Little has changed in the past ten years when it comes to how Muslims are perceived.

We are either extremist, moderate or sell outs. And regardless of how we see ourselves this is exactly how things are going to remain.

We have people who will be deemed ‘radical’ because a section of Muslims simply do not want us to integrate.

This harks back to the time of our forefathers when integration or taking up of any of the customs of the host country was seen as ‘haram’.

Many of us have moved on from this but I would go as far to say there are a section who have remained steadfast in this belief.

And this belief is taught in mosques up and down the country.

In the past this was blamed on culture but now you can’t do that now. Because those who look to spread ‘radical beliefs’ have no sense of South Asian culture in them. They are more British than..well..the British.

How do you challenge someone who says they believe only of God’s law? You can’t.

The big problem the government also has is that there are people who want to see the west fail.

This is the hard fact we are facing. In public in recent weeks we have had our fair share of Muslims come out and condemn IS. Muslims are not all one homogeneous group and you have sections who privately will want to see the west fail as it failed before.

Sadly, we can’t escape this truth. Does this make them radical or extreme? Talk to them and they will say they would rather see allied soldiers suffer than a civilian Muslim.

There has been this outpouring of hatred against the IS but deep down the belief is that the Western powers are reaping what they sow.

They won’t see themselves as extreme but you might well do.

The other major problem with a lot of government policy makers is that they simply do not have the people at grassroots telling them these hard facts.

Soon enough we will have the next set of government officials backed by the same faces looking to ‘challenge extremism’. But you know full well that they are unlikely to challenge anything because most of them have little idea of what people are actually thinking.

Anyway they will be deemed the ‘sell outs’ because they aim to partake in government initiatives against ‘extremism’.

Some see them as doing their duty for the country whilst others see them as simply trying to get themselves a little publicity, furthering their careers and massaging their own ego’s.

And that is one thing we Muslims hate more than anything else. We hate self-elected experts trying to tell the rest of us how radical or how British we are.

And then you have the moderates. The ones everyone wants to talk to but really doesn’t care about.

Yes, we like non-Muslims to think us as moderates but truthfully we don’t want to be labelled this in front of other Muslims.

The problem with moderate Muslims is that as soon as they shift their stance a little they get dumped into either one of the other two brackets.

And so the cycle continues.