Islamophobia? It seems as if we are suffering more from Muslim-mania - an unhealthy obsession with all things Islamic, and a paranoid fixation with looking at the world from behind a veil.

News that a leading awards panel has rejected a version of The Three Little Pigs for fear that “the use of pigs raises cultural issues” with the Muslim community, has been slammed as “multiculturalism gone mad”. But similarly unhinged attitudes are now common in government reports.

Why does the Ministry of Defence think there is a shortfall in army recruitment? Apparently because of “prevalent views on current operations among ethnic minority communities”. One might imagine that the Muslim youth of Bradford and Tower Hamlets packed the ranks before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What does the Home Office's official assessment see as the big problem it faces extending detention without charge to 42 days? Apparently, because Muslim community leaders expressed concerns about the impact on relations with the police. Presumably our Muslim-manic Home Office believes that burying habeas corpus would be OK if they were unconcerned.

Jacqui Smith has even officially renamed Islamic terrorism as “anti-Islamic activity”. Never mind walking Hackney's mean streets, the Home Secretary appears most scared of treading on Muslim toes. All this can only reinforce divisions by treating Muslims as a race apart.

There are big Muslim communities in our cities - about 15 per where I live in northeast London - but the 2001 census put Muslims at just over 3 per cent of the population in England. How has 3 per cent of the public become a focus of public debate? This imbalance must have far less to do with “them” than with the rest of us. It reveals less about Islam than about the anxieties of mainstream British culture.

The clear and distinct identity of the Muslim community, embodied in the veil, makes it a visible symbol of the divisions and insecurities in Britain. But the obvious target is rarely the right one. Muslim-mania has become a sort of political veil behind which we can avoid facing up to some awkward home truths about our society.

Time to cure the body politic of this degenerative condition, stop obsessing about offensive images or playing word-games with terrorism, and start an honest discussion about the bigger questions facing society as a whole. What beliefs, if any, can we unite around today? What are we prepared to stand and fight for now? These questions remain unasked while our leaders tilt at the alternative straw men of Islamophobia and Islamofascism.

The Three Little Pigs at least has a lesson about hiding behind straw to keep the wolf from the door.

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