The Blair government is marginalizing the major Muslim organizations in Britain for the sake of unrepresentative bodies and individuals and its domestic and foreign policies risk radicalize more Muslims, which harms the British social harmony and peace, said the Secretary General of the Muslim umbrella group in Britain.
“The government is marginalizing major Muslim organizations, including the MCB, and it seems that new organizations are being brought up in the house of parliament where they don’t have any base,” Muhammad Abdul Bari told IslamOnline.net in an exclusive interview. “It is a perception in the community that they [the government] are trying to divide the community along sectarian lines – that is the perception I have heard in different places.”
He said the government is now reaching out to obscure Islamic organizations and shunning the representative one. “So the government now is talking to something called Sufi Muslim Council founded a month ago,” Abdul Bari said.
The MCB leader, who has a PhD and a PGCE from King’s College London and a management degree from the Open University, said it seems that the government wants to talk to people who “simply listen to them and who do not criticize.”