The UK public was made very uncomfortable this week by the Times' widely-reported poll of British Muslims' views on terrorism. Certainly I was concerned about the revelations that 16% of respondents thought of the 7/7 bombers as martyrs, that 7% believed suicide bombing against UK civilians to be acceptable, and that a further 2% would be proud if a member of their family joined Al-Qaida. However, it's important to keep the above results in perspective. It's easy for an angry young man to talk big in a poll; but certainly only a small proportion of the most dangerous 2% mentioned above are actually psychopathic and suicidal enough to act on their views. Polls are inherently biased towards the views of the angry and alienated, who wish to make their dissatisfaction heard. Giving a radical answer in a poll is the safest kind of protest vote, since it doesn't change anything other than the contents of a database somewhere. This is why this sort of poll should be reported with restraint and a grain of salt, which unfortunately is not how this one has been treated by some of the tabloids.

Nonetheless, these poll results are certainly concerning. They give a picture of segments of the Muslim community which are completely alienated from wider British society, to the extent that an attack on “us” can be thought of as separate from an attack on “them”, even though we're all riding on the same trains and buses. But again, this alienation is hardly news. In the past few months the papers have been full of reports of how Muslims are the most economically deprived of all ethnic groups, how many of them lack qualifications, employment, and even knowledge of English. The economic segregation of Muslims creates an alienation from British society that is far more real than political issues such as the invasion of Iraq, and this has to be tackled. This is a long term goal for which the government has to take responsibility.

Of course, Muslims cannot shift all the responsibility to the government. Radical imams of mosques as well as other community spokespeople who cross the line of advocating violence have to be taken to task. In fact, this is already happening on many Muslim-oriented websites and blogs; however, the non-Muslim public remains largely unaware of these. This shows only that the media has to do better reporting of the Muslim community, focusing not only on the protests against Danish cartoons but also on the multitude of power struggles between progressives and conservatives that characterize many Muslim institutions.

The good news of the poll was that over half of British Muslims want the government to do more to combat extremism and terrorist groups, and over a third would be happy if their family members joined the police. In the long term, both the Muslim community and the government need to actively get more Muslims into the police, as it will hopefully help prevent fiascos such as the shooting of an innocent man in East London. Such incidents undermine confidence among Muslims that any concerns they report will be properly investigated and dealt with in a reasonable way.

Blair's response to the poll, that Muslims need to do more to tackle extremism raises another question in my mind; shouldn't he himself do more? Muslims still remember his dodgy dossier with the absurd WMD claims. Blair, not the Muslim community, is personally responsible for taking Britain to war in Iraq without a UN resolution, and for a considerable amount of the consequent alienation that British Muslims have felt since. In the short term, the best thing that could happen to mend fences with British Muslims would be for him to step down.