Anti-Islamophobia Vaccine
Islamophobia is not a new issue in my opinion yet the sheer magnitude of its actions is constantly rising after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Although I understand the fear of terrorism committed by terrorists who follow the twisted ideology of al-Qaeda, I find Islamophobes are playing the mix and match game against Islam, Muslims and their culture in order to serve their own agenda. Such unfair extreme games don’t differ from the ones played by radical extremists; however both are blind enough to see this and have hijacked the mentalities of people through their words and actions.
Anti-Islamophobia Vaccine
I have four points to reflect before starting the discussions about this issue:
- I don’t have any problem with anybody’s religious status; human beings are free to believe in whatever they want. My problem, however, is in the process of hunting freedom of speech by some people for whatever reasons.
- Ignorance means we don’t know. This isn’t a problem since we don’t know many things about each other as human beings who belong to different cultures. The problem, however, is misusing this ignorance to be bad knowledge like islamophobics do.
- Islamophobia is done by islamophobes who are islamophobic and proud of it. I believe they are exposing their own bigotry that is fueled by the mixture of hate plus ignorance which is common among many human beings regardless the faith or race.
- Islamophpbia is a wide umbrella that has cross-linked topics. Hereby, I except to deal with reflections on some of the misconceptions plus stereotypes about Islam, Muslims and Arabs.
Few years ago, I have discussed the broad lines of Islamophobia in the post entitled Scary Movie of the 21st Century plus other specific topics; however it is noticeable for me how this is still echoing nine years after 9/11 in America and Europe. For that matter, my future posts shall deal with trials for presenting anti-islamophobia as a vaccine for the islamophobia virus through posting different blog entries that deals with it from my perspective since knowledge help us to understand better aside from the hysterical way. Hopefully (insha’allah) these posts can be part of the efforts to answer the question illustrated by Clay Bennette in the cartoon “Islamophobia Vaccine” that can be accessed at Center for American Progress website under the Cartoons section.
Finally, I don’t post a lot, so if you are interested in following up with my old blog entries, you are welcome to check Blography (the blog archive) from the top menu. Now back to the future, until new posts are out in October and beyond, enjoy your time!
Related Quotes and Sayings
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.— George Bernard Shaw
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Published by Hicham Maged on September 25, 2010 - 10:30 PM
About Author: I am a Muslim-Arab-Egyptian person living on planet Earth; since I wonder and ponder therefore I am!
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September 26th, 2010 @ 09:10
Our actions as Muslims here and in the west will be the best vaccine. If we applied the morals and ethics Islam asks us to do, we will reflect the real image of Muslims. This has happened in the middle ages where most of Southern Asia has turned into Islam through the ethics of Muslim Merchants.
We are not as pro-active as we should be..
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September 30th, 2010 @ 23:34
I agree with your opinion with no doubt but I think it is part of the solution. Ther is another side of the Islamophobia coin that deals with pure hate about Islam, Muslims as I said in the post.
September 26th, 2010 @ 19:34
I have zero problems with Muslims or Arabs or anyone for the matter. I have done hours reading the Quoran translated of course into english. I’m no expert and I am not religious but I fought in Nam to give everyone the right to be. I accept that. I find it difficult to accept Islam as a religion. I don’t care for the way it translates. Drop the Sharia, drop the anything goes in the furthering of Islam. Assimilate and enjoy your freedom. Speak out against the radical aspects and the radicals. Over time then maybe.
September 30th, 2010 @ 23:53
I usually read and hear comments like yours and I understand your point of view, so thanks for sharing me with it.
Understanding Islam isn’t about reading Qur’an translations only; it’s a process of knowledge seeking in case you’re interested. It’s clear for me that you’ve problem like other people to accept Islam as a religion because you’ve little knowledge about Islam and this is reflected in your comment about Sharia. Anyway, Muslims speak up aganist both extreme radicals and have real problems with terrorists in the light of the right understanding of Islam that respect non-Muslims in the world.
September 28th, 2010 @ 09:54
The statistics proved that a lot of westerns become Muslims immediately after any attack on Islam, because they are curious to know about this religion.
So, those who attack the Islam, they serve it without they feel.
For example, not exclusively:
1-Novel (The Satanic Verses) of the Indian novelist (Salman Rushdie) which was issued on 26 September 1988 in UK
2-The Danish Cartoons which were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005
3-The Lecture of Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in Germany on 12 September 2006
4-The Hijab (Veil) Ban in France in 2007 & 2010
5-The Ban on Construction of New Minarets in Switzerland on 29 November 2009
6-The invitation of the pastor Terry Jones to burning the Holy Qur’an on in Florida 11 September 2010
All of those apologized to the Islamic world, but after they made the Islamic names, such as Muhammad, Ahmed, Mahmud & Mustafa, very common between Europeans & Americans according to the official statistics!
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October 1st, 2010 @ 00:38
Thanks for sharing these events with their dates. In the matter of fact, I am not sure about the term ‘immediately’ but I am sure that people who convert to Islam have done so because they are convinced with it after seeking knowledge and understanding and hence decided to be Muslim. Anyway, Islam was found more than 1400 years ago and shall be here on Earth till the end of days. This cause problems for some people through their Islamophobic ways.
September 28th, 2010 @ 10:26
i was 2 years living in Germany and i have many Arabs friends.I have to tell you tha Arabs people are very good persons indeed.I think terrorism is something different..
October 1st, 2010 @ 00:44
As simple as that because they are humans beings like other people whether these Arabs are Muslims or Non-Muslims. Thanks for sharing your opinion!
September 28th, 2010 @ 10:36
I am totally for freedom of choice in society so while I don’t think Iran is as crazy as the Western media make it out to be (and they should be allowed a bomb is Israel is, they are not dumb enough to use it but ideally there would be no bombs at all!) I don’t like government that pretty much imposes religion. That is much of the feeling of the so called West towards some parts of the Middle East.
However USA is having a massive Christian-centric uprising right now and they scare the crap out of me than any Muslim movement. The taliban and such things are still a fringe movement in many ways. 10k I heard quoted at one point, that is hardly anyone.
I live in Cairo and all I can say is that most Muslims are beautiful people with beautiful intentions and Islam is of course partially responsible for that….. There are some woman issues that seriously need resolving but that was the way in USA not that long ago so the problem cannot be solely based on religion. It’s a problem of society. Modern readings of Islam can be interpreted to place the woman in an equal position and I hope these ways are embraced as Egypt, Turkey and the Middle East develop over the years. I hope they go their own way though and don’t try and follow USA.
Islamophobia is complete bullsh*t and spurred by bad people. To have hate like that without being informed is the ultimate ignorance.
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October 1st, 2010 @ 01:01
You’ve raised many points in your nice comment but let me thank you for sharing your opinion. As I am dealing with Islamophobia in this post, I see you’ve summarized the problem in your last sentence. This is the mix of hate and ignorance that I described in the post.
As for the women status in Egypt and Middle East, I see they are developing although the rate is slow. Moreover, I believe every country has it’s own society, so no country can just go in the same way that other countries especially on the socio-cultrual level.
As for taliban and alike, I read the 10K somewhere too but I think -although I don’t remember now- it was refering to the total number of extremists not only Taliban, such as the many versions al-Qaeda branches, etc. Anyway the point is not to generalize their twisted ideology for all of us.
October 16th, 2010 @ 07:08
To begin with I’m a Christian. I want to bring in public consciousness about Islam. If something wrong and the suspects are arabs everybody will discriminate islam, yeah they did it because muslims are bad. It will end up criticizing Islam in general. You can’t see it people, a higher percentage of crimes in the world are committed by non-Islam or muslim believers but they are not labeled for their crime. Their are good ones and bad ones but please don’t generalize. Their are a lot of good muslims than the bad ones. I really believe in that.
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October 18th, 2010 @ 17:20
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
October 21st, 2010 @ 04:26
nice post i like your post your writing style is very good and easy thanks for shearing .
October 21st, 2010 @ 08:23
Thanks for stopping by here and placing your comment. Your blog seems very nice too!
October 25th, 2010 @ 04:21
Part of the immigrant allure of USA has been that it is the land where you can forget your past and start all over again. Make your new identity. Live in your ethnic ghetto, or try to assmilate with the majority white culture.
What September 11 taught us is that sometimes, people aren’t going to let you forget the past, even if you had nothing to do with those bad acts. You need to think about Germany and the reparations they are still paying to Israel, 50+ years after the Holocaust. Germans ask “When will be allowed to forget?” Will they ever be allowed to forget? Look at how angry people get in Turkey when they want them to remember the Armenian massacre.
I think your point about getting out and meeting non-Muslim people in the community is what is at the heart of fighting Islamophobia. Think there is too much Islamophobia in this country? Then why don’t you sit down and count how many good non-Muslim friends you have. These would be the kind of people that would be willing to hide you in their basement should the government decide to ’round up’ all the Muslims. Hmm. Don’t have any friends like that? Then maybe you need to make more of an effort. If you want to change the world, then you need to start with yourself.
October 26th, 2010 @ 02:00
Thank you for stopping by here and sharing this interesting comment that I appreciate.
In my opinion, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 showed us the ugly side of human beings. Muslims and non-Muslims alike are facing many challenges that are not only represented in the threats of terrorism but also in the rise of social hate between people in West and East.
Although nobody can claim having the ultimate power of changing the world, we can reach for a better understanding to our differences as humans who have different cultures, religions and go for respecting them and deal with each other in the light of such awareness. I see this is how everybody can start with himself and herself especially that we’re supposed to be living in the 21st century, which means that we can’t solve -or try to solve- our problems with the same mentalities of the past centuries.
Finally, I don’t have problems with non-Muslims whatsoever and have them as friends both in the real and virtual worlds. In the light of your final question, I think it is applicable too for non-Muslims who only hear about Muslims, or what do you think!