London: Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged on Wednesday that Britain’s Muslims faced widespread prejudice and urged more of them to enter politics.
Blair, the first Prime Minister to address the Muslim council of Britain, was speaking after three bomb attacks in London, one of them aimed at Bangladeshis, near a mosque in the capital’s Brick Lane. Three people were killed in the bombings and nearly 100 were wounded.
Blair said the bombings had brought British society together and praised Muslim teaching for its racial tolerance. “And who could not be impressed by a religion white people fast for 30 days every year at Ramzan as a reminder of those less fortunate”, he said.
Blair, an Anglican Christian married to a Roman Catholic, said that despite the contribution made by Britain’s 1.5 million Muslims to ‘society they often faced abuse and “Islamophobia”. In too much of the media — and through it the rest of society — Islam is equated immediately with fanatics, extremism, fundamentalism and a threat to the West”, Mr. Blair Said. (Reuter-Asian Age, May 7, 1999).
