Now this is a backlash I can get behind

It's already been linked to numerous times elsewhere, but this is a remarkably strong, brave piece by Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress:

Keep politics out of our mosques Three years ago when Kuwaiti Islamist scholar Tareq Al Suwaidian told a Toronto crowd that "Western civilization is rotten from within and nearing collapse ... it (the West) will continue to grow until an outside force hits it and you will be surprised at how quickly it falls," he was lustily cheered by the nearly 2,000 young Muslim men and women. I was deeply offended by the hostile remark, but the thunderous approving applause of the young audience simply stunned me. All I could do was muster the courage and stage a polite walkout. That day I resolved to fight this hostility toward the modern nation-state and Western civilization that was engulfing a section of Canadian Muslim youth; one that was being fanned by the leadership of the traditional Muslim organizations and Islamic radicals who took inspiration from the ruling elites of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Last weekend's arrests and the alleged role of young Muslim men in a terror cell may not have been inspired by the fiery rhetoric of the visiting Kuwaiti scholar. But if the RCMP allegations are true, the actions of this group definitely have roots in the cult of hate and death that is glorified by a tiny segment of Muslim clerics. While the overwhelming majority of Canada's Muslims have been stunned by this development, few can honestly deny that they had seen this coming. For years, some of us have been incessantly talking and writing about the growth of this extremist phenomenon, this contempt for secular parliamentary democracy and non-stop berating of Muslim youth who become "Canadian" and warnings to them that they will be punished in the hereafter if they do not adhere to the barren version of Islam where joy itself is a sin. In the last five years, we Muslims have had more than our share of terrorism done in the name of our faith. Whether it is terrorist attacks in India or the hundreds of simultaneous bombings in 300 cities of Bangladesh; whether it is massacres of Muslims by Muslims in Iraq or the genocide of Muslims by Muslims in Darfur, the traditional leadership of the Muslim community responds repeatedly in a similar manner: abject denial. Every tragedy that has befallen the Muslim world has been labelled as an American or a Zionist conspiracy.... On a live TVO Studio 2 debate on Monday, Toronto imam Ali Hindy clearly insinuated that the entire RCMP operation was being conducted to justify the continuing war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He referred to the arrests as "show business" and stated the "show must go on." During the discussion, Hindy claimed he knew eight of the accused. According to his analysis, the suspects may have been involved in military training to fight a jihad overseas. He went on to say that when young Muslim men come to him asking to go overseas to fight, he discourages them and tells them to fight their jihad "here." Flabbergasted, host Paula Todd asked him, "Why? What do you mean?" Cornered, he took refuge — like so many Muslim clerics who encourage jihad, take when trapped — in philosophy: "By jihad I mean the inner jihad ..." Monday night's discussion on TVO was also significant because it is only in non-Muslim institutions that Muslims can debate from adversarial positions. There is not a single mosque in Canada where Muslims with opposing views can debate anything political, social or theological. The doors of debate are shut by the cement of orthodoxy. Only doublespeak and hypocrisy are allowed to flourish. As long as Muslims can find someone else to blame for our ills, the problem is seen as resolved. I say, enough is enough. Muslims cannot go on behaving as if everything is normal. We cannot sit still while a fascist cult of Islamic supremacy takes over our mosques... I urge Muslims to recognize that a mosque is not the places for politics, it is a place of worship. Imams who peddle politics need to be told to take their politics to the electorate and not to the pulpit. Religion and politics is an incendiary mixture and invoking God on one's side in a political dispute is dishonest, callous and dangerous. Let us tell our imams to keep their politics to themselves and not to stain our religion by using the divine texts to score political points and promote terror...

More on our friend Hindy here. Meanwhile, CP reports, a growing number of Muslims are saying, keep the mosques out of our politics:

But some in the Muslim community say goodwill efforts that involve visiting mosques and shaking hands with imams comprise a simplistic and naive approach that excludes those who believe in the separation of religion and politics. Toronto police Chief Bill Blair's televised meeting Sunday with religious leaders might easily have left those watching it with the impression that the Muslim community is a homogenous entity with a single identity, said artist Asma Arshad Mahmood. Religious leaders do not speak for every one of Canada's 750,000 Muslims, especially since not everyone interprets Islam the same way, she said.

Some more encouraging words from two Muslim MPs here.