Editorial: It's time for Muslims to take a stand

Opinion

In the aftermath of the London bombings, Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is to talk to the country's Muslim leaders about combating what he terms "the poisonous and perverted misinterpretation of the religion of Islam". His ambition is to mobilise the moderate opinion of the general Muslim populace against violent fundamentalism.

It is an appropriate response, one with a record of success against the gunmen of the Irish Republican Army, who eventually withered on the vine of isolation. But the strategy will succeed only if it enjoys the unalloyed backing of the leaders of the Muslim community.

This is a time of soul-searching for the vast majority of Britain's 1.6 million Muslims. The fact that the London bombings were the work of home-grown men of Pakistani origin has cast an unwanted spotlight on them, and their place in the nation's social fabric. It invites discussion, for example, of the way in which Muslims, in general, have not fully integrated into society. They have their own schools, enjoy a privileged relationship with the police, and retain particularly close ties with their countries of origin. If children are perceived as becoming too "westernised", their parents may send them to a madrassa, an Islamic religious school. Shehzad Tanweer, one of the bombers, attended just such an institution in Pakistan a few months ago.

If the Muslim community's attitude to Britain and British society has been equivocal, so, too, has its leaders' response to terrorism. Their reaction to previous outrages has amounted to nothing more than general condemnation of the extremists. Some moderates clearly fear losing the support of young Muslims. That, however, can never be an excuse for failing to speak out. Or for the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain even now seeking to deflect blame by blaming the media for fanning the flames of intolerance by publishing "Islamophobic propaganda".

This is not a matter of Muslims giving up their religion and customs, or dropping their opposition to the war in Iraq. Many Britons share their distaste for their country's involvement in that conflict, and sympathise with Muslim suffering in the likes of Srebrenica, where the West's reaction was tardy. But this is a time - a "defining moment" in the words of Muslim Labour MP Shahid Malik - for the community to decide on which side of the fence it wishes to sit.

The outcome of the war on terrorism depends, most fundamentally, on moderate and modernising Muslims worldwide renouncing violent fundamentalism. Every Muslim community must make a stand. In the case of Britain, that means a statement, in absolute terms, that Muslims are prepared to confront the extremists head-on. That they are prepared to identify terrorist cells within their communities, and advise the authorities of them. And that they are prepared to repudiate militant mullahs, who serve only to radicalise disaffected youth.

If such a position is not adopted, there will undoubtedly be greater scrutiny of, and restrictions on, the Muslim community. It will become the subject of public vigilance, just as, a generation ago, the activities of the IRA in Britain drew attention to some Irish communities. A backlash along those lines is not the best way forward, either for the British authorities or for Muslims. In all likelihood, it would lend terrorism a stronger hand by fomenting radicalism. It will, nonetheless, be the price Muslims pay if they choose to remain a community apart.