David Cameron has made it all about Muslims – without engaging us at all

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/20/david-cameron-british-muslims-extremism-speech

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No one can doubt the barbaric and evil nature of Isis. It has no regard for human life and without confronting its ideology the battle against terrorism will fail. It has nothing to do with Islam but has distorted Islamic teaching. We in the Muslim community have a special duty to confront its ideology and that is what many of us have being doing since 9/11.

As David Cameron rightly said in his speech today, we face a common threat from these terrorists. They do not recognise any borders and, put simply, want to divide our communities; in that we must not allow them to succeed. I see fighting and defeating terrorism as my Islamic duty as well as my civic duty in Britain.

Related: David Cameron: extremist ideology is 'struggle of our generation'

Asking Louise Casey to put together a report on integration is welcome, and if she is prepared to listen to the concerns of British Muslims then we will be prepared to work with her. She has a distinguished record of public service and we have every confidence in her ability to deliver on this area.

Where the government gets it right we in the British Muslim community will stand with it and work to defeat the terrorists.

But where we think it is wrong we will speak out with the same passion and conviction. Freedom of speech is not in the gift of any politician or government and we will campaign to defend the civil liberties of the British people.

Sadly, successive governments of both parties have peddled the same narrative that somehow there is a link between extremism/terrorism and integration/cohesion, and Cameron was no different today. In fact they are two separate and distinct areas and we need to address them separately. Integration is a two-way process, and there are responsibilities on the host community as well as the incoming community.

We have being rejecting terrorism for years and yet still the prime minister says we are not doing enough

The prime minister’s speech has made it all about Muslims, yet he has not engaged them about his counterterrorism strategy: if Muslims are central to defeating the poisonous narrative then why not engage the community? This was a neocon-inspired speech with huge consequences for the freedoms of ordinary British Muslims. We have being rejecting terrorism for years, some of us have been subjected to death threats from terrorist groups and yet still the prime minister says we are not doing enough; that we are not integrated enough. If this was Cameron’s way to build one nation, sorry Dave, but no thanks. We want one nation where Muslims are equal citizens, where our contribution to British life is recognised and where the far-right narrative doesn’t become mainstream.

If freedom of speech is a great British value, as the prime minister claimed, then we must all fight any attempts to restrict it.

I abhor what Tommy Robinson and Anjem Choudary stand for and what they say, but removing Choudary’s right to free speech will restrict our ability to confront him. The government has plans to do away with the civil liberties of our citizens through the snooper’s charter; this legislation will affect all communities and must be resisted.

Cameron said it wasn’t all about legislation, but there have been more than nine terrorism-related bills since 2001. If the goal today was to win the hearts and minds of British Muslims then he has failed. But we British Muslims will continue the fight against terrorism, regardless of the lack of support from the prime minister.