Britain's Muslims Take Tough Line on Militants [UK Muslim elected to Parliment takes a hard line]

The NY Times ^ | Aug 11, 2005 | HASSAN M. FATTAH

[summer]

Shahid Malik, the lone British-born Muslim in Parliament, tells Muslims in Britain, "The extremism in our community is now our problem."

DEWSBURY, England - The 100 or so Muslim community leaders who gathered recently at the Taleem Community Center in this northern town no doubt knew Shahid Malik - one of the country's four Muslim members of Parliament - would take a strong line....Mr. Malik, who represents Dewsbury in Parliament and is the only British-born Muslim in Parliament, had come to tell Muslims at mosques and community centers here of the harsh new reality they faced.

"The extremism in our community," he told the Taleem audience, "is now our problem."

After the July 7 bombings and the attempts two weeks later, Muslim leaders in Britain are taking a harshly critical position against long-entrenched militant Islamists.

Many leaders want the police to deal with the agitators and pamphleteers, who were kicked out of mosques long ago but who nonetheless have legal rights to continue to spread their views....

As he makes his rounds in Parliament, on Downing Street and in Dewsbury, Mr. Malik is honing the image of a modern leader for the Muslim population, someone who looks and feels every bit English, is keenly tied to Muslim roots, but will no longer tolerate those with militant views speaking for Muslims....

"I can assure you that some measures will come in that may make things difficult for Muslims," Mr. Malik told the community leaders late one evening. "But I keep telling Muslims, 'Why are you worried? The extremists are the people who have done us more damage than any white supremacist could ever do.' "

[AmishDude]

He might be one of those "Muslims" that has a taste for wine and occasionally has bacon for breakfast. I knew a lot of these in college. But they can't leave or really even lapse or...well, you know...

[NY Attitude]

He will probably have a price on his head soon.

[sageb1]

http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=11637&TagID=2

Tony Blair's crackdown on extremism in Britain has already started to unravel amid a storm of protest from moderate Muslim groups and MPs.

Less than a day after he unveiled his sweeping 12-point anti-terror proposals, there was evidence of serious internal divisions over key elements. The Prime Minister said he was ready to amend the Human Rights Act in order to enable the deportation of foreign nationals who come to the UK to foment terrorism.

He also named two radical groups ­ Hizb ut-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun ­ which are to be banned, and said he would consult on new powers to close mosques, bookshops and websites that are used to promote the terrorist cause.

But Muslim parliamentarians warned that the measures risked fuelling extremism. Shahid Malik, the MP for Dewsbury, said he was concerned that Mr Blair's proposal to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir would prove counter-productive. " It's going to be very difficult to ban because you are trying to ban an idea. We need to defeat that idea by argument. People are going to ask: why not ban the BNP?"

[Edit35]

"The extremism in our community," he told the Taleem audience, "is now our problem."

Big whoop. Tell me something I don't already know, Mr. Maliik(sp?).

I won't be impressed until a Muslim, any Muslim, comes foreward with information the authorities can use to root out and capture an embedded terrorist cell already in the UK.

In other words, talk is cheap. I'd want to see action before I would offer any compliments.

[Winniesboy]

Shahid Malik has been getting a lot of media exposure in the UK in recent months, saying very much the sort of thing reported in this article. He seems impressive, and if nothing else is probably due for a rapid rise in the Labour Party.