A few days ago, I walked into a large bookstore in Jinnah Super Market in Islamabad. A book titled Londonistan grabbed my attention, and having spent some prime years of my life as a university student in London, I could not just walk away. So I decided to give it a read.

 Londonistan is authored by Oxford-educated Melanie Phillips. In her book, she is convinced that one day London will become the Islamic State of Londonistan. She claims that native Englishmen are only one-tenth of the London population, and their number will further reduce in the near future. Muslims are almost 1.6 million out of the 60 million British population, making Islam the second-largest religion after Christianity. More people attend mosques than churches in the British society.

Melanie asks Britons to wake up to the realities of Islamic fundamentalism brewing in their land. She elaborates that the 7/7 bombers were British Muslim boys under the influence of fundamentalists.

She explains that the Muslim community desires to spread its religion across the globe, and feels that native Britons like her are being victimised. To her, the incredible influx of Muslim immigrants from Asian and African countries has distorted the demographics that had been relatively stable for 1,000 years.

During my days in London I use to say Jummah prayers at the nearest mosque. A number of times I had arguments with British-born young Muslim boys who were distributing hatred pamphlets against the entire western population and behaved as if they were in a state of war.

I would try to convince them not to generalise a community merely because of a handful of politicians and warmongers but our arguments would usually end in me being bullied away. After all, I was not British and was only there for my studies, why would I make foes in a land where I was only a guest?

Before the start of the Iraq war over a million people gathered in London to protest against the invasion. I and a couple of my university friends (Pakistani students) went together to Hyde Park.

When they saw the large number of protestors they chickened out as they were scared of being labelled as affiliates of protestors from the Muslim Council of Britain, but I confidently joined the million protestors to demonstrate my concern over the actions of President Bush. It all concluded peacefully but Prime Minister Blair was not convinced to leave his position as 'Poodle of Mr Bush'.

Melanie Phillips has generalised Muslims by arguing that if certain British Muslim boys were 7/7 bombers, all Muslim boys are potential hardliners / terrorists. I think that such views need to change.

Someone should explain that such announcements could result in a serious conflict between Muslims and Christians. Rather authors should write against the actions of Mr Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan, where millions of innocent people have perished under the orders of mighty oil traders.

Melanie Phillips should write a book about the treatment of minority groups in different parts of the UK. Although I must emphasise here, however that some of the closest friends I made during my stay in the UK belong to the majority community.

FAHAD ZAFAR

Lahore