London bombings and community relations

I am a British Muslim. I believe [the London bombings] will
change the way people see us.  Muslims do not believe in killing.
Islam means peace. The people who have done this, it surly
wasn’t in the name of Islam. I feel we are going to be seen
in a different way after what has happened. But what the people
have to understand is that all Muslims should not be blamed for the
cowardice of this small number of people.

Muslims have also lost their lives in this terrible incident
along with so many other people of different background.

Abdul Kayum
Information Officer
Ability Northants

I feel, it is unfortunate Muslims are having to justify what
Islam stands for and provide explanations regarding the basic
principles within Islam. British Muslims are British and Muslim,
and the Islamophobia in the current climate can only have negative
connotations. I am British and Muslim, I love England, it is my
home, but I also love Islam it is my faith, the nonsense portrayed
within the media regarding Islam declaring war against Western
values is very irresponsible. I feel foreign policy needs to be
closely looked at as the underlying hypocrisy is self evident.
Basic terminology such as “liberating”,
“democracy” and “human rights” is clearly
tokenistic and the oppression experienced by the Muslim world by
the British and US troops is only self evident. I feel very
saddened by the current climate and war in this era.

Nahid Tanveer
Social Worker
Mental Health Team for Older Adults   

Unfortunately, in recent years the majority of the tabloid
British press and sections of the broadcast media have projected to
the British public some very simplistic ideas about Muslims and
international terrorism. These feature an over-emphasis on the
religious aspects of some extremists in the Middle East and a lack
of much searching political analysis (only programmes like “The
Politics of Fear” which was broadcast in the spring presented such
analysis).

The simplistic, non-analytical representation, combined with
campaigns by newspapers like the Daily Mail to make asylum seekers
and refugees into “aliens” needing expulsion from our country, has
resulted in a climate of anxiety for British Asians. It is hardly
surprising that, at the very least, the latent racism present in
millions of British citizens leaks out at times like this. The fear
which most British Muslims have of being harassed, abused and even
attacked is shared by other British Asians who stand a high chance
of being mistaken as a Muslims by some very culturally ignorant
British citizens looking for easy scapegoats. The interview Gavin
Essler undertook with both George Galloway and a CIA agent on 8th
July illustrates my point ably in that they both indicated the
action of the invasion of Iraq by USA, Britain and some other
allies was a much more significant recruitment generator for
extremist groups than hatred of the Democratic Western way of
life.

It is the failure of much of our population to understand just
how badly this has been received around the Muslim world that lies
at the heart of the problem. Matched with the aforementioned
simplistic media outlook I do fear that British Asians are in for a
hard time from some elements of society. Perhaps that is why many
Hindus and Sikhs have started to represent themselves as British
Hindus and British Sikhs to distance themselves from the Muslim
community? This reaction post 9/11 worries me.

Neil Sanyal
Senior Practitioner/Approved Social Worker
Test Valley South