Tuesday, April 8, 2008

An agonising moment for British Muslims

guardian.co.uk

Madeleine Bunting examines the repercussions for multiculturalism of last week's attacks

It must be an agonising moment to be a British Muslim. This has been their worst nightmare come true: British-born young men from families who were well established in this country committing a suicide bomb attack. From what we know of their lives, one was at university, another may have had a small child, another’s father had a fish and chip business; they lived not in ghettos but in ethnically mixed suburbs, the like of which surround many UK towns. In other words, they were completely unexceptional; until July 6 they would have seemed to illustrate, along with thousands of other British Muslims, Britain’s pragmatic multiculturalism.

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