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."
Yep.
Dr Bari doesn't fool me. I know there are no moderate moslems because there is no moderate koran. No, Dr Bari does not fool me. I don't believe a word he says.
Why aren't the Muslims fighting thier own kind.....Silence and speaks volumes...
Yeah! Right! Tell me another one! I love a joke!
</sarcasm>
I certainly believe the part where he threatens that they will all be terrorists if everyone doesn't place nice with them. Other than that, he is pretty much FOS.
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.
Check this out: Paintball imams spread militancy
Down the road … they are already in deep doo doo.
So he's admitting that they are terrorists.
"Islamophobia" suggests it is unhealthy to be leary of those who want to kill you.
(Kind of like "homophobia" suggests it isn't healthy to distrust perverts.)
Talk about perverting language for your agenda.
Doesn't "Phobia" mean a fear of?
I'm not afraid of muslims, I have a healthy fear of anyone. I just don't want any rag-heads in our country. Is that asking too much, to not want killers in our country?
2 million muslims in Britain. Isn't that just special.
And before ya know it, it's 4 million!
It's about time the media did something right.
"Britain could face the threat of two million home-grown Islamic terrorists, says a senior Muslim leader."
I believe him wholeheartedly. What's the solution? Cave in to some idiots demands? I think the British have spent too many centuries developing their constitutional democracy to listen to some Muslim "holy man".
Islamophobia is another name for realism.
The voice of "moderate" Islam.
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