“I only hope we Muslims aren’t sidelined”.
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On Friday, Muslims from all over the country are gathered outside the White House, united against ISIS.
This, despite the fact that all of the confirmed attackers were European nationals. It’s an issue of a small percentage of people who have taken up violence in order to pursue their political agendas, while waving the flag of religion. The Union of French Mosques a network mostly for believers of Moroccan origin said French Muslims should hold rallies and meetings with other faiths to counter Daesh’s efforts “to find among the French support for their lost cause”. Our vetting process is different, longer and significantly more thorough, as those seeking to enter the US have to pass the United Nations vetting process in addition to our own procedures. There are difficulties and complications, but the conclusion that refugees suddenly pose a drastic threat to our safety is a rash overreaction.
According to local media in Charlotte, North Carolina, an Uber driver reported that he was physically attacked and threatened with death by a passenger who mistakenly thought he was a Muslim.
Ben Carson: “Radical Islamic jihadists”. “Austrians are more helpful to Muslims than ever”.
The Islamic group says they have seen negativity against Muslims since the Paris attacks. None have been convicted of violent terrorist actions.
“Do they show this kind of sympathy with us?”
“We have been watching horror movies in Iraq; we have tasted this for 12 years, and no country moved to help us”, she said. The Muslims in our midst become the stand-ins for all terrorists, and all too often, we treat them as such.
What then are we Muslims to do?
An illuminating Twitter account called Historical Opinion this week reproduced the results of a poll published in Fortune magazine in July 1938, which found that just 5 per cent of Americans surveyed believed the U.S. should raise immigration quotas or encourage refugees seeking to escape fascist regimes in Europe. We can not be apathetic to the anti-American and pro-terrorist speeches that the Imams give in our mosques. Governors, however, do not have the power to ban refugees from their states. The mass exodus of Muslims from Syria threatens the IS claim to be a safe haven for Muslims, invalidating the group’s central claim. Through my hybrid identity as a Muslim-American, I strive to provide one of many examples of how it is indeed possible to move past fear of “the other” and toward mutually beneficial relationships. “They represent evil and war”. They will likely come to see IS’ anti-Western rhetoric as true. “While recognizing that security concerns must be fully addressed, we should not turn our backs on the thousands of legitimate refugees”. Instead of empathising with them we are busy declaring what Islam is and what it is not. We must recognize such responses only serve to amplify the voices of religious extremism claiming to speak for Islam.
“I can not stand ISIS for the life of me”. More importantly, we should not abandon out of cowardice who and what we are.
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Riding the Paris Metro to the city’s Grand Mosque for prayers, Samia Mahfoudia says people shoot sideways looks at her “almost as if they were saying ‘Get off'”.
