The self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stokes fear and religious tension around the globe. The emergence of sectarian violence in Afghanistan, the November 13 Paris attacks that claimed at least 130 lives and left hundreds more injured and the December 2 assault by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, which killed 14 people and wounded 21 more in San Bernardino, California, are all the product of religious extremists. It is believed that the ISIL militant group seeks to stir up hate crime between Islam and West. Their twisted interpretation of Islam and ideological stereotypes – which led to violent and inhumane practices – has triggered Islamophobia in western countries.
A majority of Americans (68 percent) and Canadians (58 percent) are very concerned about the threat of ISIL, according to the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes and Trends report. And that survey was conducted before July.
Fast-forward to December 1, a day before the San Bernardino attack, and a report released by the George Washington University Program on Extremism revealed that 71 people had been charged in the US in connection with supporting ISIL since March 2014, including 56 this year.
The mosque is just 40 km from San Bernardino, where US-born Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his Pakistani-born wife Tashfeen Malik, 29, opened fire on his co-workers last week in what the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is treating as an act of terror.
Malik had pledged allegiance to the militant Islamic State group on Facebook around the time of the attack and the FBI believes the two had been radicalized for some time.
Muslim Americans across the US have said they are worried about a backlash, as happened in the aftermath of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.
A handful of incidents at mosques and a rash of anti-Muslim political rhetoric over the last week appear to be compounding their fears of growing Islamophobia.
On Friday, a fire burned the entrance to a mosque in Southern California’s Coachella Valley, some 120km from San Bernardino. A pig’s head was thrown at a mosque in Philadelphia on Monday and a mosque in Jersey City, New Jersey received a letter calling Muslims “evil” and telling them to “go back to the desert”.
US Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, increased the rhetoric on last week by calling for a ban on Muslim immigrants, students and other travelers entering the country, provoking sharp rebukes across the US political spectrum and from abroad.
It must be noted that one’s death on the grounds of his/her race, religion, color or sex is a stain on men’s collective conscience. I am outraged when the blood of a Black is spilled for the dark skin of their color in South Carolina of America by a White gunman, when a Christian is murdered in Karachi City of Pakistan, when a number of civilians are shot dead in Paris or California by ISIL insurgents and when Muslim women are spat on for wearing hijab or a Muslim taxi driver being shot in the back on Thanksgiving by Christians. My feelings are hurt seriously irrespective of the victims’ creed, color, etc.
It is none of one’s business which sect or religion do I belong to but my humane feelings and conscience know no geographical borders or ideological and racial boundaries. As a human, I feel the pain and anguish of a wounded heart, I denounce the violation of one’s rights and dignity and I hate any types of discrimination and curse terrorism and hate crime.
I remember vividly the tragedy of June 17, 2015 when a 21-year-old white man opened fire on the historic Emmanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina killing 9 black people. Reportedly, three of the people who died were male, including South Carolina state senator Clementa Pinkney, who served as the church pastor, and six were female.
The response on social media by some was to immediately blame white people as a whole and the supposed white supremacy nature of the United States.
“As it goes with the murder of black bodies by white America, we are left to mourn, to mask our fear and to piece together the all-to-readily available clues that, more often than not, point us to the steady reality that we are not safe to exist as free black people anywhere. Sometimes, when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you go to church to pray, or to weep. Black women go to church to find comfort, strength and solace, and to mend from the cultural maintenance of our communities. Not to get murdered – though that’s happened before, too.”
I believe that a surge of anger against all the whites concerning the issue will be unfair. In other words, one should not generalize that since a white man gunned down 9 blacks, all the American whites are racists.
Similarly, Muslims will not have to be held in contempt for practicing their religious principles just as a couple of stupid terrorists happened to be Muslim.
The terrorists – which are led by self-proclaimed caliphate as a vehicle for political interests – do not represent Islam. As a result, the terrorists, mainly members of ISIL group, kill more Muslims and pose great challenges to Islamic world.
Hence, it is hoped that the West will realize the peaceful messages of Islam and its true followers.