Quotes of the Day

London is still anxious and jumpy after the July 7 and 21 terrorist attacks. Last week, a bus on Gray's Inn Road began smoking and a huge chunk of the city center was immediately cordoned off. (It turned out to be a mechanical fault.) I saw five tube passengers flee the carriage when a young Sudanese schoolboy boarded a train. Raza, an old Muslim colleague of mine, was pushed off a bus by the conductor, who didn't like the look of his briefcase. As a British Muslim political columnist, I receive a steady torrent of ugly e-mail invective, quite a lot of it threatening my private parts — e-mail rape used in a war I don't comprehend.

Shock initially united the city. But now things are falling apart and life feels more perilous. Evidence is mounting of increased abuse of people presumed to be Muslim. Tough new antiterrorism laws are overriding fundamental civil rights and liberties, and racial profiling is now official police policy. Politicians have resumed their doublespeak, while Muslim apologists are again blaming everyone but their own communities. I worry about my son, a tall, dark, handsome barrister recently married to a beautiful English woman. Unlike me, he doesn't practice Islam and does admire Tony Blair. But physically, he looks no different from the July 7 bombers. I often find myself shaking as I imagine him inadvertently shot by tense policemen. He's uppity, proud and has a temper. I keep telling him to be pliant if stopped by the police, not to run or argue back. All the African and Asian parents in Britain are gripped by the same panic. The police do have to stop and search our men and boys. It's deeply upsetting, but this is the fate forced on us by the fanatics. To be honest, I too am nervous on public transport around males who look like members of my family or my close Asian or Arab friends. I accept this discrimination. I have to, in the interests of national security.

I don't believe there is a simple causal connection between the Iraq occupation and the London bombs. But the war has aggravated the impotent fury of millions of young Muslims. Blair is keen on censuring purveyors of a distorted Islam, but is silent about our duplicitous foreign interventions. The brightest Muslims watch news of Iraq and Guantánamo Bay and Palestine and feel rage and dislocation. This crisis should have prompted the government to examine itself, yet it has failed to do so. But self-styled Muslim leaders are also avoiding responsibility. They prefer to concentrate on the poetry of what the Koran says rather than the perfidy of what too many Muslims do. The bombers aren't really Muslim, they claim. Neat, isn't it? By this logic, there are no bad Muslims, only fanatics who misunderstand Islam.

This is why a group of us, modern democratic Muslims, have decided to start a movement. It is at an embryonic stage, but many have already come onboard. Within a few months it will be launched in Westminster. We want to break through the lies that sustain all sides in this global conflict. We want to snatch back our faith from the conservatives who have politicized and corrupted it. We want to hold the government to account. We want to redefine what it means to be a British Muslim.

• YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN
• Rethinking what it means to be a British Muslim