Lynne Featherstone

I write a weblog. For the uninitiated - this is an online diary. A comment that was posted by a young man who lives locally encapsulated - albeit accidentally - the confusion and conflation between 'terrorist' and 'Muslim'.

The comment was in response to my last Asian Voice column which had been basically about the Labour government throwing away millions on the Identity Card scheme because it wastes those millions on tracking innocent people rather than spending the money on catching the guilty.

In the article I say: "One of the things terrorists want is to get rid of liberal society. It's their enemy. So stripping away our freedoms is not fighting them - it is doing what they want".

My commentator then berates me and says that 'terrorists despise us not for our freedom, but that most suggest their hatred emerges from our occupation and participation in the Middle East.' He goes on then to argue that the main reason for anger within the Muslim community is as outlined by Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

"As Muslims it is our religious duty to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters who are suffering in Palestine, Kashmir and every part of the world; we must also show solidarity with the oppressed in any part of the world regardless of their religious or racial or ethnic affiliations. Therefore, our disappointment and anger will remain until we resolve the most pressing conflicts in the world".

He misses the point. Of course our (Labour's) foreign policy is causal. Liberal Democrats make this point at every opportunity. But the response in terms of the use of terrorism in this country is totally unacceptable albeit thus caused - and any loss of our civil liberties is a victory for the terrorist.

But the real issue here is that my commentator has conflated - even juxtaposed - 'terrorist' for 'Muslim'. I wrote about terrorists and my respondent was talking about Muslims. That to me is a dangerous conflation. Or is my correspondent really saying that the anger in the Muslim community is so great that terrorism and acts of murder in this country is justified? Let me know what you think.

(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2007