Held last night (Monday 18th) in Bedford's Queens Park at the Parish Church of All Saints meeting room (a Christian venue be it noted) some 40-50 of the local Muslim community gathered to talk about the alleged "radicalisation of Muslims", in an effort to establish who or what they believe to be really responsible for this.

Zardad Khan of HT Bedford kicked off by briefly outlining the issue and expressing the view (held fairly widely within the local Muslim community) that, contrary to what the Government is willing to admit, this whole business of "radicalisation" can be directly attributed to Western foreign policy.
Mr Khan accused Tony Blair of seeking to make the Muslim community a scapegoat for his (Blair's) own actions, and drew attention to the hypocrisies within Blair's public statements.
He was scathing of public remarks that suggest Blair regards any Muslim who even so much as disagrees with government foreign policy as being an extremist.

A good half of the meeting was taken up with a question and answer session that was conducted in a far more polite and orderly fashion than some non-Muslim meetings I've attended!
The Chairman of Bedford's largest Mosque was also at the meeting and spoke of the divisions within the Muslim community, of energies wasted in needless finger-pointing and attributing blame, and of the huge lack of understanding of the Muslim way of life within Western society as a whole.

One guy I spoke with afterwards referred critically to the fear that Muslims in this country feel, particularly amongst the older generation, which acts as a restraint on their coming forward and expressing their true opinions about major issues... fear of prejudice, fear of persecution, and indeed fear of the State seeking reprisals.

Yet the overall message that seemed (at least to me) to come out of the meeting is the absolute necessity for Muslims to stand up and speak out against the injustices being perpetrated by the West against Islam.
That said, both Zardad Khan and Jahanghir Lal (chairman of the meeting) were very clear in their condemnation of acts of terrorism directed against innocent civilians.
It also emerged that the idea of Mosques in Britain radicalising the Muslim youth and being breeding-grounds for terrorism is laughable, and yet one more example of the propaganda practised by much of the mainstream media.

However, one thing's certain. This ain't an issue that's going away quickly.