ONCE UPON A time, I went to bed in our dull outer London suburb and woke up to find myself on “the frontline of the War on Terror”. One week after those arrests of British-born Muslims, here is the shock news from Walthamstow. There is no noticeably increased tension on the streets, no Islamophobic pogroms are in progress, and Muslim riots have not broken out.

Despite the headlines in London’s evening paper, I do not live in an outpost of Pakistan known as “Walthamstan”. The 2001 Census records some 33,000 Muslims in the borough of Waltham Forest — around 15 per cent of the population, mostly British-born of Pakistani origin. They are a growing minority and hardly a downtrodden one — Pakistanis are prominent among local professions and businesses, and include both our Liberal Democrat mayor and his Labour deputy.

Nobody in Walthamstow is “at war” with the Muslim community. But there is something odd in E17. We tend to live parallel lives. Our children are friendly with Muslim classmates, but rarely best friends. We are happy to be neighbours, but not particularly neighbourly to each other.

And whatever the truth of the current allegations against the suspects, there is undoubtedly an antagonistic attitude towards British society among some Muslims, particularly the younger generation. They are thoroughly Westernised, yet anti-Western. As one Islamic group said this week, “some of the grievances that [the London bombers] claim was their motivation are the grievances that many Muslims feel”.

Of course those few who plot to plant bombs are responsible for their own actions — don’t try to blame Tony Blair or Abu Hamza. But what shapes this wider grievance-obsessed attitude? Some blame British or US foreign policy. Others claim it is all about Islam. But that cannot explain why young people appear more zealous than parents who came from traditional Muslim countries.

I think the big factor comes from closer to home — the multicultural identity politics that is institutionalised in Britain from the top down. The distinctive identity promoted by multiculturalism is that of the victim. Each identity group vies to win prestige and grants by parading its sufferings. Thus Muslim community leaders elevate any perceived slight into evidence of a wave of Islamophobia, and depict foreign policy as proof of persecution.

This sort of victim identity feeds the emotions of pity and outrage rather than any political understanding. And it can lead some to lash out like sullen adolescents.

The authorities have tried hard to deal with Muslim concerns, from the Government’s Preventing Extremism Together working groups to our local council’s Community Cohesion Task Force. After the London bombings the Met sent the deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick to the local mosque to reassure imams that he had “told the media that Islam and terrorism are two words that do not go together”. The council and police have encourage d more reporting of “faith-hate crimes”.

The irony is that all of this can only encourage more grievance-mongering, by reinforcing the notion that the Muslim community has a growing list of legitimate gripes. There is no satisfying a self-styled victim’s appetite for redress. Thus one Muslim leader this week told Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to introduce Islamic law to cover family matters, for Muslims only.

There seem to be two views on how to deal with “the Muslim problem”: either we should feel their pain, or feel their collars. Instead, we should stop obsessing about Muslims. They are neither the big problem facing Britain, nor the solution. We would be better off sorting out what sort of society we want to live in together that others might aspire to integrate into. Strong universal liberties and values are the best antidote to divisive victim identities. And let us try to get terrorism in perspective. Islamic terrorism is real, whatever Mr Paddick may say. But the notion that it is a mortal threat to our society is a product of our insecure imaginations.

The “War on Terror” may be raging in “Walthamstan”. Back in dull old Walthamstow, multiethnic London life goes on.

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