Senior Anglican bishop criticises Muslim 'victim mentality'

A Church of England senior cleric, whose father converted from Islam, has attacked the world view of some Muslims, accusing them of imcompatible double standards of "victimhood and domination".

"Their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, and always wrong when Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists, as with the Taliban or in Iraq," said the CoE's only Asian bishop, Michael Nazir-Ali.

Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester in southeast England, was quoted as saying that because of a "dual psychology" in which some Muslims want both "victimhood and domination", all their demands would never be satisfied.

"Given the world view that has given rise to such grievances, there can never be sufficient appeasement and new demands will continue to be made," he was quoted as saying in a Sunday Times interview.

As a result of not countering such beliefs, extremism had been allowed to spread in Britain by some Muslim clerics and the Internet, he said, accusing the government of backsliding on its commitment to stamp out mosque radicalism.

To combat the problem, more needs to be done to recover "characteristic British values" of personal and common good that developed from Christianity "to help us inculcate the virtues of generosity, loyalty, moderation and love".

The comments -- the most outspoken by a high-ranking Anglican cleric -- come at a time when religion, multiculturalism and ethnic minority integration are to the fore in Britain.

Much of the debate has centred on the right of Muslim women to wear the full-face veil or niqab, sparked by former British foreign secretary Jack Straw who said they hinder good communications and symbolised separateness.

The issue has extended to the right to wear overt religious symbols and also the extent and effectiveness of Britain's much-vaunted multi-cultural model against a background of efforts to curb Muslim extremism.

The Church of England's highest ranking cleric Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams waded into the debate last month, saying to ban veils, turbans, crosses or other pieces of clothing would be "politically dangerous".

On the veil, Nazir-Ali -- who was born in Pakistan and whose father converted to Roman Catholicism -- risked controversy: "I can see nothing in Islam that presribes the wearing of a full-face veil.

"In the supermarket those at the cash tills need to be recognised. Teaching is another context in which society requires recognition and identification."

Last month a Muslim teaching assistant in northern England lost a case for discrimination after being suspended for refusing to uncover her face in the classroom.

The 57-year-old bishop took a similar tack in the Mail on Sunday newspaper, arguing for the promotion of universal values among all sections of the community for the benefit of all.

"You need some sort of subscription to a common vision, to shared values, and that has been neglected, not so much because of other faiths, but because of the spiritual and moral vacuum that has come to be at the heart of British society," he said.