Moderate British Muslims began a media blitz to condemn the recent attempted car bomb attacks in Great Britain.
The campaign has received support from Conservative Muslim Forum, Islamic Relief, the Islamic Society of Britain and Muslim Doctors and Dentists Association among others- BBC. (The Association of Muslim Doctors and Dentists are, of course, short a few members this week.)
The group has a three phase plan to address the negative perceptions and stereotypes of Islam and British Muslims:
Here are those 3 Campaign phases:
PHASE I
Phase 1 is near completion, Full page advertisements, in the leading tabloid and broadsheet papers have been placedPHASE II
Phase two aims to continue to resonate this message through advertisingPHASE III
Phase III involves leveraging on the first two phases to engage our diverse communities to further interact construcively working together to fight the diseaes of Islamophobia and racism that are a cancer in our society
The first 2 phases of the campaign sound like a great plan. Phase #3 is a bit concerning.
It once again puts the focus on others for what is essentially a crisis in Islam.
It is not the “Islamophobia” that is “the cancer.”
It is perfectly natural to fear a community that saws off heads and holds them up for the cameras while chanting “Allah Akbar”. It’s natural to fear a minority group that slams jets into skyscrapers. That is a natural response.
What is not clear is putting the focus on racism as the solution to this radical Islamic practice. It’s not about Islamophobia, or Iraq, or Zionists. It’s about the horrific actions of radical Islam.
The Introducing Islam section is also hard to swallow- especially the discussion on the “spread of Islam” and the “tolerance of Islam” towards other religions. You just have to look at the current persecution of Christians in Islamic countries to see that this is not a reality today in the Muslim world.
Sadly, these points diminish the efforts of Great Britain’s “Muslims United” campaign by making the group appear less sincere or clueless.