I AM THE WHIRLWIND.

Muslims make up just 6% of the population of Europe, and have consistently committed less than 0.5% of the terrorist attacks over the last 5 years. Much is still unknown about the attackers, yet already there has been a widespread consensus that this is the result of Islamic extremism. Today all Muslims in Britain are being blamed for the actions of two men. Particularly shocking was the BBC’s Nick Robinson rushing to say the men were of “Muslim appearance”, and the reporter on ITV news describes it as the “day that Baghdad style violence came to South London.” The media’s repeated scapegoating of the Muslim population and its continual ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative must be challenged. It is time we recognise and fight against the distorted depictions of Muslims we see every day in the media. When a Muslim murders a white man it is denounced as terrorism and considered worthy of rolling news coverage but when a Muslim is killed in a racist attack, like the one on 75 year-old Mohammed Saleem in Birmingham earlier this month, it is treated as a one-off murder and largely ignored. These blatant double standards are not acceptable.