Dear all,

As fighting continues in Waziristan and militants continue to threaten to unleash death and destruction across Pakistan, the basic conflict is mirrored at every level: a fight between those who use a savage and primitive form of religion as their passport to power and those who oppose this practice.

This is the conflict that we see in our homes, schools, workplaces and society. This is the conflict that is threatening to deprive young Pakistanis of the faculty of reason and the ability to think and analyse, and look at information in a rational and objective manner.

It’s becoming easier and easier to kill or prosecute people by labelling them kafirs or apostates, and the fact that these murderers and rabble-rousers go unpunished encourages their likes to push the boundaries even further.

The jihad franchise is not confined to training camps and terrorist affiliations, it extends to a desperate sort of battle to wrest power and influence "back from the unbelievers".

It’s all happening here in the UK, too, and the most recent controversy is the ‘Trojan Horse’ story -- that groups of hardline Muslims in Birmingham were carrying out a plan to infiltrate state schools in Birmingham and turn them into ‘Islamic’ institutions.

The story first surfaced earlier this year with an email sent out by a teacher in one of these schools. This was followed by an anonymous letter outlining the plot and naming some of the individuals involved. Basically, the idea was to take over the Boards of Governors at schools, and thus force through changes. The ‘Islamising’ efforts reported by concerned teachers and parents were the usual misogynistic or bigoted ones that megalomaniacs so love: ‘moral’ policing, segregating girls and boys, labelling other faiths unbelievers, trying to bar other groups (in this case whites and Christians), and generally preaching a hell fire and brimstone version of faith.

Non-Muslim teachers say they were forced out of the schools and whites were actively discriminated against.

The term ‘white prostitutes’ is alleged to have been used in a school gathering.

The whole thing is now under review but it seems to be looked at as merely an education issue. Many people think it is a wider malaise, and is about an anti-state, discriminatory and bigoted agenda that should be dealt with harshly. Instead, we see the same softly-softly approach by the UK authorities that they always adopt in order to avoid the charge of being nasty to Muslims or being ‘Islamophobic’.

Surely, there is a difference in discriminating against Muslims generally, and prosecuting crazed megalomaniacs, who use religion to further their own ambition. If the distinction is not made, the crazies win -- they gain the limelight and are seen to represent a whole community.

And it is precisely their sort of mentality that fuels the whole jihad enterprise.

This is a battle that is being waged on many fronts -- not just at a military level. Alas, it is one that most anti-fascists seem to be unaware that they should be fighting…

Best wishes