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Originally Posted by Hugh
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But if eg a particular set of people were overwhelmingly Italian, you wouldn't try to describe them as European. Where somebody would do that is to obscure the truth.
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Almost universally, the one word all the papers avoid is “Muslim”. But that’s what this gang is, not “Asian”: of the gang of seven only five were of Pakistani origin: the other two were variously described as being from Eritrea or North Africa. What do these very different parts of the world have in common? Simply that they are Muslim: it’s a religious problem we have here, not a racial one: the gang were not all of the same race. My point was made for me, in effect by Julie Siddiqui, of the Islamic Society of Britain and co-founder of the Community Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, whose comment on the verdicts was that “The damage these men have done and evil they have wrought will last a lifetime for their victims which can never be fully healed. The men and those who sheltered them must now examine their consciences as they reflect on the terrible nature of their crimes. It is imperative that there is no hiding place for abuse or abusers within any of our communities.” That word “our’” means “Muslim”: it doesn’t mean “Asian”. If you go to the part of Cowley around which most of the relatively small Islamic community in Oxford has settled, you can see in front of you what holds them all — Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Eritreans, Somalians – together: it’s the mosque, a handsome building, complete with dome and minaret, on the Cowley Road.
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As I have to keep pointing out
, the number of those convicted are just the tip of the iceberg.