This weekend, Islamic terrorists coordinated attacks across Paris, which killed over 120 people. The sentiment resonates even on our campus. They are fleeing the fear and torment brought on by the same violence that was for them a daily reality, yet we in the West are quick to cast blame on them, too, when those we consider our allies are targeted. Seventy percent of the individuals polled said Muslims receive a lot of discrimination, which was the highest percentage agreeing that a certain group is discriminated against.
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“The first reaction was, ‘Thank God nobody was here, ‘” said Salaam Bhatti, spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA.
Butt does worry stereotyping will exist, painting all Muslims with the same brush ISIS has created.
Slovakia has been one of the main entry points into Europe for migrants coming from countries torn apart by wars with ISIS such as Syria and Iraq.
‘These are criminals and cowards with no regard for the sanctity of human life. The Qur’an equates killing a single person to killing all of mankind.
When asked if the Muslim leaders thought the ideas of bombing ISIS groups or putting troops on the ground should be responses to the attacks, Chaudry asked everyone to focus on the non-political aspects of what they were there to do as a community. The letter did not receive mainstream media coverage, but can be downloaded in several languages online.
“These people are not Muslim”, says Wafi Abdouss, a young Internet personality from Morocco in a recent Youtube video.
However, Butt remains positive, stating Canada is a peaceful country with a majority of understanding people residing in the country. It even (unwittingly) harms the USA public, as expanding this war against a small minority into a clash of civilizations is no doubt one reason why the war on terror has eclipsed all other wars in US history in length. “These people (terrorists) are misrepresenting our Islam”.
We should isolate, denigrate and thereby diminish the terrorists. We should seek to take away their only real weapon – their rhetoric and their false pretenses. The Nazis were defeated by being isolated and marginalized.
Local police and the FBI are investigating the shooting at the Meriden Mosque, and Bhatti says they’re standing up instead of bowing down to fear and that the community’s reaction has made all the difference.
Islamophobes and the extremists have something in common. But that’s not quite the same as saying that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, when it very clearly has something to do with it. Terrorists want to hear that the West is against Islam in order to mobilize their agenda. We live in an age of growing anti-Muslim bigotry, where mainstream politicians now feel license to say things that might have once been unimaginable.
I believe that such a strategy is harmful to the cause of secularism and humanism; moreover it is rewarding for the far-rights.
In a Monday interview, Yasser Louati, a spokesperson for the Collective Against Islamophobia In France, told Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman that while they’re mourning the attacks like the rest of their countrymen, Paris’ Muslims are also terrified of a rising tide of violent Islamophobia in retaliation for the terrorist strike.
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Muslim organizations in Milwaukee hope the Paris terror attacks do not spark anti-Islamic threats. Islam teaches you to be tolerant and to respect other people’s faiths. We express deep sympathy for hundreds of those who have been directly affected by these senseless and heinous acts of barbarism that can only be described as insane and inhumane. “We’re using two or three examples to justify a generalization”. We pray for the victims and their families and we stand together with the victims and the people of France and we have and will stand together with whoever is affected by such crimes.
