists etc. For me to suspect and worry about every Tom, Dick and Harry would be stupid - it would be impractical to live life like that.

In Islam there is a tremendous and mighty principle which says (paraphrased) "avoid suspicion for much of it is falsehood".

I will quote, quote and quote again the same UN statistic as much as is needed that says :

"more people die each year from swimming pool related accidents than terrorism"

I'm making a point. No good person loves terrorism. The world has a larger threat - MURDER. A larger threat - POLLUTION and KILLING THE ENVIRONMENT. And the list goes on but lets remember the Islamic saying "Oppression is worse than killing". Look how much oppression is a threat in the world today. Child labour, illegal sex rings, the Palestian holocaust and so on.

Keltoi · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-06-2008

Downplaying terrorism, while it might make sense as a global perspective, doesn't work at the community level. Terrorism is a very disruptive force, both socially and economically. It wasn't all that long ago that British citizens had to worry about the IRA. The terrorists we are talking about today go out of their way to create the most civilian deaths as they possibly can. Usually dealing with mass transportation. It is no wonder that people are a little suspicious.

The British authorities should continue to keep people vigilant about suspicious activity, while emphasizing the fact that the Muslim community is not the enemy. These people have no qualms about killing any innocent Muslim who happens to get in the way either.

Quite a few Muslims died on 9-11 too.

S1aveofA11ah · 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keltoi

Downplaying terrorism, while it might make sense as a global perspective, doesn't work at the community level. Terrorism is a very disruptive force, both socially and economically. It wasn't all that long ago that British citizens had to worry about the IRA. The terrorists we are talking about today go out of their way to create the most civilian deaths as they possibly can. Usually dealing with mass transportation. It is no wonder that people are a little suspicious.

The British authorities should continue to keep people vigilant about suspicious activity, while emphasizing the fact that the Muslim community is not the enemy. These people have no qualms about killing any innocent Muslim who happens to get in the way either.

Quite a few Muslims died on 9-11 too.

In case you may have intended to refer to me - I never at any point downplayed terrorism. I mentioned murders and rapes (which are also forms of terror) but my point was specifically around bombings as contemporay events show and wars as terror campaigns as I go on to explain below.

I am just putting things in their correct perspective and that for example IF a group of 19 people killed 3000 people in the Twin Towers then thousands of innocent people - men, women and babies - should not have been terrorised to death to avenge the matter or to make a point hit home that "we the West will stop terrorism so here we are bombing you people to teach you a lesson that you will benefit from". That will not reduce terrorists it will only breed more hatred which the terrorists thrive upon and hence more terrorism. The world seeks Peace.

Quantitavely the West has, in recent times, terrorised more people than any of the other nations. In the last 200 years the West has killed approximately 0.5 billion people from wars alone - starting from the destruction of the Red Indians in millions and spreading globally.

In fact the man known (in recent times) to have killed the most people was Hitler - a Westerner who murdered around 6 million innocent Jews. Bush/Blair and their aides are of course the new Hitlers.

I don't want to get into a 'my survey is better than yours' arguement but John Pilger in a clip on this forum posted by myself said the most accurate survey put the death toll at 1 million Iraqis!.

Muslim terrorism is painted out to be the biggest current threat to the world. Its in all the headlines across media outlets - its too obvious - I don't have to mention it. Jewish, Christain or other religious terrorists are rarely mentioned and if so sidelined. What kind of word peace will vindicating one religious group achieve?.

Tornado · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-06-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by S1aveofA11ah

Muslim terrorism is painted out to be the biggest current threat to the world. Its in all the headlines across media outlets - its too obvious - I don't have to mention it. Jewish, Christain or other religious terrorists are rarely mentioned and if so sidelined. What kind of word peace will vindicating one religious group achieve?.

I can't think of a Christian, Jewish extremist group that is posing a threat and instilling fear at this point in time.

Fishman · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-06-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tornado

I can't think of a Christian, Jewish extremist group that is posing a threat and instilling fear at this point in time.

Who says threats have to be terror-related?

Quote:

In fact the man known (in recent times) to have killed the most people was Hitler - a Westerner who murdered around 6 million innocent Jews. Bush/Blair and their aides are of course the new Hitlers.

Stalin or Mao killed the most people, not Hitler.

Tornado · **Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease -** 07-06-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fishman

Who says threats have to be terror-related?

? I don't understand.

	(#1 (permalink))
Osman LI Oldskool Status: Offline Posts: 3,446 Reputation: 14676 Rep Power: 44 Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Warrington, England Gender: Way of Life: Muslim	The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease - 07-05-2008 Suspicion of the Muslim community has found its way into mainstream society – and nobody seems to care. By Peter Oborne Three years ago, four young suicide bombers caused carnage in London. Their aim was not just to kill and maim. There was also a long-term strategic purpose: to sow suspicion and divide Britain between Muslims and the rest. They are succeeding. In Britain today, there is a deepening distrust between mainstream society and ever more isolated Muslim communities. A culture of contempt and violence is emerging on our streets. Sarfraz Sarwar is a pillar of the Muslim community in Basildon, Essex. He is constantly abused and attacked, and the prayer centre he used has been burnt to the ground. Mr Sarwar, who has six children and whose wife is matron of an old people's home, is a patently decent man. His only crime is his religious faith. He and his fellow worshippers now meet in secret to evade detection, and the attacks that would follow. The first abuse that Mr Sarwar's family suffered was in October 2001 – just after the 9/11 attacks – when pigs' trotters were left outside their door, the walls of their house were covered with graffiti and two front windows were broken. Since then, the family has suffered many attacks, including a failed fire-bombing. In February, the tyres of Mr Sarwar's new car were slashed; in March his windows were broken again. He has now installed CCTV cameras, replaced his wooden back door with one made of steel and erected higher fences. An investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme discovered many violent episodes and attacks on Muslims, with very few reported; those that do get almost no publicity. Last week, Martyn Gilleard, a Nazi sympathiser in East Yorkshire, was jailed for 16 years. Police found four nail bombs, bullets, swords, axes and knives in his flat. Gilleard had been preparing for a war against Muslims. In a note at his flat he had written, "I am sick and tired of hearing nationalists talking of killing Muslims, blowing up mosques and fighting back only to see these acts of resistance fail. The time has come to stop the talking and start to act." The Gilleard case went all but unreported. Had a Muslim been found with an arsenal of weapons and planning violent assaults, it would have been a far bigger story. There is a reason for this blindness in the media. The systematic demonisation of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion, that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed. Why? Britain's Muslim immigrants are mainly poor, isolated and alienated from mainstream society. Many are a different colour. As a community, British Muslims are relatively powerless. There are few Muslim MPs, there has never been a Muslim cabinet minister, no mainstream newspaper is owned by a Muslim and, as far as we are aware, only one national newspaper has a regular Muslim columnist on its comment pages, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of The Independent. Surveys show Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications of any faith group in the country. This means they are vulnerable, rendering them open to ignorant and hostile commentary from mainstream figures. Islamophobia – defined in 1997 by the landmark report from the Runnymede Trust as "an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, which results in practices of exclusion and discrimination" – can be encountered in the best circles: among our most famous novelists, among newspaper columnists, and in the Church of England. Its appeal is wide-ranging. "I am an Islamophobe," the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote in The Independent nearly 10 years ago. "Islamophobia?" the Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle asks rhetorically in the title of a recent speech, "Count me in". Imagine Liddle declaring: "Anti-Semitism? Count me in", or Toynbee claiming she was "an anti-Semite and proud of it". Anti-Semitism is recognised as an evil, noxious creed, and its adherents are barred from mainstream society and respectable organs of opinion. Not so Islamophobia. Its practitioners say Islamophobia cannot be regarded as the same as anti-Semitism because the former is hatred of an ideology or a religion, not Muslims themselves. This means there is no social, political or cultural protection for Muslims: as far as the British political, media and literary establishment is concerned the normal rules of engagement are suspended. "There is a definite urge; don't you have it?", the author Martin Amis told Ginny Dougary of The Times: "The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. Not letting them travel. Deportation; further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or Pakistan. Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children." Here, Amis is doing much more than insulting Muslims. He is using the foul and barbarous language of fascism. Yet his books continue to sell, and his work continues to be celebrated. And we found the language of Islamophobic columnists such as Toynbee, Liddle, or novelists such as Amis, duplicated by the British National Party and its growing band of supporters. All over Europe, parties of the far right have been dropping their traditional hostility to minorities such as Jews and homosexuals; in Britain, the BNP has come to realise that anti-Semitism and anti-black campaigning won't work if they are serious about electoral success. To move to mainstream respectability, they need an issue that allows them to exploit people's fears about immigrants and Britain's ethnic minority communities without being branded racist extremists. They have found it. Since 9/11, and particularly 7/7, the BNP has gone all out to tap a rich vein of anti-Muslim sentiment. The party's leader, Nick Griffin, has described Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" and has tried to distance himself and the party from its anti-Semitic past. Party members are now rebuked for discussing the Holocaust and told to focus on terrorism, the evils of Islam, and scare stories of Britain becoming an Islamic state. Griffin's strategy has been inspired by the press. He said: "We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it's the thing they can understand. It's the thing the newspaper editors sell newspapers with." Last month, we visited Stoke-on-Trent, a BNP heartland with nine BNP councillors, a council second only to Barking and Dagenham in far-right representation. The party has made this progress in large part by mounting a vicious anti-Muslim campaign. Stoke has one of the lowest employment rates in the country since the pottery industry collapsed. The BNP has tried to link this decline to Muslim immigration. Other campaigns have focused on planning issues over mosques, a flashpoint elsewhere too. The BNP accuses the Labour council of cutting special deals with Muslim groups in exchange for support. Wherever we explored tension between Muslims and the local community we tended to discover the BNP was present, fanning discontent. Many categories of immigrants and foreigners have been singled out for hatred and opprobrium by mainstream society because they were felt to be threats to British identity. At times, these despised categories have included Catholics, Jews, French and Germans; gays were held to subvert decency and normality until the 1980s, blacks until the 1970s, and Jews for centuries. Now this outcast role has fallen to Muslims. And it is the perception that Muslims receive special treatment that fuels the most resentment. When we investigated clashes at a Muslim dairy in Windsor, we found the perception that police had failed to investigate what seemed to be a racist attack by Asian youths on a local woman played a powerful role in fanning resentments. But by the same token we believe that Muslims should be given the same protection as other minority groups from insults or ignorant abuse. This protection is not available. Ordinary Muslim families are virtually a silenced minority. We should all feel ashamed about the way we treat Muslims, in the media, in our politics, and on our streets. We do not treat Muslims with the tolerance, decency and fairness that we often like to boast is the British way. We urgently need to change our public culture. Peter Oborne's Dispatches film, "It Shouldn't Happen to a Muslim", will be screened on Channel 4 at 8pm on Monday. The pamphlet Muslims Under Siege, by Peter Oborne and James Jones, is published next week by Democratic Audit Click here to have your say Source __________________ Shall I inform you of the best morals of this world and the hereafter? They are to forgive he who oppresses you, to make a bond with he who severs from you, to be kind to he who insults you, and to give to he who deprives you. ~ Prophet Muhammad (May Allah bless him and grant him peace)

	(#2 (permalink))
Woodrow Abdullah Muhammad Status: Offline Posts: 10,888 Reputation: 52729 Rep Power: 90 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Minnesota Gender: Way of Life: Muslim	Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease - 07-05-2008 We need to be more vocal in showing that Islam is not about hate, fear or terrorism. When we stay hidden and quiet, people only see what they think are Muslims. terrorists are as much our enemy as they are an enemy to the rest of the world. __________________

	(#5 (permalink))
Woodrow Abdullah Muhammad Status: Offline Posts: 10,888 Reputation: 52729 Rep Power: 90 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Minnesota Gender: Way of Life: Muslim	Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease - 07-05-2008 Jazakallah Chuck, you are CORRECT. We have been vocal and it goes unnoticed. It is through our life style and actions we need to show what it means to be Muslim. __________________

	(#6 (permalink))
Osman LI Oldskool Status: Offline Posts: 3,446 Reputation: 14676 Rep Power: 44 Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Warrington, England Gender: Way of Life: Muslim	Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease - 07-05-2008 For those people who say that Muslims aren't vocal enough in condemning terrorism, we should refer them to this page: http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php __________________ Shall I inform you of the best morals of this world and the hereafter? They are to forgive he who oppresses you, to make a bond with he who severs from you, to be kind to he who insults you, and to give to he who deprives you. ~ Prophet Muhammad (May Allah bless him and grant him peace)

	(#7 (permalink))
Keltoi LI Oldskool Status: Offline Posts: 4,874 Reputation: 7040 Rep Power: 26 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Oklahoma, USA Gender: Way of Life: Christian	Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease - 07-05-2008 I think what causes the concern is not the belief that all Muslims are terrorists, but the fact that we don't know who they are or where they will come from. Their only common link is the religion of Islam, as they see it of course. There will be a cloud of suspicion for a long time, that is the result of terrorism, and that is the point of terrorism. __________________ "Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."

	(#9 (permalink))
The_Prince www.muslim-repsonses Status: Offline Posts: 748 Reputation: 2522 Rep Power: 12 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Mars, where they located the ice, it was my freezer where i keep the fish Gender: Way of Life: Muslim	Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease - 07-06-2008 yeah, we need to start standing up for ourselves! and fight back and give it back to these thugs, they slap u, throw bricks at you? slap back, throws bricks and bottles back and watch them run or cry like turds. i seriously WISH i meet some of these peeps on a street, i always pray for it, but never happens

	(#10 (permalink))
S1aveofA11ah Member Status: Offline Posts: 97 Reputation: 520 Rep Power: 3 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: UK Gender: Way of Life: Muslim	Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease - 07-06-2008 The whole terrorism thing has been blown way out of proportion deliberately to push imperialism. Its been pushed to set into people's minds as the number one topic - the number one issue. The way it is in vogue in recent years one would (perhaps rightly) think it is the biggest threat to the well-being of the human race. It isn't. So keep your suspicions to yourself. With the same logic (that every Muslim is a potential bomber) every man, women or child I meet in the street could be a potential murderer or rapists etc. For me to suspect and worry about every Tom, Dick and Harry would be stupid - it would be impractical to live life like that. In Islam there is a tremendous and mighty principle which says (paraphrased) "avoid suspicion for much of it is falsehood". I will quote, quote and quote again the same UN statistic as much as is needed that says : "more people die each year from swimming pool related accidents than terrorism" I'm making a point. No good person loves terrorism. The world has a larger threat - MURDER. A larger threat - POLLUTION and KILLING THE ENVIRONMENT. And the list goes on but lets remember the Islamic saying "Oppression is worse than killing". Look how much oppression is a threat in the world today. Child labour, illegal sex rings, the Palestian holocaust and so on.

	(#11 (permalink))
Keltoi LI Oldskool Status: Offline Posts: 4,874 Reputation: 7040 Rep Power: 26 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Oklahoma, USA Gender: Way of Life: Christian	Re: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease - 07-06-2008 Downplaying terrorism, while it might make sense as a global perspective, doesn't work at the community level. Terrorism is a very disruptive force, both socially and economically. It wasn't all that long ago that British citizens had to worry about the IRA. The terrorists we are talking about today go out of their way to create the most civilian deaths as they possibly can. Usually dealing with mass transportation. It is no wonder that people are a little suspicious. The British authorities should continue to keep people vigilant about suspicious activity, while emphasizing the fact that the Muslim community is not the enemy. These people have no qualms about killing any innocent Muslim who happens to get in the way either. Quite a few Muslims died on 9-11 too. __________________ "Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."