Skipper

The recent book by Ed Hussein, The Islamist: Why I Joined radical Islam in Britain; What I saw and Why I left gives a startling account of the journey taken by one British Muslim into the land of jihad, 'racist' Saudi Arabia, and then, following his disillusion, back to the liberal western values of his homeland. A similar story is told by Hassan Butt in today's Observer ending with the carefully argued injunction to fellow Muslims to 'renounce terror'.

I do so fervently hope his call is heeded as the effects of home grown Muslim terrorism is potentially catastrophic. The attacks of 2005 were bad enough together with the various court cases involving fertiliser bombs, planned attacks on night clubs, shopping malls and the like. But the most recent attacks threaten to rip through the now gossamer thin tolerance British people have for murderous attacks on innocent people perpetrated, for the most part by second generation Muslim immigrants.

Racism, thankfully, is not rife in our country but, since the dawn of society, most communities have wary of newcomers. They are particularly wary of people who do not blend into their host society but insist on retaining and displaying their differences. It is not surprising that the official doctrine of multiculturalism, has not been accepted easily, or at all, in all areas of Britain, especially the poorer inner city areas where incomers inject competition for scarce welfare resources and for work. But the well publicised accounts of how youngsters, raised by the NHS and educated in British schools, went on to calmly plan the blowing to bits of hundreds of their fellow countrymen and women, cannot fail to make a damaging impact on inter-communal relations.

Also extremely damaging are the opinion polls taken of British Muslims indicating that anything from 10 to 20 per cent of British Muslims, sympathise with the bombers. Recent attacks have failed to inflict their planned destruction, for which we must thank the deities, Christian and Muslim, but regular attempts will eventually produce bombs which do explode and kill hundreds or even thousands. It is to be hoped the advice of Hussein and Butt is heeded or else Enoch Powell's dire predictions about the 'Tiber foaming with much blood' will come so much closer to being fulfilled.