Blair lays down law to Muslims on extremists in their midst
Tony Blair yesterday subtly moved the blame for his governments failure to implement measures to tackle extremism in the Muslim community (promised after the London bombings a year ago) back on to the Muslim community itself.
Leaving aside Mr Blair's rather comical notion that the Arab world have a "completely false sense of grievance against the West", I can remember no similar demands being made on Northern Ireland's Catholic population during the days when we endured IRA bombings.Tony Blair denied that ministers were stalling and appealed to the moderate majority of Muslims to take on extremists.
He said: "The Government has its role to play in this but, honestly, the Government itself is not going to defeat this. If we want to defeat the extremism, we have got to defeat its ideas and we have got to address the completely false sense of grievance against the West."
He added: "I am not the person to go into the Muslim community and explain that this extreme view is not the true face of Islam. I profoundly disagree that the problem here is that the Government hasn't acted."
Indeed, the very phrase "Islamic terrorists" enjoyed no "Catholic terrorist" counterpart. The phrase was simply never thought of. To push the crimes of a few on to the shoulders of all followers of a certain religion is a very new concept.
The simple truth here is that the Muslim community produced a report that even David Blunkett thinks is a good idea and that government have failed to implement it.
They are allowing it to gather dust on a shelf as the first anniversary of 7-7 approaches.
For Blair to attempt to blame the Muslim community itself for his lack of action is simply disgraceful. For him to simply dismiss the historical grievances of the community against the policies of the west in the Middle East as "completely false" implies that he probably has no idea what those grievances actually are.
However, the last time Blair touched upon this subject at Georgetown University he himself amply demonstrated that he understood one of the main reasons that Muslims feel aggrieved with the West.
They would be hugely empowered and encouraged if we were able to offer hope on Israel and Palestine. At so many levels, this is critical: for ordinary Israelis and Palestinians, of course, who suffer the depredations of the conflict. But far wider than that, this is a dispute which casts a shadow over all attempts at reconciliation.Although he doesn't directly say it, the implication here is clear. US knee jerk support for every Israeli action, both legal and illegal, towards the occupied people of Palestine inflames Muslim opinion and acts as a recruiting post for terrorists.
Under its cover, global terrorism recruits.
Because of its darkness, moderate Muslim opinion is put on the defensive. And shut out is any enlightened sensible view of what we in the West really stand for and believe in.
So Blair has to ignore his own logic to push the blame for this back towards the Muslim community.
Britain's Muslim community have come up with sensible suggestions to tackle extremism within their community. Blair should stop the blame game and urgently implement them.
What Muslims proposed... and what the Government did
* Recommendation: Hold a public inquiry into the "what, how and why of 7/7 and 21/7, "including an inquiry into the root causes".
Response: Ministers have repeatedly ruled out a public inquiry into the attacks. An internal Home Office narrative of events leading up to the attacks was published earlier this year.
* Recommendation: Establish a rebuttal unit at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to "encourage a more balanced representation of Islam and Muslims in the British media, popular culture and creative industries".
Response: No unit has so far been established.
* Recommendation: Establish a steering group at the Department for Education and Skills chaired by a minister and including participation from the Muslim community and other experts to "draw up a strategy on combating Islamophobia in education".
Response: The Education Department said it had work in hand on combating Islamophobia and said concerns about the national curriculum would be addressed in a review to be published in December.
* Recommendation: Establish a British Muslim "citizenship toolkit" to help student societies, mosques, imams and parents combat "violent fanatic tendencies".
Response: The Labour MP Sadiq Khan said yesterday there had been no progress.
* Recommendation: Set up an "Islam Online" website as a one-stop shop for young British Muslims.
Response: The Muslim Council of Britain's Inayat Bunglawala, convenor of a working group to combat extremism and radicalisation, said he was still waiting for a response to a formal proposal two months after it was submitted to the Home Office.
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