Unity Convention 2005

ME ON THE WORLD MEDIA!!!!

I have just spent the past two weeks doing various interviews with the world media about the Muslim Unity Convention 2005 which is being held in Manchester on Sunday. I think it is clear that the events of the past few weeks have put a challenge in front us as a nation. The event will attract the worlds renowed Muslim Scholars and they will set out in detail how we as a community need to face the challenges of the future.

In my BBC News 24 interview I talked about dialogue, this is very important. Unless all communities engage with each other and talk to one another we will still have mistrust and anger. I condemn what happened in London not as a Muslim but as a Human being, we in the Muslim community do not need to be apologetic for the actions of four mindless mass murderers.

We do however need to look into our community and root out this problem. The Government attempts to engage with the community will fail as they are meeting the wrong people. If the community leaders and Imams had the confidence of young people we would not be in a situation where they were committing mass murder. We need to take responsibility for our community but the Government needs to take responsibility for the lack of investment in BME communities, high poverty and unemployment - these need to be dealt with also.

Watch the Islam Channel on Sky 836 on Monday 8th August 2005 for coverage of the Convention.

Please send your comment to me directly.