Last week the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, published its report “Islamophobia Defined: A report into a working definition of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred”.

That a parliamentary group has finally recognized the scale of a problem that some Muslims themselves had first identified almost 30 years ago has to be welcome (my report on this subject “Race Relations and Muslims in Britain” was written in 1992).The APPG could hardly have denied the scale of the problem because prejudice and hatred of Islam and Muslims are the acceptable face of bigotry today, not just in Europe but globally, and has long been recognized by most fair-minded people and campaign groups. Comments by politicians and media reporting over the last few decades is testimony to that.

This APPG report also collated more evidence and explored academic works on the subject. Evidence is always welcome, but there comes a point when skirting around the issues must stop, and action has to replace evidence-gathering, and comfortable discussions for political purposes. However, a prerequisite to effective action requires dealing with the root causes of the problem, not identifying and trying to deal with the after-effects, which is effectively what this report has done.

Source: 5pillarsuk.com