Seven young British Muslims face trial for plotting terrorist acts in Britain. Others joined the Taleban, fought for the Chechens, or are for Iraqi Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf.
Like many non-Islamic states (China, India, Singapore and even the United States), Britain does not know quite how to handle its Muslims. There are 1.8 million of them, roughly 3 per cent of the population, and they are seen as both a political asset and a potential social liability. Generally speaking, they are underprivileged with lower-than-average educational and income levels, and a higher unemployment rate.
But unlike Indians, Afro-Caribbeans or even Bangladeshis who might be similarly disadvantaged, culturally militant Muslims, mainly from Pakistan, are convinced they are victimised because of their religion. Prime Minister Tony Blair's participation in the Iraq war reinforced paranoia: hostilities against an Islamic nation were seen as hostilities against all Muslims.
Matters have not gone as far as in Canada, whose 600,000 Muslims seem bent on exclusive legal rights. Ontario's Arbitration Act, passed to facilitate an alternative dispute resolution mechanism, has enabled them to set up an Islamic Institute of Civil Justice whose tribunals will arbitrate in questions of personal law. Apparently, the government agreed to incorporate sharia law in the arbitration process until a public furore prompted an inquiry two months ago.
Similar pressures may be building in Britain, too, with Muslim repudiation of many national norms, recalling a Calcutta seminar where Muslim clerics rejected ordinary schools and part-time religious instruction because a Muslim child has to read the Koran first and last. Some British Muslims object to the nursery tale, The Three Little Pigs. Others demand Friday closing.
The British army reportedly condoned one soldier's refusal to fight against his co-religionists in Iraq by posting him elsewhere. When the Islamic Bank of Britain was set up to find a way round the Koranic objection to charging interest on money loaned, HSBC established its own sharia board of Pakistani and Saudi scholars.
