Standing up to Islamic Radicals.

Fire of Liberty
Speaking about people within the Islamic community stepping up to the plate and taking back their community from the Islamic fundamentalists, here's an example of just that. In the July 14, 2005 edition of The Financial Times, Shahid Malik, a MP in the British House of Commons, has written a wonderful commentary calling on the people in the Islamic community of England to stand up to the preachers of hate. Here's a sample of his powerful commentary:

In reflecting on the events of the past week, I am profoundly aware that the British Muslim community now faces its most difficult and profound challenge yet. We have reached a dangerous crossroads, and the direction we choose will prove to be a defining moment in our history.

The knowledge that the bombers were British Muslims, living what were, to all appearances, respectable and unremarkable lives, has sent us a signal we can no longer ignore, that there is indeed an “enemy within”. The battle for the soul of the community has begun.

The stakes are high and the choice is stark: either we confront the voices of evil, or we sit back and allow wider British society to regard us as a community that condones such evil.

We must accept that the poisonous preachers of violence and hatred in the name of Islam, few in number though they may be, have to be halted in their actions. This means ending their access to, and their manipulation of, impressionable and vulnerable young men.

We Muslims must overcome our fear that criticising radicals in our midst gives ammunition to the far-right. In the past we have pretended not to see or hear the fanatical fringe who hang about outside our mosques, because of a genuinely held belief that their vile rhetoric could never manifest itself in action such as that which led to the carnage in London. But we can ignore them no longer. Their hate-filled rantings have now fuelled acts of hatred, with devastating consequences for innocent victims.

Lets see if the folks in the Islamic communnity has seen the light that a lot of others have seen.