There are some fine moments in Zed's new collection Muslims in Britain. It's a nice surprise to find someone starting a history of Muslims in Britain not with Stop the War or the Salman Rushdie affair, but in 632 AD with the dead of Mohammed. Sometimes in life, you have to start with the self-knowledge of an oppressed group, rather than the external commentary. 

A simple, revealing statistic: Muslims studying in Britain's colleges of Further Education constitute around 8 percent of the student population. Among FE lecturers, however, Muslims are stuck at one percent. How long can any people remain calm knowing that they are 8 times more likely to be the objects of British institutions (and for education read the police, the civil service, the courts) than they are to be the ones making decisions? 

There are points in the collection which I found unpersuasive: one essay I think seriously exaggerates the significance of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. 

But there are many more treasures. Before reading Jonathon Birt's chapter, I'd never realised how much New Labour had attempted to create a loyal Muslim block in the MCB, after 9/11, nor (thanks to one MCB ally, the MAB, and its support for the Stop the War coalition) how decisively that failed.

John Rex's conclusion asks why the state has found such a 'threat' in British Muslims? The answer cannot just lie in 9/11 and all the events since, but also in the marginalisation of all black British communities and Muslims in particular. Somehow we need to develop an anti-racist politics, and quickly, which joins the experience of all black communities: not in theory alone but in campaigns and on the streets 

29 July: two stories from the Institute of Race Relations

Remember Jean Charles De Menezes
http://www.irr.org.uk/2005/july/ak000016.html
The Menezes family call upon the people of London to join them in remembering Jean Charles, who was shot dead by police at Stockwell underground station last week.

Anti-Muslim backlash intensifies
http://www.irr.org.uk/2005/july/ha000017.html
The anti-Muslim backlash has intensified in the three weeks following the London bombings.

Various friends reporting different numbers on the protests so far for Jean Charles de Menezes: between four hundred and a thousand reported at the vigils on Monday, another two hundred reported yesterday; more expected tonight.