"British Muslims have 3 choices in relation to their potential interaction with the wider society.

Ghettoization, integration or assimilation.

Ghettoization is where the community lives separately & remains isolated from the rest of the society with very limited interaction. This choice is self-defeating & counter-productive as it means non-muslims will have potential dawah restricted as well as no awareness of Islam & Muslims therefore will only receive their knowledge from the biased media & politicians who base their opinions on ignorance, prejudice, misunderstanding, misinformation, distortion, exaggeration, propaganda & hatred.

Assimilation is another possible option. This is known as the melting pot which is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogenous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture.

However, this would be suicide for the community as it means dissolving into the rest of the non-muslim society without remaining distinct. For example, adopting English names like John as opposed to Muhammed, becoming indifferent about Muslim identity or any of the required Islamic obligations & even, God Forbid, becoming an apostate from Islam.

The only viable option for the community is integration which means interacting & mixing with the rest of non-muslim society while remaining distinct in our Muslim identity, values & behavior. This is known as the salad bowl concept which suggests that the integration of the many different cultures of a country combine like a salad, as opposed to the more traditional notion of a cultural melting pot.

In the salad bowl model, various cultures in a country are juxtaposed — like salad ingredients — but do not merge into a single homogeneous culture. Each culture keeps its own distinct qualities.

As Muslims, we are a naturally conservative community including a socially conservative community in relation to, for example, the family & gender relations.

Do Muslims have the right not to be liberal? Do we have to abandon established orthodox Islamic doctrines & teachings regarding homosexuality, same-sex marriage, the family, gender relations & our religion, in general, in order to be ‘British’?

That’s what is being suggested to us? That we need to subscribe to Liberalism in order to be accepted as ‘British’? What does it exactly mean to be ‘British’? Has anyone defined it?

Trevor Phillips appears to be ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are involved in all aspects of British life including for example speaking English, participating in elections & the economy, attending sporting events, appearing on TV programs, involvement in various sports such as Boxing (Amir Khan), Athletics (Mo Farah), Cricket (Moeen Ali), sending our children to the state & private education system as well as walking the same streets as everybody else.

Personally, I am of the opinion that the community should adopt a position somewhere between ghettoization & integration which means mixing with the non-muslim society while remaining distinct as well as slightly separate in order to preserve our moral, religious, historical & civilizational identity & values.

We would have 2 parallel societies where the community has its own distinct society as well as interacting with the wider non-muslim society. Thankfully this largely appears to be the reality at present.

This is what has upset & scared the likes of Trevor Phillips which is that Muslims have refused to assimilate into ‘British’ values & have maintained a strong identity unlike other minority communities who, perhaps, are surrendering to the identity & values of the wider majority society.

We should give the likes of him a befitting response to the dangerous nonsense that he has peddled in this program.

We will remain who we are in terms of our identity & values regardless of how much liberals despise it.

Long may we continue to upset the likes of Phillips!

Why does Trevor Phillips think like this about Muslims?

Unfortunately, the reason is that he is a coconut & an Uncle Tom. Although he is of Afro-Caribbean ethnicity & has black skin color, he is internally white & the Western ideology of Liberalism is the prism through which he views the world.

In reality, he is internally white despite of being externally black. Tragically there are many like him who are either Muslim, non-white & of non-western origin who have internalized false consciousness.

Being the liberal determinist that he is, Phillips, like so many others, seems frustrated by both Islam and Muslims. Why can’t they just get with the secular liberal program & stop being such a nuisance unlike other communities who have apparently accepted ‘British’ values, ‘modern’ values & ‘progress’?

Phillips believes that history moves with intent, that the forces of ‘progress’ will inevitably prevail which entails, secularism, being areligious and liberalism.

The implication is clear enough: that to be truly “British” is to adopt a particular set of views about society, gender relations or, more generally, to be or become liberal. 

This is a sentiment that has been noticed more and more after 9/11 & especially over debates about immigration during the last decade: the desire, sometimes a demand, to see Muslims embrace the western ideologies of secularism & liberalism, and an anger that many simply won’t. Too many Muslims, it seemed, are intent on defying the arc of history.

Long may it continue!"