FOR reasons I have explained at length, I regard Ralph Musgrave’s party, the BNP, as a racist, neo-Nazi organisation.
According to Mr Musgrave, this makes me a “seriously deranged” member of the “political left,” who is inclined to “throw tantrums” and “foam at the mouth.” (HAS, Sept 18 and 26) He suggests that I fail the “impartiality test” because, while criticising the far right, I “defend Islam against any criticism”.
He imagines that I “fall over with admiration,” even when it appears that a minority of Muslims “believe that anyone leaving their faith should be killed”.
This is very odd, because I previously wrote that “Muslim clerics who advocate beheading apostates must be denounced unequivocally for what they are – murderous religious zealots”
(HAS, Dec 4, 2007).
Perhaps the cause of his confusion is this: I do not blame Islam, or Muslims in general, for the minority of extremists, terrorists and unenlightened fundamentalists among them, any more than I blame the British in general for the racism and Islamophobia of the British National Party.
Pete Winstanley, Durham.
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