Why we're not ready to tackle anything just yet (From Asian Image)

Why we're not ready to tackle anything just yet

9:46am Thursday 3rd July 2008 in

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A confusing yet incoherent plan of action would be the best way to describe the government's approach to tackling terrorism.

It has meandered from one strategy to another in hope more than anything else.

Post 7/7 there has been concerted effort to look at the causes terrorism. Why do young British Muslim feel the need to and are drawn to an ideology that simply is criminal in every way you look at it?

Almost a day does not go by when we hear of another trial telling us of the plans of a group of sick and twisted individuals.

The average man on the street must actually think that Britian is a breeding ground for international terrorists out to kill and maim as many people as possible. Fear of these bearded men and hijab-wearing women has been hammered into the national conscious.

Words such as integration, citizenship, alienation, disillusionment continue to be thrown-up whenever one pens an article about the reasons for this 'extremist threat.

But none of these issues are of real concern to anyone.

The changes admittedly are only going to come from within the community. The plain truth of the matter is and as this publication said post 7/7 that we as a Muslim community need to address the levels of ignorance within our community.

That is not to say that the community in some way is in denial about extremism. Moreover, tackling extremism was always at the forefront of some people's minds pre 9/11.

There was always an element of individuals who always felt the need to hammer home the fact that Muslims were being killed across the world and the blame lay with non-Muslims.

One must admit that there are elements, be that a small minority, within the community who simply do not believe that extremism is a threat at all. That the charges brought against many young British Muslim men have been falsified or engineered in some way. That the more you say there is extremism....the more we will say it is only anti-Muslim rhetoric.

To say this is not controversial but evidence is apparent in conversations with particular people. Something the government has failed over and over again to do. If you want to know what young people are thinking you speak to local organisations or even better the young people themselves.

Young British Muslims have become an untouchable cast but have the authorities made a realistic effort to reach out to them? The answer is sadly no'.

We have found that the authorities continue to reply upon the misconceptions of Muslims of ten years ago and they use the same avenues they did many years ago.

History has shown that rarely did ideas change by battering them down with a hammer.

What we have now is a Muslim community in all it's forms unable to express itself in fear of being labelled.

The revelations that the police are to 'map' specific Muslim areas is another effort to try to find answers against this invisible enemy.' This will eventually be seen as another encroachment on the community's ability to police itself. What we have developing in this nation is a Muslim community becoming more and more insular and afraid to say exactly what is on their mind.

The police for all their efforts are as confused and ill-informed about what the extremist threat is. It is not entirely their fault. The policy makers continue to treat the Muslim community as they did way before 9/11.

There is a general view of what Muslims think like and what their opinions are. What offends them and what doesn't. What they read and what they don't. What organisations are 'safe' and which are not.

These views should have been discounted and scrapped many years ago. And it shouldn't take this writer to have to point this obvious fact out to policy-makers.

If you want to tackle extremism at it's heart it's not just enforcing new laws and regulations but also listening to what ordinary Muslims are saying.

But doing so might require a certain change in attitudes and it seems we as a nation are not entirely prepared for that just yet.