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The Times February 02, 2007
Plots and paranoia are mainstream views for Muslims of Sparkbrook
Andrew Norfolk
In this quiet suburb, almost everyone believes the arrests were meant to demonise Muslims
To wander the streets of Sparkbrook yesterday, from shabby corner shop to proud, white-domed mosque, was to enter a world where conspiracy theories are the breath of life.
Many ordinary Muslims did not believe that Wednesdays arrests were an act to foil a terrorist plot aiming to visit unspeakable barbarity on a young British soldier.
Rather the entire operation was a giant con trick. This fits a growing perception of a post-9/11 world in which innocent Muslims are demonised, and the terror threat manufactured to suit the dark designs of the Wests Judaeo-Christian elite.
The decision to distribute 5,000 multilingual leaflets, carefully setting out details of the anti-terrorist operation and the events leading up to it, may have sought to offer a well intentioned reassurance that the police are not targeting communities or faiths, but suspected criminals.
To many Muslims that message has fallen on deaf ears. That many seem not to believe police reassurances is at least in part because they are listening to a very different message from mosques across the city. Take the Birmingham Central Mosque, where up to 4,000 people will be attending Friday prayers today....
