Far Right Terrorism barely makes the news

The fact that two Ukrainian men have been arrested for a failed terrorist attack on a Mosque in Small Heath, Birmingham, and that one of men has now been arrested for the racist murder of Mohammed Saleem has barely made the headlines. Worse still, the silence from many senior politicians has been deafening.

Mr. Mohammed Saleem, 75 year old grandfather and a respected man in his community was stabbed three times as he returned from evening prayers three months ago. A link between the murder and the bomb blast has now been made when police realized that the bomb attack was only one and half miles away from Saleem’s home.

Truth is that the Saleem’s murder, the Small Heath Mosque and three serious Mosque attacks in the last three months has barely resonated beyond the communities affected precisely because media outlets and politicians have said little or nothing on the issue.

Some critics are now saying that the life of a British Muslim is not seen as the same value as a white man. Writing in the today’s Guardian Nesrine Malik wrote:

When Lee Rigby was murdered, politicians of every stripe scrambled to condemn and reassure. Cobra, the country's top emergency response mechanism, was convened under the home secretary, Theresa May. David Cameron reassured Britons that "we will never buckle in the face of terrorism". Compare this with near-silence that greeted the recent mosque attacks. Muslims have become accustomed, almost resigned, to media double standards – there is no example starker than the wildly different coverage of Rigby and Saleem's killings. But the failure to mobilise, condemn and reassure on the part of the political class is potentially far more dangerous.

It suggests not only that a Muslim life is less sacred than a non-Muslim one, but that Muslims do not have the same rights as others to be reassured."

Whilst the murders of Lee Rigsby and Mohammed Saleem are different in many ways, in particularly the grotesque reveling in the atrocity by the two Woolwich murderers, but as Malik points out they are both acts of terrorism; religiously, ideologically and racially motivated attacks. The double standard therefore, which seeks to highlight every facet of one, including some who will demonise a religion and community for the act of one, and on the other side pay scant regards to Far Right terror and race hatred which only this weekend was permitted to march through the streets of Birmingham close to where Saleem was slain.

If Muslims are to have confidence both in the police and our politicians that terrorism whoever the perpetrators will be dealt with, then we must see a greater balance in actions as well as words from all concerned.

Simon Woolley