“Even though I didn’t want to smile,”. Underscoring the power of religion in general, and Islam in particular, may provide fodder for bigots who might latch on to our statements and misuse them for their own ends. But this really upsets the peaceful people of countries like Turkey. “Equating Islam, all Muslims, with terrorists is oversimplification and wrong”, the ad reads as somber music plays. “I mean, we should have a lot of systems”. ISIL does not represent Islam. It is not representative in any way of the attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Muslims. Thousands of Sunni Muslims have been killed in the Middle East already, even though it has been only a couple of years ever since they established their geographical presence in the region.
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Radio host and Fox News personality Sean Hannity grossly misrepresented a Pew Research poll detailing views of ISIS in countries with significant Muslim populations to misleadingly claim that there are “significant levels of support for ISIS within the Muslim world”. It is real and it is unsafe. And it has built up over time, and with social media it has now accelerated.
People holding placards reading “Muslims twice bruised” attend a gathering at the city hall of Bordeaux, southwestern France, on November 20, 2015 as part of a public tribute to the victims of the November 13 Paris attacks.
All of these quotes also came from Muslims. “Muslims feel so oppressed that they are afraid to take to the streets”, he answered. And I think those ideas have to be challenged. Most terrorist attacks in Europe and the USA are not carried out by Muslims. I trust you. Do you trust me? Graham recently remarked, “Islam is at war with us – we’ve witnessed its evil face firsthand over and over”. They are parents, they are children, they are orphans.
“Our message is we don’t want to let ISIS hijack our religion”, said Syed Ashraf. We talk of universal human rights while unabashedly placing the comfort of Christians and Americans over the right of Syrian refugees to live in safety and peace. The fact that they’ve kept their borders open to these refugees is a signal of their belief in a common humanity.
A few Republican presidential candidates have said they would go further and argue that all Muslims should bear greater scrutiny because it is too hard to tell which ones are the radicals.
As we respond to another violent act, ostensibly done in the name of religion, each one of us is faced with a critical decision. Joni Ernst, Wasserman Schultz said that she received financial backing from donors who “embrace radical Tea Party ideology”.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “deeply disturbed” after a fire was deliberately set at the Kawartha Muslim Religious Association’s mosque in Peterborough, Ontario.
After the tragedies of September 11, 2001, George W. Bush made clear America is not at war with Islam. What Obama and the Democrats are doing by denying the existence of radical Islam is throwing a bone to Muslims who, themselves, are hostages to a fantasy. It’s our better impulse. We don’t kill people because they’re different from us. We are telling them that we are not sorry for their loss because they were not sorry for ours.
Like Bush’s ironical ‘war on terror’, we are set and prepared for an ironical war on Islamophobia.
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“As a nation, we remain committed to supporting and defending the people of France in whatever way we can. Now is precisely the time to stand up for our democracy’s core values”.
