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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