British Muslims are seething

So says Dr. Muhammad Abdul Bari, chief of the Muslim Council of Britain, who claims Muslims are being “demonized” and he has a warning:

“Some police officers and sections of the media are demonising Muslims, treating them as if they are all terrorists, and that encourages other people to do the same.

“If that demonisation continues, then Britain will have to deal with two million Muslim terrorists, 700,000 of them in London. “If you attack a whole community, it becomes despondent and aggressive,” he added.

The message from Dr Bari appeared to be aimed at muting criticism from police officers and broadcasters and newspapers who have questioned widely-held Muslim attitudes and at police officers who have called for greater surveillance of Muslims.

I have a feeling that attempts to intimidate the British press and the British elite into muting their criticism (aka extreme political correctness aka soft totalitarianism) will fall on deaf ears, if BBC announcer Katty Kay is any indication. Yesterday on the Chris Matthews Show, Kay had some sharp words about homegrown British Muslim extremists:

MATTHEWS: Welcome back. Katty, tell me something I don’t know.

Ms. KAY: President Bush is going around the country telling people that Iraq is now the front line in the war on terrorism. Well, many in Britain would disagree with that. We’re starting to feel that Britain is the front line on the war on terrorism, certainly in Europe. And a recent poll shows that 13 percent of British Muslims think that the people who attacked the Underground in July of last year were martyrs. Thirteen percent. [my emphasis]

Britain seems to be in big trouble—much bigger than anything we’ve seen in the States, because their problem is indigenous and potentially ubiquitous: a frightening prospect.