A sense of religious intolerance and sectarian violence have surfaced in US and France following the deadly attacks carried out by members of self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Paris and California which left dozens dead and wounded behind. Muslim Americans encounter abusive remarks while presenting in public with Islamic hijab or traditional way of clothing or growing beard. The Holy Mosques are desecrated in US as the pig’s head is thrown upon and shut down, alongside some prayer rooms, in France to take precautionary measures.
It is believed that the nature of democracy is freedom – freedom of speech, religion, beliefs, etc. – therefore one is entitled to practice his/her religious rituals without fear. Similarly, discrimination against minority groups on the grounds of one’s criminal acts, which happens to belong to the same religious group, has no logical basis.
Perhaps the Americans have forgotten the Kandahar massacre when the US Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales murdered sixteen civilians, including nine children, and wounded six others in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar province, on March 11, 2012. Similarly, on January 2012, US and UN officials described a video clip of US marines urinating on dead Afghans as “disgusting” and “inhuman” – according to BBC report.
However, American and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) authorities only offered their apology for the tragic murder of Kandahar. Following the incident, the Taliban launched an attack on an Afghan government delegation which was visiting the site of the killings on 13 March, murdering one Afghan soldier and injuring three – after calling the Afghan soldiers complicit in the Kandahar attack. Hence, Afghans suffered from both sides – as Muslims do in the present. In spite of the ugly episodes, Afghans called neither Christians nor American “terrorist” and the Americophobia was not as strong as the Islamophobia going on in the United States. It is believed that if the terrorist groups could spark tension between Islam and West, they would have achieved their goal.
US President Barack Obama asked Americans not to turn against Muslims after the Paris and California attacks, but rather work with the Muslim-American community in fighting homegrown extremism. He warned Americans not to depict the fight against terrorism as a war between Islam and America as doing so would harm both. Moreover, he urged Muslim leaders to work with the rest of the world to decisively defeat the ideology of terror. “Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda promote,” Obama is cited as saying.
He reminded Americans that extremists “account for a tiny fraction” of more than a billion Muslims around the world. He also noted that there were millions of patriotic Muslims in America who also reject the “hateful ideology” of groups like IS and Al Qaeda.
The extremists “are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death,” said the US president while pointing out that the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world were Muslim. “If we are to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate,” he said.
He urged Muslim leaders across the world “to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity”.
However, following the recent California mass murders, Donald Trump has called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”. It is said that after the 9/11 tragedy, large numbers of the American public switched to driving cars for long trips instead of flying. Statistically, the risk of dying from a car accident was about 60 times greater than the risk of dying in an airplane accident. It has been estimated that the fear of flying led to over a 100 extra deaths in car accidents monthly. According to Tribune Express editorial, deaths by terrorism are a tiny percentage of total deaths by firearms. Suicide: 19,800; murder: 10,500; mass shootings: 462; right wing terrorists: 12; Muslim terrorists: 19. It adds that dogs kill six times more people than terrorists in the US, and bathtub falls kill 100 times more, but we do not declare war on dogs or bathtubs. “Since 9/11, there have been a total of 52 incidents of religious terrorism in the US, of which 27 were created by FBI entrapment. The response to terrorism has been so far out of proportion as to be mindboggling.” It further cites a source that “the US response to 9/11 has cost $3.3 trillion. Strangely, there is no mention of the human cost of millions of civilian lives destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, the ISIL or Daesh are not the only ones with bloodlust for killing random innocents; US Senator Ted Cruz has promised to avenge San Bernardino by bombing the Middle East until the sand glows in the dark.” Recent polls by Pew show that across the globe, Muslims are overwhelmingly opposed to the Islamic State. Hence, it is hoped that Muslims – who bear the brunt of terrorism – will not fall victim to religious intolerance in western countries anymore.