Islamophobia: a dangerous trend · 11:52am Dec 23rd, 2015
Warning: this post may be considered controversial. Reader discretion advised.
If this article is to be believed, more than half of Americans have an unfavourable view of Islam.
That is, half of Americans who took part in the poll, not the whole population of America, but this result concerns me.
I dabble in reading Western newspapers from time to time, and I have noticed a trend recently. The comments that call Islam "a religion incompatible with democracy", "a barbaric religion", "religion of terrorists", along with more hateful "death to Islam/Muslims" comments, have been cropping up more often in recent months.
I can't help but be concerned by this.
Such rhetorics is a good way to drive Muslims, especially young ones, into terrorist organizations. It's relatively easier to recruit a Muslim if they are oppressed by Islamophobia - some psychological manipulation and voila, you have a zealot. This tactic has been used by many fundamentalists, and I'll be very surprised if ISIS doesn't use it as well.
I am not blind to the atrocities committed supposedly in the name of Muhammed. First and Second Chechen Wars of 1994-1996 and 1999-2000, as well as terrorist acts during the insurgency period can't leave any Russian ignorant of this. And that is the terrorism in my home country alone. Combine it with 9/11 and other well-known callous attacks and I get it why people are wary.
But the fault is too often falsely laid at the feet of all Muslims, when it should actually be placed at feet of radicals. I am an Orthodox Christian, and I have Muslim friends, and we get along well with each other. We simply don't talk about religion, and I have to remember that they want to avoid eating pork and drinking wine (Qur'an forbids that). And none of them want to join ISIS.
I also have doubts whenever someone quotes phrases of Qur'an that supopsedly permit killing of unfaithful. Having studied translation, I am aware that a translator inevitably casts a certain... prism on the text he/she translates, and certain things can be twisted. There is a reason why Russian government bans certain translations of Qur'an that are used by terrorists as propaganda. The situation is complicated by the fact that Arabic language is not as well-known as, say, English, and Qur'an is also originally written in an ancient Arabic dialect (as far as I am aware) - which is even less known. So checking the correctness is even more difficult.
What I ask of everyone who reads this - don't attribute sins of the few to those who haven't committed them. Or we may indeed suffer a clash of civilizations like we had never seen before, because people would feel that joining ISIS or any other outfit like that is the only way to survive and preserve their religion. This must not happen.
P. S. One of my followers, deadmanx513, I believe, once posted a video somewhere:
Check out story #3, where Christians and Muslims in Egypt protected each other during riots in 2011. We can unify! So why don't we?!
And I'm sure the majority of Russians have a low opinion of Turkey right now. I'm not saying bigotry in any case is deserved, but it's not just America that demonizes its enemies and blames millions of innocents.
3638264
Fair point, Cynical, and I positively hate how quickly some of my compatriots remembered the common insults associated with the Turks and quickly spewed them in comment sections. I'm certainly not thinking highly of Erdogan and his ilk right now either, but to hate everyone? Lunacy.
I don't want anyone to follow that example, or the one I mentioned in my post. I'm certain that there are other people in the West that are thinking like that right now, but I focused on US and that particular vote because it's the first time (as far as I am aware) when such sentiment was shared by more than 50% of participants; not because I wanted to take a dig against your country.
3638374 Agreed.
I understand that you weren't taking potshots at the US, and I appreciate that. I'm just not certain what exactly can be done for Americans to not have a negative opinion of something that, in the past 22 years*, has been connected to the perpetrators of brutal and barbaric attacks, whether it showed the actual focus of the religion or not, it's still the idea that will probably be there for quite a while no matter what.
*I've decided to include the Twin Tower bombing of 1993, as several people in the states, from what I've seen, are starting to believe that it might play a far bigger role than most thought.
3638487
If we talk 22 years... damn, that's an entire generation's worth. I am 22 myself.
Yeah, with that history, it would be real hard to go away from negative opinions. But still... call me naive, but I'd like to believe that people can overcome this.
I'm a Muslim. Assalamualaikum. Hope you have a good day and a good life.
4504222
Hello... um, how am I supposed to type a response to "Assalamualaikum"? Is it "Alaikumassalamu"? Sorry, I have no definite idea...
Thanks, I am doing well, and I hope you have a good day and a good life as well.
4504464 The answer is waalaikumsalam. Okay?