Daily Times – Site Edition — An intriguing self critical essay by Pakistani essayist Razi Ami. Worth reading in light of the French riots.

The cumulative thrust of this and many similar broadcasts is that Muslims are quite undeservedly, deliberately and maliciously given a “bad image.” They reveal a feeling of injured innocence and victim-hood; they bemoan gross discrimination and injustice against Muslims.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are many Muslim websites which create distrust and misgivings against non-Muslims. Others preach hatred — some going so far as to exhibit the beheadings of “infidels” described as carrying out the “verdict of Allah.” The kidnappers of Kenneth Bigley used the Internet to post the sordid sight of him chained and caged like an animal, and later beheaded. Tens of thousands of imams of mosques, including some in the West, breathe fire against “infidels” and “unbelievers.” They are not a figment of the West’s imagination. Nor was 9/11 a Jewish conspiracy, as initially argued by Muslims. The Madrid train bombings and the Beslan school massacre were real too.

Rather than being paranoid about Muslims, in the last few decades the Western countries allowed them to enter and settle in large numbers using all means — fair and foul.