Stop picking on us

Today I went to a screening of a bunch of short films that were sponsored by the film council. One of them was made by an Asian Muslim, about a young Muslim lad, who chooses cricket over terrorism. Some brothers in his local mosque get him to come to a meeting, where they're watching a video of an old uncle mullah ranting. Someone is coming to meet this brother because they want his "help", but he leaves. Instead of going down that path, he plays cricket and is spotted by a scout.

I respect this filmmaker for getting his views out. He said he got a lot of positive feedback on it. I wonder if anyone ever told him that what he's done is further establish the stereotype that Muslims in the UK have today - this film is clearly related to the bombings of 7th July last year.

What those bombings have resulted in is the massive Muslim community being targeted by the government more than ever before. People like Tony Blair and John Reid tell Muslims to watch out for any suspicious activity, to spy on their fellow Muslims, to rat on them if anything seems funny. Essentiallly the film mentioned above does the same, by making audiences think that yes, in your average mosque you will find brothers who want to recruit innocents to blow up people.

Don't you think its a bit funny that someone like John Reid can show up in the east end, a heavily populated Muslim area, tell people to spy on their kids, to not be too religious for that can lead to fanaticism, and then right away get a slew of reporters asking him questions? I mean I haven't even been here two weeks, but before coming here I knew that this stuff was going on in Britain, of Muslims being targeted. And after 10th of August, I think most if not all of the arrested were from the east end, particularly Walthamstow.

Once again those being arrested are not being put on trial but simply being detained, just like Muslims in America. The difference here is that while the Patriot Act stuff has died down in America, Britain is now stepping up in its efforts of monitoring and fingering Muslims. Why are we being targeted? Muslims here have the huge problem of ghettoization, drugs, crime, poverty. Just because there are many folks around here with beards and thawbs, nikabs and jilbaabs, doesn't mean they're dangerous. It is blatant institutional discrimination, and it starts from the top with Tony Blair. Its disgusting to think that these government officials tell Muslims to spy on their own, to watch out from terrorism, while they wage war against Muslim countries and kill 100,000s of innocent people.

Disgusting.