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Writing in The Guardian, Wednesday 16 August with a column entitled, The venomous media voices who think no Muslim is worth talking to

I feel she makes some good points and has identified some real issues. It seems to me that she is one Commentator who has actually engaged with the British community and knows what she’s talking about.

An extract:

…For a story to really work you have to have good guys as well as bad, so the critics conjure up another absurdity – the “silent Sufi majority” of British Muslims. These are the gentle, peace-loving Muslims at the grassroots who have been betrayed, so the argument runs, by those who claim to represent them, such as the Muslim Council of Britain. One can argue for hours about how to define a Sufi in this country; and, leaving that aside, the characterisation of Sufism is wide of the mark: some of the most violent anti-colonial struggles have been led by Sufis, for example Chechnya and Algeria, even the Mahdi who did for General Gordon in Khartoum. Furthermore, some argue that Sufi-inclined traditions such as the Kashmiri Barelwi have failed to travel well to urban Britain and that it is precisely their youngsters who are most disorientated and likely to fail prey to extremism – as was the case of the July 7 bombers from Leeds.

The main target for Bright is the Muslim Council of Britain; he loathes it with a contempt that is hard to explain. Given that the MCB is in effect a small volunteer parish council scrabbling to represent a hugely diverse – both ethnically and theologically – community, it’s not surprising that it has scored own goals in its time. It’s a young, underconfident institution and falls short in many ways, but the fact remains that of all the Muslim organisations to emerge in recent decades it has proved the most successful in winning affiliates. There is no comparable substitute waiting in the wings. The Sufi Muslim Council of Britain has been in existence all of a month; I wish it well, but unlike the MCB it cannot claim to represent anything like the 40% of British mosques affiliated to the MCB.

Kelly has an urgent task ahead to assuage anxiety as the possibility looms of a second-class status for Muslims in this country – profiled, suspected, searched, endlessly quizzed and found wanting. As for the armchair warriors so keen to proffer advice, one has to question the motives of those intent on undermining the meagre organisational capacity the Muslim community has managed to weld together to combat just such a threat.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1851017,00.html