LAST week's revelation that the suicide bombers were British people born and brought up in this country was a shock to us all.

It was particularly poignant for us here in Buckinghamshire that one of the culprits was a man who was living in Aylesbury.

The newspapers have been dominated by reporters asking the Muslim community to condemn and explain the atrocities when it's actually all of us who should be asking ourselves what's gone wrong with our society that British people should want to do this.

The irony of this is that we're driving a wedge further between the Muslim community and everyone else by constantly associating the bombings with Islam.

The media were asking Islamic leaders to condemn the attacks even before it was confirmed that the bombers were Muslims.

By asking them this question it's almost assuming that they might support them which is, of course, ridiculous. We all know that there are extremists in all religions and these people do not represent Islam as it was intended.

We should be treating these people as extremists and as radicals rather than as Muslims.

These London bombers were part of our community as well and so we should not be making Muslim people feel that it is solely their responsibility. If we are to progress as a society we need to stop alienating groups within it and focus on all the positive things we have in common.

It's a terrible tragedy that men so young should feel so disaffected from society that they would want to blow up innocent people. We need to pull together at times like this and think about how we can stop our country becoming so disparate.

If we carry on blaming the bombings on Muslim people as a whole then we run the serious danger of alienating that community even more and creating greater racial disharmony.

I think that a backlash against Muslim and Asian people is inevitable due to the way the media has dealt with bombings. People should not be made to feel guilty about their beliefs but that is what we are doing by constantly relating these crimes to Islam. There is no religion that preaches hatred to others, only fanaticism.

Terrorism sets out to divide communities and create conflict. We cannot let the events of July 7 tear us apart even further by trying to pass the blame.