Reading Helen Ang's column Flight to normalcy makes me wonder what real purpose her article is for, aside from detailing the state of heightened air travel security. Mind you, this is the writer whom in one of her previous article referred to Palestinians as people with 'a penchant for violence'.

She is a grim reminder of how statistics and numbers can be used to perpetuate one's prejudiced worldview, in her case, the association of Islam and terrorism.

In her latest article, she asks if the larger community in the UK can be entirely blamed for their 'tetchy' response to home-grown terrorism given the attitudes of the Muslims themselves. Then she plugs in a Pew Research Centre poll in June that revealed that 15 percent of British Muslims believe that 'violence against civilian targets can be justified often or sometimes'.

The same poll showed that 81 percent of British Muslims said they thought of themselves as Muslims first and citizens of their native country second.

I google-ed this up and found a more sensible usage of this statistic by Gary Younge of The Guardian . He says: 'Fundamentalists of all kinds only thrive when their communities feel besieged. Understanding why is not an indulgence'. You can read more here .

There are reasons why terrorism thrives (and I seriously don't think it has to do with one's genes). One important factor we should not ignore is how it does so in an environment that threatens one's identity. American aggression against Muslim majority nations has done a good job so far in fanning the popularity of fundamentalism and its support.

I am not Muslim but I can see how this kind of association will not make things any better in our fight against terrorism. Let us not forget that fundamentalism is found in the name of all religions, at some point in time or place.

And the question we ought to ask is why fundamentalism breeds. Stereotyping people is just a lazy and irresponsible way to form conclusions.