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Thu. Jan 23, 2003

Responding to Open Hate

Responding to Open Hate – Libby Purves pulls together the threads of “this creed of hate” that seems centered in Britain at the Finsbury Park Mosque, home of wandering shoe bombers and ricin chefs: “The other two million British Muslims are appalled and afraid of this stuff. It must make their daily lives and community relationships damnably hard. When Hamza crowed over the twin towers attack, Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council, said sadly: ’For a long time we have felt that we must keep our heads down and let these people bring trouble on themselves. But if we don’t speak out they will do enormous damage to our community.’ Dr Zaki Badawi said: ’In normal times (these people) are just harmless lunatics but in times like these they are extremely dangerous.’ ”

“Even without ricin, they certainly are.”

“Only a tiny minority of asylum-seekers are involved with this toxic nonsense; only a minute sliver of our immigrant population has sympathy with it. Yet our spineless response to diatribes of hate, our pussyfooting round anybody who might call us racist, has enabled that extremism to put on airs of importance, and grow ever more attractive to the disaffected young. It has turned Britain into the headquarters for half-baked Holy Warriors.”

“There are things which could be done now, and which would receive an unprecedently fair wind of opinion [...] we could take as hard a line with Muslim hate-mongers as we do with white supremacists. That would be a good start.”