Islamophobia

Dear Sir,

I have finally lost my patience with the Christians attitude towards the Muslims and vice versa. I find it unbelievable that we in today's world cannot find the decency to accept one another's differences and live side by side. It is atrocious to see terrorists ruining decent human-beings' every-day-lives mainly because, as I see it, the governments and the media on the "opposing sides" have cultivated an idea, which presents us as sworn enemies.

I believe the governments and the media have made the world into a completely unstable place. 18 months ago one of your great journalists, Will Hutton, wrote an article which actually predicted the tube bombings. He claimed that Islamic religion, culture and society had been "profoundly humiliated" by the West, and this would lead to disaster. He was absolutely right, but instead of questioning why and how the Islamic lifestyle has been humiliated, he himself humiliates the religion, the culture and the society by insisting its policies are wholly mistaken. Much too often, this is the case. Instead of finding a solution to the common problems we have, both sides seem to push the responsibilities onto the others shoulders.

It would appear as though many journalists, including Will Hutton, are aggravating an already serious situation. For instance Hutton talks about the Muslim terrorists "launching a war they believe they can win". He is of course trying to provoke a reaction from the readers, which he easily achieves. However, he also provokes Islam, as he later in the article points out the reason for the attacks, solely being the Koran. Now I must profoundly reject. It is commonly accepted among Western journalists that the entire reason for the terrorist attacks is Islam, and I consider this shocking. How can the illicit acts of a tiny group of mentally disturbed people, be blamed upon something hundreds of millions of innocent people believe in? By infuriating something like this, the media must acknowledge that it has some part to play in the tensions between east and west.

Christians and Muslims have complete misleading views of each other, because of what they hear. It is true that the cultures clash, but one will always be afraid of "what is unknown", unless one faces the unknown. After the tube bombings, a policeman