Sayeeda Warsi, a minister in Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, said Britain was becoming a less tolerant society — and that patronizing and superficial attitudes toward Islam were spreading in the media and elsewhere.In excerpts from a lecture due to be delivered Thursday, Warsi referred to journalists’ use of lines such as “Islamophobia? Count me in” or “I am an Islamophobe, and proud of it” in articles and speeches. She said she feared that expressions of disdain for Britain’s nearly 2 million-strong Muslim minority were becoming acceptable in polite society.“You could even say that Islamophobia has now passed the dinner table test,” Warsi said in excerpts from a speech she is due to give at the University of Leicester in central England.Britain, like other European countries, has sometimes struggled to integrate large Muslim populations, which arrived in the second half of the 20th century. Britons of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent, in particular, struggle with long term unemployment, and Muslims make up a disproportionate number of inmates in the British prison system.Although some tensions were long-standing, mainstream attitudes darkened after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks focused attention on the hold that radical Islam had over some segments of Britain’s Muslim population.Fears were reinforced by the discovery of several terrorist plots — including the July 7, 2005, quadruple-suicide bombing on London’s transit network — which involved British-born Muslims.Warsi said that while terrorists deserved nothing less than contempt, they should not be used “as an opportunity to tar all Muslims.” Her comments were welcomed by Muslim groups, although Cameron refused to say whether he agreed that anti-Muslim prejudice was spreading, saying through his spokesman that it was a matter of “important debate.” Concerns over allegedly Islamophobic attitudes in Britain’s news media are long standing. A 2008 analysis of nearly 1,000 news stories by the Cardiff School of Journalism, in Wales, found that two-thirds of all stories covering British Muslim focused on Muslims as either a threat, a problem or both.
