"We are always expected to apologize for something that we have not done," community spokesman Ahmed Goga told the BBC. "Everyone in this community has condemned 9/11 time and time again. But we are being demonized and castigated despite being British through and through. Well, a lot of us feel we should not have to do it anymore -- and it's time we made a stand."
Made a stand on Sajid Badat's innocence? At this point, it's no cakewalk for the Badat defense. But ever since the young Gloucestrian was arrested, with the police confiscating a few plastic explosives from his home, local Muslims have not only exhorted fellow Britons to reserve judgment on Badat, but practically to withhold comment altogether. The press has been condemned as "filthy and racist." The police have been criticized for allowing neighbors to learn of the arrest on television (as if townspeople should have been privately notified) and for beefing up their ranks locally because it might "cause damage to the community's image." Home Secretary David Blunkett, who praised police for making the arrest, was accused of "building walls between our communities." As one speaker at a public meeting on the subject put it, "You have not arrested an individual but an entire community. Sajid is innocent and so is this community."
This notion of "collective innocence" is not uncommon in Gloucester's Muslim community. Indeed, the local imam of the Ryecroft Street Mosque has actually ruled out guilt as a Muslim option. ("A Muslim cannot be a terrorist as a terrorist cannot be a Muslim," he, um, explained.) Which is nonsense -- and worse than nonsense.
When everything is viewed exclusively through the scrim of religion, race or ethnicity, the individual disappears. Personal responsibility -- and the responsibility of the group to the person -- is lost in the creation of a destructive and dangerous mythology.