Notice this: when polls show that Muslims have lost confidence in non-Muslim authorities, those non-Muslim authorities are expected to do something about it. And when polls show that non-Muslims have lost confidence in the loyalty and trustworthiness of the Muslims among them, non-Muslim authorities are expected to do something about it. Never, never, is any focus placed on any responsibility Muslims might have to win the confidence of authorities and the non-Muslim population.
From The Guardian, with thanks to all who sent this in:
Most Muslims have lost confidence in Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, and do not accept that officers have the right to take action to pre-empt potential terrorist attacks when the intelligence could turn out to be wrong, a Guardian/ICM poll shows.
So it’s better to be blown up than risk inconveniencing innocent Muslims. I see.
The findings, in a poll of Muslim opinion, starkly illustrate the lack of confidence in the police following the raid on a home in Forest Gate, east London, this month. Police, acting on faulty intelligence that a chemical weapon was housed there, shot a Muslim man.
Fifty-four per cent of Muslims said Sir Ian Blair should resign over the Forest Gate raid, while 29% said he should not.
In the poll, carried out two weeks after the raid, Muslims were also asked: “Do you think it is right or wrong for the police to act to pre-empt potential terrorist attacks, even if the intelligence, information and warnings may turn out to be wrong?” Thirty-one per cent said it was right and 57% said it was wrong.
This view contrasts sharply with that held by the general public. When the same question was asked of a representative sample of all adults, 74% said the police were right to act and 17% said they were wrong.
Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said last night the respondents could be “reacting against the many hundreds of Muslims who have been arrested in high-profile raids across the country since 9/11″….
When Muslims were surveyed about their feelings in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings last year, their views offered scant comfort to the police, although the overall picture is complex. The poll asked whether their confidence in the police had increased, decreased or stayed the same since the bombings: 16% said it had increased, 29% that it had decreased, and 50% said it stayed the same.
Confidence in the police is higher in the south, which includes London: 23% say their confidence has increased. And there is more support for Sir Ian, too: 32% in the south say he should not resign.
Dr Bari said last night: “The police must, of course, have the right to act upon credible intelligence and try to pre-empt potential terrorist attacks against our country. They have a duty to maintain the public safety of all of us – Muslims and non-Muslims.” He believed Muslims were reacting against the many hundreds of Muslims arrested in high-profile raids across the country since 9/11 – “the vast majority of whom were then released days later without charge”.
He added: “The police must as a matter of urgency review the manner in which they assess the quality of the intelligence that they receive. Serious questions are being asked about how they have reviewed and assessed the intelligence, not just in the case of the Forest Gate raid, but many other similar raids since 9/11. This is a matter of professionalism and maintaining the trust of the wider society.”