{"id":2575,"date":"2007-05-11T11:05:12","date_gmt":"2007-05-11T11:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2007\/05\/11\/camerons-sleepover-with-brum-muslim-family\/"},"modified":"2016-01-06T16:49:26","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T16:49:26","slug":"camerons-sleepover-with-brum-muslim-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2007\/05\/11\/camerons-sleepover-with-brum-muslim-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron\u2019s sleepover with Brum Muslim family"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"CONSERVATIVE leader David Cameron has spent the night with a British Muslim family in Birmingham as he took a low-key tour of Balsall Heath.<\/strong><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Mr Cameron mingled with local British Muslims in the Balsall Heath area of the city on the day Prime Minister Tony Blair, vilified by a majority of the British Muslim community over the Iraq war, announced he would resign in June. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The Conservative leader stayed overnight with Community Warden Abdullah Rehman, his wife Shahida and the couple\u2019s three children.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Mr Cameron said he chose the intimate visit because he was \u201cfed up with the way that touring works in politics\u201d and had wanted \u201cto gain a proper understanding of what\u2019s going on\u201d.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Speaking about his visit on his personal website, Mr Cameron said: \u201cThere\u2019s too much of people telling you what they think you want to hear, and too often the boldest or loudest voices dominate, rather than the most considered and thoughtful.

\n\u201dSo I\u2019ve decided to spend some proper time out of Westminster. For the last couple of days I have been in Balsall Heath in Birmingham, living in the house of a British Asian family.

\n\u201dI\u2019m staying with Abdullah who\u2019s 37 and married to Shahida. They have three children: two girls and a boy, and I\u2019ve also met many of the extended family who live in the area. Abdullah\u2019s a great guy – born in Birmingham, he\u2019s lived here all his life\u201d. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Mr Cameron spent his time visiting local shops, community centres and mosques where he talked to local Muslims about the issues affecting them in modern day Britain. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"He said the media were guilty of using certain language in terrorist-related material when it came to Muslim community.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Admitting he himself has been guilty he said: \u201cIt\u2019s hard to over-emphasise the importance of language. I know it sounds like a side issue, but it isn\u2019t. We are just not getting this right. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time the BBC or a politician talks about \u201cIslamist terrorists\u201d they are doing immense harm, and yes I am sure I have done this too, despite trying hard to get this right. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of Northern Ireland \u2013 \u201cIRA terrorist\u201d was fine because it marked them out as part of a terrorist group, Catholic terrorists would have been a disaster. Yet that is the equivalent of what we are doing now.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they hear and see this kind of language, Muslims simply think \u2013 \u201cthey mean us.\u201d Of course it\u2019s impossible every single time to say \u201cterrorists who are following a perverted strain of the true religion of Islam\u201d but if we\u2019re going to use shorthand we have got to do better.\u201d

\nHe added there were also issues \u201cin some parts of the community\u201d about the acceptance of terrorism as a real threat. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some parts of the community, yes. In the mosque and elsewhere I got the familiar depressing questions about who was really responsible for 9\/11 and even 7\/7\u201d, he said.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cDig a bit deeper and it all comes out. \u201cCIA plot\u2026Jews told to leave the twin towers\u201d – even when it comes to 7\/7 \u201chow do we know the suicide bomber videos are real and not fakes?\u201d

\n\u201dEven if this is a view held by 5 or 10 per cent of British Muslims – and I suspect it is at least that \u2013 this is a real problem which we have all got to get to grips with.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

He also talked about foreign preachers \u201cradicalising\u201d young Muslims. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

One shopkeeper who met Mr Cameron during his visit said he was angry that British authorities were not doing more to deal with the issue. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cOne young businessman told me that it had set back progress by at least a decade. Another said that he felt constantly under suspicion and much less a welcome and normal part of British life than before.\u201d

\nThe Tory leader also said it was right to expect ethnic minorities to integrate, but it worked both ways.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

“Yes we can ask minority ethnic communities to work at integrating with British society as a whole, but we have to recognise that it won\u2019t happen unless there\u2019s something attractive to integrate into.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

“Time after time I heard people here talking about the uncivilised behaviour and values that they see all around them.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

“As I\u2019ve said before, we can\u2019t just bully people into being more British, we\u2019ve got to inspire them.”<\/div>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CONSERVATIVE leader David Cameron has spent the night with a British Muslim family in Birmingham as he took a low-key tour of Balsall Heath. Mr Cameron mingled with local British Muslims in the Balsall Heath area of the city on the day Prime Minister Tony Blair, vilified by a majority of the British Muslim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}