Ages ago - before I could do THIS - I wrote in admiration of Baroness Warsi who seems to have upset a lot of people lately by branding Brits Islamophiobic bigots.
She said :
"Indeed, it seems to me that Islamophobia has now crossed the threshold of middle class respectability.
For far too many people, Islamophobia is seen as a legitimate – even commendable – thing. You could even say that Islamophobia has now passed the dinner-table-test.
The drip feeding of fear fuels a rising tide of prejudice. So when people get on the tube and see a bearded Muslim, they think “terrorist” …when they hear “Halal” they think “that sounds like contaminated food”…and when they walk past a woman wearing a veil, they think automatically “that woman’s oppressed”. And what’s particularly worrying is that this can lead down the slippery slope to violence.
We need to think harder about the language we use. And we should be careful about language around religious “moderates”. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. It’s not a big leap of imagination to predict where the talk of “moderate” Muslims leads: In the factory, where they’ve just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: “not to worry, he’s only fairly Muslim”. In the school, the kids say “the family next door are Muslim but they’re not too bad”. And in the road, as a woman walks past wearing a Burkha, the passers-by think: “that woman’s either oppressed or making a political statement”.
I don't recall any of the above fears and prejudices in the UK until Bush and Bliar waged war for oil in the Middle East. The guilt at anti-Muslim feeling should be laid squarely at their feet.
Their war - that still entangles us - brought with it a wave of asylum seekers from war torn countries with vastly different cultures. They came too many and too fast to the UK. It caused insecurity, fear and conflict in big and small communities - some of which changed more in a decade than in half a century.
Unrestricted EU migration compounded the problem and the anger that began to build bit by bit.
Anyone who complained like Gillian Duffy were branded as racists. That's when rage came because the British people are, by nature, a tolerant people and they feel misjudged.
I don't believe that the British white or otherwise cause racism as Warsi suggests. Those who believe in Islam and integrate with white, Black or Asian neighbours are not seen as an enemy. I find people mostly wary of those that the Govt has told us to be wary of.
And then there are those who add insult to injury and bring the Muslim community down with them like Shaykh Asrar Rashid.:
"A RADICAL cleric sparked fury yesterday by branding the Queen a “disgusting woman” and slamming British Muslims who join the Army.
Ranting Shaykh Asrar Rashid also suggested white people were the main cause of racism.
The controversial imam, who preaches in mosques in Birmingham, told radio listeners the Queen was a “disgusting woman because she knighted Salman Rushdie”."
There's simply only so much people can take. To some of us(relatively) white British, his comments about Her Maj are shocking and akin to saying something blasphemous about Mohammed.
I do believe there is a fear of Muslim culture among Brits which is provoked by people like Rashid who use Islam for their own medieval purposes. Baroness Warsi and the wider Muslim community must find a way of bringing these people under control because British patience is simply wearing thin with it all.
I'm encouraged by this response to his appalling comments though :
A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said Rashid’s comments on the Queen were “disrespectful” and “disgusting”.
He added: “As Muslims we are ready to show respect to leaders.
“We may disagree with some of the things she might do and say but that does not give us the right to be insulting to her.
“Theologically speaking, there is nothing that prevents a Muslim joining the British Army. To date there are 350 serving Muslim officers, men and women, in the Army.”
Those of us who are British despite our colour, ethnicity, background, or religion, are in this war together. We are not Islamophobic - we are Fundamentaphobic. We generally hate extremism of any kind no matter what the issue. We respect other cultures and simply ask for the same respect and consideration.
We don't take kindly to insults to our head of state, or our forces when our children are being killed in the same war that is killing Muslims as well - the one that we all agree we didn't want.
.
It's time we were out of Iraq and Afghanistan and the radical nutters who bite the hands that save them here should be kicked out of the UK - but we should never smear all Muslims with their bile. They don't all hate us nor want to force their culture upon us and Brits should be free to resist if a clash of cultures causes us to go against our own rules, laws and moral boundaries.