Posted on 09/09/2006 5:41:16 PM PDT by Pikamax
Britain could face the threat of two million home-grown Islamic terrorists, says a senior Muslim leader.
Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, fears that continued negative attitudes towards people of his faith could provoke a vast and angry backlash.
"There are a few bad apples in the Muslim community who are doing terrible acts and we want to root them out," Dr Bari told The Sunday Telegraph.
"But some police officers and sections of the media are demonising Muslims, treating them as if they're all terrorists — and that encourages other people to do the same.
"If that demonisation continues, then Britain will have to deal with two million Muslim terrorists — 700,000 of them in London," he said. "If you attack a whole community, it becomes despondent and aggressive."
Mr Bari was speaking at the East London Mosque, where he is chairman, after a month-long tour of Britain's Muslim communities, during which he said he picked up a mood of "anxiety, frustration and, especially among young people, anger".
His comments come days after Peter Clarke, the head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch, said "thousands" of British Muslims were being watched by police and MI5 over suspected terrorist links.
Dr Bari, 52, who has succeeded Sir Iqbal Sacranie as the head of the council, said: "We want to isolate the bad people and put them in the dock. But we all have to work together to do that — police, politicians, the media and the Muslim community."
He did not understand why "the whole of our diverse community" was being targeted. "When the IRA was blowing people up, the entire Catholic population of Britain was not demonised, so why is it happening to the Muslim community?"
The council leader — who took his post two days before a police raid in east London, in which a Muslim man was shot but no charges were brought — said the media had contributed to the demonisation by concentrating on a few extremists and ignoring the law-abiding majority.
He said it was "ridiculous" that moderate Muslims had been accused of not speaking out. "When we speak we are ignored by the media, but when Abu Hamza or Omar Bakri Mohammed say something they are all over the papers."
Mr Bari, a former air force engineer in Bangladesh and now a special needs teacher in east London, said Islamophobia had increased after 9/11, 7/7, last month's arrests over the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic aircraft, and the raids last weekend on an Islamic school in East Sussex and a London restaurant. Seventeen people have been charged over the alleged plot and 14 were arrested in last weekend's raids.
Mr Bari criticised calls for security profiling at airports based on ethnicity or religion, saying this "reinforces a negative stereotype". Meanwhile, moderate Muslim anger has been directed at Government policy. Last month, leading Muslims wrote to Tony Blair saying his policy in Iraq and on Israel offered "ammunition to extremists" and put British lives "at increased risk".
Mr Bari, a married father-of four, rejected claims that mosques encouraged the rise of home-grown terrorists, but admitted that they needed "modernising" and he was concerned that many imams did not speak English.
"Some young Muslims are out of control. They are barred from the mosques and ignore their parents."
The more established Muslim communities, such as those from east Africa, were integrating well, but the relatively new communities were struggling with poverty and poor academic achievement. "They need help," he said. "Integration is a two-way process and the dominant, majority culture has to do more."
Islamophobia was also making it hard for Muslims to rise to senior jobs, and unemployment among Muslims was far higher than the national average.
He called for more Muslim representation in the police force, Parliament and other areas of public life. "Young Muslims need role models to show them they can play a part in British society."
I, for one do not possess Islamophobia - it is, rather, Islamoloathia.
By constantly reporting about acts of terrorism they are contributing to the rise of Islamophobia.
Can't Muslims ever take responsibility for anything? I've tired of trying to deal with them with reason. The left and Islamic radicals have proven they are incapable of reason.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Reason and truth are not possessed by liberals OR muslims. There are two kinds of apples in the muslim barrel, bad and totally rotten. All should be deported from the "store" by the most expedient means available.
So true. If the many acts of islamo-facism weren't reported by the media, people wouldn't be so worried about it.
So is the media also responsible for the other rational fears that people have.
By the way, "phobia" should always be challenged as it applies here with, "Excuse me, but phobia relates to irrational fears. There is nothing irrational about suspecting Muslims in relation to terrorism."
At least you don't have Islamophilia!!
It's a cult of death and victim hood.
Islamic clerics promote isolationism and radical elements....
The segregate themselves in society on their own volition...
They are mostly silent to condemn radical acts....
What do they expect?
Oh I'd say the slaves of satanallah are doing most of the work themselves!
Yes they are...but we'll overcome...
I'd believe it, except that it implies that they're doing their job for a change.
and you forgot those "Sudden Jihadis" -- the lone jihadis...and etc.
700,000 of them in London ??
Holy sh1t, is Britain ever in trouble down the road.
Phobia ?? Facts are facts. You can have a phobia about snakes but, the fact is, some snakes are poisonous and Momma Nature is entirely correct to build into our genes a wariness of snakes.
Oh, don't be sillia!
"If you don't stop calling us terrorists, we will become terrorists."
"Behead those who call Islam violent."
These clowns have no idea how absurd they are.
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