UK Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has shown his talent for irritating his potential allies when he chose to make a speech on the dangers of Muslim radicalisation but failed to recognise what the British Muslim community has been doing for many years and instead focused on what he imagines they might do better. The forceful former Conservative co-chair, Sayeeda Warsi, did not hesitate to remind her party leader of his folly when she told him that he will have alienated Muslims by demanding that British Muslims do more to weed out extremism when the government was itself failing to adequately champion and support them.
Both Warsi and Cameron agree on the dangers of radicalisation of young Muslims. However, the Muslim community would have wanted to hear more of active government support for their valuable ongoing work, often at a very local level where businessmen invest in their local communities through sports clubs, initiatives to support education and other activities geared at helping restore a vibrant local community that gives no space to the lure of Daesh websites and the false impression that salvation can be found through gross violence in the murder camps of the terrorists.
The vast majority of Britain’s Muslims are successfully British and Muslim and only a minuscule minority seeks to reject this. But this minority has a powerful impact because of its links to Daesh terrorists and the extremist group’s destructive political message.
This is why leaders who are more aware of the totality of the issue like Warsi should lead on this, rather than Cameron who misses the point.
