Apparently, from this article from Guardian titled, Right showing left the way on radical Islam, subtitled It's fascism by any other name and it's time that all political factions joined forces to fight it by Martin Bright (mentioned in Andrew Brown's article), British multicultural outreach has involved actually funding opportunities for fairly radical islam leaders to state their case (which has caused some schisming in the left ... )

link: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1833390,00.html

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office seems determined to press ahead with courting radical Islamists. Just this month, the British government paid for Yusuf al-Qaradawi to attend a conference in Turkey to discuss the future of European Islam. At home, it funded two Islamist youth organisations, the Federation of Islamic Student Societies and Young Muslim Organisation, to help run a roadshow of Muslim scholars to tour the country. Fosis and YMO, while condemning violence, are ideological allies of the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami. It is ironic that conservative thinkers categorise these organisations accurately as part of an Islamist extreme right, while many on the left continue, wrongly, to see them as part of some wider international Muslim liberation movement.

The comments at the bottom are also interesting ...

This isn't "free to be you and me" American "cultural" multiculturism ... this is genuine outreach to include "other voices" on same dais.

Americans do understand this. It isn’t about ‘multiculturalism’. Most of us know major cities in most of the world have a good grasp of what that means. But this isn’t about whether or not you like the cultural norm of areas where commerce places lots of different people in close physical proximity.

I am not an expert but the crux here isn’t about a mutual understanding, appreciation or tolerance. It may be something that is older, that has festered much longer. It may be a continuation of resentment based on colonial domination by the west and foisting of western values on world, like ‘em or not. The west has been filthy rich for centuries while the rest of the world was broadly at best ignored or worse plundered. Indeed the nice civilized havens where multiculturalism thrives in centers of culture and learning were developed in areas that got rich off of plundering somewhere else. That’s nothing particularly new; the Silk Route is a great example of multiculturalism at work. I’m not slamming Multiculturalism it can be civilizing and certainly our kids benefit from it. But it shouldn’t be mistaken for one big smiley. It doesn’t solve all problems because it doesn’t create a level economic playing field.

The big money is shifting east. Perhaps areas feeling put out or left behind now feel that they can safely, openly and violently do something about being left behind or being marginalized. Perhaps this is giving the disenfranchised a rallying point.

I may be completely off the mark. But this is not as simple as failing to grasp the limits of what Multiculturalism can accomplish in London.

in America, no one acknowledges the "other side" has something to say... Is Al-Jazerra's even available?

gotta love that freedom of speech and free press, doncha?

The famous quote attributed to P.T. Barnum: No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people is a good start.

So many of the world's countries have been hit by terrorists. Yet Americans in their naive conceit, their chauvanistic self-centeredness, have never really cared much.

If you want to understand what goes on in the mind of the average American, you have only to watch The Simpsons and use Homer as your model.

The Great American Dumbass, as I call him, doesn't give a damn about anything as long as he is well fed and safe. When his stomach is empty and his own house in on fire, he finally stirs into action, but only as far as he needs to go to satisfy whatever short-term fix is required.

Home of the brave? Hardly!

All the Bush administration needs to do in order to get Americans to shit their pants is to up the terror alert. Suddenly people are running around like ants, buying duct tape and bottled water, and pleading to their government to protect them from harm at any price, including throwing out the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Anything goes: Torture is fine, Assasination is great, Start a war, send out the nukes, but pleeeeeeze Jesus, just don't let the bad bad terrorist man hurt me.

Watch CNN, MSNBC and FOX right now and tell me I'm wrong.

So let me make sure I understand the liberal view. The political problems associated with South Asian Muslims, in South Asia and elsewhere, are a consequence of Britain's having dealt "with people as members of communities, rather than equal citizens"; but the political problems associated with Iraqi Muslims are a consequence of Britain's having dealt with the peoples of Ottoman Mesopotamia as if they were equal citizens, rather than members of communities. I thought so.

Actually, while all of this talk about multiculturalism is interesting and important, I think the lynchpin of Andrew Brown's piece was this paragraph:

"One may not like the fact that the invasion of Iraq has made homegrown British terrorism more likely. But it is a fact, acknowledged by almost everyone except Prime Minster Tony Blair. The trouble is that a defeat in Iraq will make the invaders seem both weaker and more immoral. This is a dangerous position to be in."

Whatever you believe about the most effective solution to the current crises (pick two! crises and/or solutions!), these statements seem to be true. Attacking someone else's family makes it more likely you'll be counterattacked. Things are not getting better for the US/British position on any battle front, anywhere in the world; we are eventually going to have to withdraw. And that will make our position seem both weaker and immoral to a larger number of people who may be inclined to dislike and distrust us, anyway.

Which means that we're not just talking about multiculturalism, but potentially the decline and fall of Western civilization. If that's what the kids are calling it these days.