INTRODUCTION
Islamophobia has become such an important issue for the western world that it deserves special importance and attention to deal with it tactfully. The paper below will bring forth the issues related to islamophobia and how it has been present there in the society even before the tragic day of 9/11. Islamophobia has gripped the entire western world completely and thus hampering the rights of the innocent Muslims who neither are and nor they were ever the parts of the terrorist attacks they are being blamed for.
“Islam” could be a mere religion for the rest of the world, but for the Western world, mainly United States, it is the other name of terror. The word Islamophobia refers to an emotion of fear or hatred towards the Islamic or Muslim population. If facts are examined thoroughly, then it can be concluded that the hatred has not cropped up after 9/11 in particular, it had been there even before. But the intensity has increased manifolds after the 9/11 tragedy. The hatred is so deeply rooted that no amount of good deeds by this particular community can replace it. Not just in the US, people in various other western countries share the emotion equally. The feeling of resentment is beyond the limits of being acceptable or beyond compromise.
The hatred has been there since ages, many people tried to combat the so called islamophobia and remove it from the society, but hardly anything was ever achieved. In a report by Dr. Qatar Tash in November- December 1996 published under the Washington Report on the Middle East Affairs, he talks about the general phobia among the societies worldwide about the Islamic culture and how fast it was spreading all over. He showed great concern over the matter. In his report he mentioned that Professor Gordon Conway of the Sussex University in Britain says that the print media is bringing about the anti Muslim sentiments of the people very strongly day by day. Conway was also supposed to head the committee which was constituted to study and analyze islamophobia. Not only Conway, the professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, Mr. Fred Halliday wrote a book namely, Islam and Myth of Confrontation. He tried to emphasize Islam as a religion with a strong cultural background. This shows that the concept of islamophobia was there even decades before the World Trade Center tragedy (Washington Report on the Middle East Affairs, 1996).
The existence of islamophobia is deep and concrete. The 9/11 incidence has only acted as the fuel to the fire. The sentiments of the people regarding the Islamic community are an outcome of lot of sufferings and pain they had to bear, for which they hold the whole Islamic community responsible. The manifestation of this anger occurs as profound hatred and misbehavior towards the Islamic community, the people belonging to this community who are staying in the western countries or are travelling there are the worst sufferers. They are manhandled, denied basic human rights, tortured, beaten and even killed. The terror attacks have been done by few men belonging to the Islamic community, but the sufferers are those million innocent Muslims who’s only fault is that they belong to that particular community. Such a sufferer, Amir Saeed, talks about how life changed post 9/11 incidence. How he had being a citizen of Britain by birth was doubted of his identity and his loyalty towards Britain. Many other youths like him, who were the local citizens of Britain and Muslim by origin were called as “false nationals”, the only crime they committed was that they were born in Muslim households (Saeed, 2011). The phobia I so palpable in the western world that people visiting the western countries with a Muslim surname are suspected to be terrorists. Having a surname which sounds to be of the Islamic community is sufficient to make an innocent person suffer for hours at the airport before one can gain entry in these countries. They are harassed and tortured for hours in the name of being “checked”. A similar incident happened with an Indian celebrity, Shah Rukh Khan, he is an actor in the Indian movies. He was kept under detention for hours at the New York airport (The Times of India, 2012).
The cropping up of Islamic terrorist groups are increasing islamophobia all over the world. Post 9/11, laws were being made which targeted the Muslims residing in the Western countries. Not just the terrorist groups, the political leaders also play a role in increasing the phobia. They use phobic speeches against the Muslims in order to convince people and gather votes. This has a very negative impact on the Muslim communities who are being molested and treated as a group of people who should be kept away from the general population (Yahya, 2015). Even people with names of Arabic origin have to be at the receiving end of the hatred, they are not even Muslims by birth, but because their names are Arabic, they become a soft target. Such a thing happened with a famous journalist Yassin Musharbash, he received hate mails because of his name, and many of his friends also faced the same issue. He although belongs to Germany, but his name makes other believe that he belongs to the Muslim community (Musharbash, 2014). Social networking sites are flooded with comments which are aimed at the Muslim community, showing the resentment the people have against them. Pages are created to abuse the people belonging to the Islamic community. An author, Charlie Hebdo was gunned down right after two days he released a book on the subject of Islamophobia. His book was named as “ Letters to Tricksters of Islamophobia who are playing the game of racists.” In his book he condemned the sections of the society who used islamophobia in order to establish their own power in the community. Such groups were the people belonging to the political groups, journalists etc. His act resulted in his loss of life, being killed within two days of his book release in France (Deane, 2015).
The fear, the pain, the resentment is there in every, heart of the western world. Not just west, the history of the terror attacks by the Muslim terrorists has created panic all over the world. People across the globe are terrified badly. Very rightly said, all Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim. This adage holds true in almost all the terror attacks incidents. The resentment against this community has become so strong that common people have started distinguishing Muslims as a separate entity. Muslim children are bullied at schools, people have to change their names in order to hide their identity as Muslims. Being a Muslim seems to be a crime, and the Muslims are the criminals. The common innocent people bear the punishment of belonging to a nation which is known to produce terrorists. Conditions are no better in their own countries too. People live under fear every second of their lives. They are not allowed to step out of the houses, the girls are not allowed to go to school, the curriculums in their schools consist of the Jehad subjects. Irrespective of the fact that they want to learn it or not, but they are trained to use arms and ammunitions. It is believed by the terror groups there that the sole aim of their birth is to propagate Jehad. Lives are equally miserable for the Muslims belonging to these countries. Thus the Muslims staying in western countries are helpless. Neither they can stay peacefully in their countries of birth in the west, nor can they have a peaceful life back in their country of origin. Few numbers of people, who have spread the terrorism across the globe, are responsible for the cries and hues of the millions of the innocent people who had no role in those attacks. The world needs to be more considerate about the sentiments of these individuals who have got no link with the attacks they are held responsible for and are being punished. They are as harmless as any other community members are. Bearing a surname of the Islamic community does not make them a terrorist. They have equal rights and responsibilities towards the country they are staying at as any other native citizen of the same country.
References
Deane, D. (2015). What a victim of the Charlie Hebdo shootings had to say about ‘Islamophobia’. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-murdered-former-editor-of-charlie-hebdo-calls-islamophobia-racism/2015/04/17/cdb3071c-e4d1-11e4-905f-cc896d379a32_story.html
Musharbash, Y. (2014). Islamophobia is racism, pure and simple | Yassin Musharbash. the Guardian. Retrieved 19 April 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/10/islamophobia-racism-dresden-protests-germany-islamisation
Saeed, A. (2011). 9/11 and the Increase in Racism and Islamophobia: A Personal Reflection. Radical History Review, 2011(111), 210-215. doi:10.1215/01636545-1268821
The Times of India,. (2012). Shah Rukh Khan's detention: US apologises, India talks tough. Retrieved from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Shah-Rukh-Khans-detention-US-apologises-India-talks-tough/articleshow/12648019.cms
Washington Report on the Middle East Affairs,. (1996). Islamophobia in the West (p. 28). American Educational Trust. Retrieved from http://www.wrmea.org/1996-november-december/islamophobia-in-the-west.html
Yahya, H. (2015). Islamophobia in the Europe and the ways to End it. Jakarta Post. Retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/02/20/islamophobia-europe-and-ways-end-it.html
