In the Monty Python sketch about the “Piranha Brothers”, based on those notorious East End gangsters, the Kray twins, the narrator describes how Doug and Dinsdale Piranha get the hang of a protection racket:

When the Piranhas left school they were called up but were found by an Army Board to be too unstable even for National Service. Denied the opportunity to use their talents in the service of their country, they began to operate what they called 'The Operation'... They would select a victim and then threaten to beat him up if he paid the so-called protection money. Four months later they started another operation which the called 'The Other Operation'. In this racket they selected another victim and threatened not to beat him up if he didn't pay them. One month later they hit upon 'The Other Other Operation'. In this the victim was threatened that if he didn't pay them, they would beat him up. This for the Piranha brothers was the turning point.

No such false starts for the British Muslim community. They are telling our democratically elected Government, which pursues policies that are believed, rightly or wrongly, to be in the interests of the British people, that they will not blow us up if it does what they say. From the BBC:

British Muslim groups have written to the prime minister calling for "urgent" changes to UK foreign policy.

In an open letter they say British policy is putting civilians at increased risk in the UK and abroad.

The letter, signed by three Muslim MPs, three peers and 38 groups, also points to the "debacle" of Iraq and the UK's stance over the Middle East crisis…

The letter urges the prime minister to redouble his efforts to tackle terror and extremism, and change foreign policy to show the UK values the lives of civilians…

Muslim Council of Britain secretary general Mohammed Abdul Bari said civilians in the UK, the Middle East and the rest of the world should "all enjoy protection".

A quick look at the “Have Your Say” section confirms that nearly all members of the public writing in are justifiably angry at this. A typical comment is this:

Reading between the lines, it is plain that what Muslim leaders are saying; lay off our co-religionists or else. This is stark proof, if any were needed, that Muslims have no loyalty to the UK, always put their religion first, and are committed to the Islamisation of this country and its policies, either through terrorism, or,as in this case, by guile, blackmail and lobbying. The only difference between these "moderates" and the bombers is tactics.

How long this common sense will be allowed to remain on the website is anybody’s guess. As Esmerelda has pointed out here and elsewhere, the BBC have a habit of removing anti-Muslim comments in the interests of "balance".

I feel angry and sickened. My anger is taking a slightly irrational form – I am reacting against a sound. A common Muslim shibboleth, in the UK if not in other English speaking countries, is to pronounce the “s” in the word "Muslim" as a voiceless rather than a voiced sibilant – “Musslim”, rather than “Muzlim”. This sets my teeth on edge as did the occasional squeak of chalk on a blackboard many years ago. I thought I was the only one, until Paul brought it up in the comments yesterday:

I don't know why, but I find the unvoiced sibilant SS in "muslim" acts on me like an emetic. An Englishman pronounces that word "muzlim".

The voiced “s” before the “l” is more natural to the English ear, for example in the word “gosling”. The Muslims pronouncing the offending sound were born here and speak chav or Estuary English. Yet in this small matter of a consonant cluster, they arrogantly wish to separate themselves. Esmerelda discusses in this post how the Muslims of Walthamstow pay no heed to the surrounding architecture in the building of their mosque, and she comments:

The colour is awful, nothing like the copper patina it is faking, and the building is ugly. I try to be rational, that it is the ideology I fight, and I must never lose sight of the fact that we are all God's creatures but something about that missile brooding over my parent's grave upsets me every time I visit.

It is indeed the ideology that we fight, not the people, the architecture or the consonants. My disgust at a sound is a visceral reaction, not an intellectual one. However, as Esmerelda hints in her post, sometimes our gut feelings are correct.