In an incredible case of missing the point, MPs took Tony Blair to task for not doing enough to “win the hearts and minds” of British Muslims after, the Guardian reports, a Times poll revealed that 13 percent of Muslims there think of the 7/7 bombers as martyrs and 16 percent think the attacks were wrong but the cause was right — cause? what cause? — while another poll found that 6 percent of young Muslims thought the bombings were justified.
And it’s up to Tony Blair to win their hearts and minds? How about it’s up to their parents and clergy to teach them civility and law.
“The government can’t defeat this alone. You’ve got to defeat the ideas, and the completely false sense of grievance against the west,” Mr Blair told MPs.
“You can’t defeat the ideology of extremist Islam by saying we half agree with your grievances but you’re wrong to deal with it that way – you have to defeat it entirely.
“It’s a global movement with an ideology, not a British movement. There’s a reason why people are being picked up in Canada, why people were picked up in Spain even after the troops were withdrawn.”
Mr Blair insisted that preventing terrorism was not just down to the government, but was also the responsibility of community leaders.
Amen to that.
: In a commentary in The Times of London former candidate for Parliament Ali Miraj writes:
British Muslims must share responsibility for confronting and destroying the cancer in their midst. Both Muslims (56 per cent) and non-Muslims (49 per cent) feel that the Government is not doing enough to combat extremism in the Muslim community.
While I agree that the Government has been ineffectual in its response to the Abu Hamzas and Omar Bakris, it is imperative that Muslims reverse the victim mentality that has gripped them. It is this that allows extremism to fester.
More than 80 per cent of those polled feel it is unacceptable for the police to view Muslims with greater suspicion on the ground that the 7/7 bombers shared their faith. But what do British Muslims expect? I would rather be stopped and searched to prevent a terrorist attack than not on the ground of political correctness.
