British Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced tough new measures against anyone who encourages terrorism. Foreigners in the UK who break these proposed laws will be deported and UK citizens from other ethnic backgrounds could lose their British citizenship and be expelled. These proposals, which will be put to the British Parliament when it reconvenes in October, demonstrate just how seriously the Blair administration has swung away from its former tolerance of advocates of violence living on British soil.
The British Muslim leader who drew similarities between these powers to curb Islamic extremism and Hitler’s early policy of demonizing the Jews was vastly overstating the matter. Meanwhile, mainstream British Muslims have expressed concern at Blair’s proposal to close any UK mosque where violence and intolerance is preached. They say that such a clampdown would play into the hands of extremists. They are however overlooking the fact that such a situation should not arise in the first place. Islam is not a religion of hatred and intolerance and any such calls have no place in any mosque.
In the British way of things, political compromises between the government, its liberal back benchers and the two leading opposition parties, the Conservative and Liberal Democrats, will probably produce a slightly softer range of measures in the Fall. There is, however, no mistaking the newfound determination of the Blair administration to clamp down on those who abuse British hospitality and indeed abuse British citizenship to attack both their hosts and others.
Some would argue that this change of heart was long overdue. On the basis of their liberal approach to asylum seekers, the British have long sheltered people who have preached violence and terror back in their home countries. They have also on occasion resisted attempts by other EU states to hand over suspects who had fled to Britain.
Maybe behind all the liberal rhetoric about being a traditional home for persecuted asylum seekers, there was the implicit hope that this generous hospitality would be repaid by keeping the UK out of the firing line. If that was the case, the July 7 mass murders in London dashed that hope to pieces.
The lateness of British wakeup to the reality of combating those who foster terror in their midst has however exacerbated the challenge of working with the 1.6 million British Muslims to help rid their community of extremists. Many Muslims are already deeply concerned at the suspicion in which their community is now held. They also fear that insensitive behavior by the authorities could further alienate those who have been lured by the siren talk of terror and Jihad. However, to a significant extent, the solution is in hands of British Muslims themselves. They must turn out from their midst those who advocate violence and intolerance. They must also use their often considerable communal influence to deter impressionable young minds from the evil path of terror.
