Sir, Some British-born Muslims denounce the Western way of life and incite Muslim children to eschew friendships with non-Muslims. Such self-imposed ghettoisation is divisive and unhelpful in the understanding of different cultures.

If Christians and Muslims are to understand each other and work in harmony (presuming that this is a possible outcome) segregation, imposed or voluntary, is the sure path to failure. Integration and education must be paramount in both these ideologically conflicting religions; and it might help if the Protestant/Anglican and the Roman Catholic arms (in all their guises) of the Christian Church were less antagonistic to each other.

MARK HENEGAR
Epsom, Surrey
markhenegar@tiscali.co.uk

From Mr D. S. A. Murray

Sir, We are threatened, not by a weak security system or inadequate laws, but by the intellectual surrender of reason to feeling.

Reason is Man’s tool of knowledge, the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men because reality is the standard and frame of reference. However, feelings or emotions are not part of the method of logic; they are not evidence of a conclusion but automatic consequences of a mind’s past conclusions.

As in the case of Islamic terrorists, when men reject reason and claim the supernatural as their means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding is possible.

D. S. A. MURRAY
Dorking, Surrey

From Mr Jeremy Bennett

Sir, MPs are leaving Parliament until October. We need new laws now to counter terrorism, not in several months’ time.

JEREMY BENNETT
Camberwell, London

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