US fanning the flames of Islamophobia

Far too much publicity has already been given to the threat made by a pastor of a tiny US cult church to burn copies of the Qur’an. The provocative act by an obscure individual was blown out of proportion by media frenzy.Virtually overnight, Rev Terry Jones, who left Germany under a cloud of accusations andhis 50 followers at the Dove World Outreach Center, became an international sensation.Book burning, including of sacred religious texts, is nothing new. But the question must be asked: why the contemptible episode was given headline-grabbing attention around the world, leading to rioting and even deaths.

The incitement of Jones is representative of the deep malaise of Islamophobia that has been orchestrated by the misguided and ill-conceived ‘war on terrorism’ and linking this to Islam, or what the politicians and the media would call “twisted form of Islam”, “extremist Islam” “the extreme form of Islam”, “the Islamic terrorist” or the more nuanced form, “Islamist terrorists”. The
consequence has been to demonise the religion of 20% of the world’s population, with the consequence that there is an increase in assaults on Muslims, attacks on mosques and the publication of outrageous cartoons. The second wave has targeted Islamic symbols,extending to ever encroaching bans on their dress and places of worship.

Muslims in the US are living in fear of the hatred that has been caused by the ‘war on terror’ and more so since the campaign against building of Muslim cultural centre
two blocks away from Ground Zero and the threat of burning of the Qur’an accompanied
by the Islamophobic tirades. We have therefore published a sample of the
increasing number of Islamophobic attacks across the US in this issue of the newspaper.
Jones has been seeking media attention sincebeing expelled from the German Evangelical Alliance for being a Christian Fundamentalist two years ago, resorting to even printing T-shirts for schoolchildren with ‘Islam is of the Devil’ on the back. Although he eventually dropped his threat timed to coincide with the 9th anniversary of 9/11,the publicity generated led to a series of copycat burnings and desecrations of the Qur’an across the US, including outside the White House.

The British media is already responsible for giving grossly disproportionate attention to unrepresentative and dubious Muslim characters and organizations. The tabloid press as well as some more up-market newspapers are also not unknown to indulge in sensationalist and often bizarre stories that dwell upon discrediting Muslims and Islam.But perhaps the chief culprits of fanning the flames of Islamophobia are politicians and government policies. Whichever way it is worded, the ‘war on terrorism’ has been perceived to be targeted against Islam and its more than one billion followers. Like during the medieval era, it is the religion of Islam that is being erroneously blamed as the cause of extremism and terrorism, whether or not it is presented and packaged as being just perverted form or extremist elements. The consequence has been to tarnish all Muslims with the same brush and demonise their religion, Islam.

Interestingly, every politician in the West and every journalist and media outlet, has been careful to emphasise that Pastor Jones does not represent the majority of the Christians or Americans and that he is a lunatic fringe. No one has uttered that he is following a twisted form of Christianity.However, when it comes to the lunatic fringe in the Muslim world everyone is tarnished with one brush by blaming the religion. One only needs to see counter terrorism policies in the UK and also in the rest of the Western world where the target has been Islam, imams,mosques, Muslim ‘chaplains’ in prisons,university campuses and hospitals. Even toddlers have not been spared. Counter terrorism measures in nurseries, schools and universities targeting ONLY Muslim pupils. No area of the life of Muslim has been spared not even sport, sport centres and gyms.

It was notable in the intervention of US President Barack Obama over the book burning that his appeal was directed at fears that the stunt could “greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan.” It was the act itself that should have been condemned and he should
have empathised with the hurt that 1.5 billion Muslims would feel if the Qur’an was burnt. Even Nato and US Commander, Gen David Petraeus, issued a statement a day after 500 demonstrated in Kabul against the proposed burning of the Qur’an, that the latter could provoke violent retaliation against US troops – with no concern about the 1.5 billion Muslims. In her denouncement that the planned Florida event was “plainly disrespectful – even abhorrent”, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was ironically in the same breath honouring the Islamophobic Danish cartoonist
Kurt Westergaard, who similarly provoked worldwide outrage in the Muslim world by his cartoon of the Prophet.
It is time to start to repair some of the damage done and prevent incidents like the Qur’an burning occurring again by changing our discourse about the threat of terrorism. The primary reason is about politics, our foreign and domestic policies against Muslims and not religion. The Pastor said the reason why he was burning the Qur’an was because it was the source of evil and terrorism; the reason why many in the US do not want the Muslim cultural centre or what they perceive it to be a mosque near Ground Zero, is because they believe the mosque (and therefore Islam) was responsible for the terrorist attacks in New York. If the Islamic cultural centre is not built in its current location two blocks away from Ground Zero, it
would be a vindication to those who believe that Islam is the source of terrorism and extremism and to those who believe that the‘war on terrorism’ is the war against Islam.
Source: http://www.muslimnews.co.uk