Not once in modern world history, where human beings can live peacefully and harmony with each other. There is always going to be that conflict, that tension, those disagreements that will make a wall in between. One of the biggest conflicts that has been roaming around for decades is, islamophobia. It started with the religion called islam and the people who believe in it are called muslims. According to the sources, Islam has existed for more than 1,400 years. The reasoning of why ‘islam’ has been targeted for making the fear islamophobia so powerful these days is because of all the chaotic, tragic events that has been happening made by extremist. Who we believed, they follow the religion.
There are many issues to choose from when looking at the liability of islamophobia. However the main ones usually roam around the topic of social problems, different race and different environment. Like miscommunications or how they choose to believe it in their own certain way.
Racism
The first issue is different races. Most of the time, racism could be described for having a fear of something.Racism is a symbolic form of Islamophobia, which has been misrepresented as a form of religious bias. In an enormous country like America, statistics have shown that throughout the globe, most people believe that muslims are being targeted because of their own individual understanding and how others were influenced from a certain group of people around them. Sometimes muslims can be badly treated from normal civilians.
In the modern world, mankind have already created a threatening activity towards the muslims. A major incident had happened by creating “Punish a Muslim Day”. It was designed to strike fear in the hearts of individual Muslims. These had impacted a majority of Muslims to be terrified from even getting out of their own house. This event had occurred in many countries, mostly in the United Kingdom and America. On 3rd of April 2018, it was officially announced, letters were sent out to homes, businesses, and lawmakers, with details of how to gain points for disturbing a fellow muslim. It can process from a mild verbal intend to a severe contusion. These have made a big impact on the muslims. Generally when activities being held, is often influenced from social media.
In the national aspect, Malaysia has not encountered any venture involving severe injuries.
Malaysia is estimated to be 61.3% filled with citizens that practices the Muslim religion as of around the year 2010. It is to be believed that the fear of islamophobia has slowly creeping into the minds of malaysians. This statement is proven to be backed up by this particular article that is explaining how the actions that were took to an extent and were made from malaysians. It has been ‘viraled’ throughout the wold-wide web in 2017. It was stated that the malaysian gentleman was telling all of his statements to the foreign resident, what to refrain from activities involving alcohol, drugs, prostitution and many more.
The article that was took from 2017 above has shown me, of how not malaysians but including muslims are making fast judgments on ‘white-coloured people’. Based on past experience, other religions also restricted most things stated above are prohibited. Relating to the question, it also proves that, this article were called upon by the shared social media post. After the 9-11 incident happened, the statistics has showed the anti-muslim hate crime rise from 21 to 481 incidents happened in the year 2001. This information was updated latest in 2014 and it has proven that the hate crime had continued to stay at a constant level. After the information was live, many muslims in various countries were either being protective of their own belief or afraid to even voice out their own judgement on this sensitive topic.
It has also caused the new elected president in 2016, president Donald Trump, to use this as one of his factors to banish muslims out of America entirely.
Political Environment
This leads us to the issue of the political environment and whether the government have contributed all their powers in order to create peace. “Xenophobia is defined as the fear of those perceived to be foreign or strange.” In American history , there have been previous episodes of xenophobia. Not only muslims and arabs were targeted for being new immigrants however it also included catholics, jews, hispanics etc.
This has started the chain reaction of events. Almost in every major shocking events happened. Our first thoughts are “This is a terrorist attack”, with no legal confirmation or inspection being made. Every person’s mind has been consumed by the most horrible nightmare happened back in 2001 and it made our instinct reaction to believe that everything happened by one thing. It was like a diseased, devouring our minds by showing the after-shock on live tv’s, the news, movies and posters etc. Propaganda has multiplied by using this useful information to strike an attack on muslim individuals.
'I was afraid to go outside. If I stayed inside, I couldn’t mess up, except maybe with my words, which I policed carefully. I couldn’t speed, I couldn’t frighten anyone, I couldn’t break any law — no matter how tenuous — and therefore couldn’t be thrown in Gitmo,' says American Muslim writer Shawna Ayoub Ainslie. This comment could explain millions of things of what goes through the minds of an american muslim.
President Donald Trump had used this as one of his factors for his grand election back in 2016.
He had shared many tweets regarding the controversy of islamophobia. This has created a lot of people to be believing in those tweets as they were shared by a well-known person. One of his tweets were repost from an article with the title “Bible answer man says Islam is not religion of peace, warns ramadan: muslims fast, they also blast”. This tweet was bluntly accepted by the supporters and aggressor who has come a crossed it. Nevertheless, locals and international residents have spoken out about this on their own social media platform. There is no proven evidence since the tweet is currently privated by the accessor.
The Media
Despite getting false accusations or news by a well-known celebrity. It is also rightfully to blame the media being shown to the whole world. The meaning of media itself has a vital abstract. “Media - communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages are disseminated. Media includes every broadcasting and narrowcasting medium such as newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, telephone, fax, and internet.”. This was taken from business dictionary, meaning this was the general idea of what most people will think. Media has evolved throughout the years, especially during the time when internet were introduced to the world. It has successfully conquered the minds of a human-being throughout the times.
It has not only conquered the masterminds in businesses but was also showing fake examples to the future leading generations. From my past experiences, my cousin had been living america her whole life. One day when she was studying world history, the textbook had shown a line from the holy book of quran and had shown the exact opposite of what it really meant. It has shown that, islamophobia had made to a great extent to even brainwashed the future generations. Even though that information was blurt out, the adults just bluntly accepted the fact that, this information has been copied millions of times and was on sale for people to buy.
Ever since news and social media had continued the chain of hatred. Many incidents had also happened due to the outsiders being afraid of muslims. One of it was in Canada, an 11 year old girl was apparently alleged by a grown man and her hijab had been cut off by him. This news was false but it had made many controversies and had been shared throughout the globe. Many bizarre conspiracy theories roamed around about Muslim communities trying to control political narratives. Some people had also went so far to call for criminal charges to be laid on muslims. This has shown of how much they had fear to even be near them. Statistics had shown, 80% of ABC and CBS and 60% of Fox coverage of Muslims is negative. Them labeling acts of violence by Muslims are terrorism while similar violent acts by non-Muslims are not called terrorism
This being compared to slavery has been equalised. Americans who identify as black and Muslim have weighed in on the conversation about the domestic and international policy of closed borders. This is not only because of their religion but also about their skin colour.
Solution
Possible solution to overcome islamophobia has many ways. First to muslims, they have to be proactive towards false accusations to them. As an example, in America they have CAIR society to provide information against Islamophobia and to deny whatever perceptions from netizens and media attack. Truth to be told, not all media or all non-Muslims support this type of insulting behavior. There are lots of non-muslims that support muslims. They don’t necessarily have to accept all this behaviour and they have a bigger voice to share to the whole nation about the truth. Secondly, to non muslims, they should not only accept whatever written or says in the media about Islam. They should learn to respect other human beings that have different belief especially Islam. Moreover, Muslims should show readiness to accept differences. Not everyone is perfect and the main goal is to benefit the human society.
As Muslims we have to be prepared and aware to overcome whatever the media has against us. Because not every official websites like CNN can be from a big stand point of view. In order, to be the most accurate at the true information, you have to gain from other aspects, not only from Muslims but also from hispanics, Jews, Buddhist etc. So especially this matter wouldn’t go out of hand and it will be in great detail of how one person can represent the whole nation. “For every incident of Islamophobia, write a letter to the editor and your local civil rights organization about it”. This statement is very helpful to overcome islamophobia because it is saying that, we as muslims have a voice and not only to sit around and accept slowly. We should show some gratitude to the outside world. For example, to invite non-muslims to have a talk about how peaceful the real religion is. At the same time we can help some non-muslims to find the right path.
Conclusion
In conclusion, my perspective has not changed about this issue. I agree that the media had played a big in sharing and continuing the increase in islamophobia. Not only islamophobia but also the racism being shown among each other. In fact, you can only experience the true effect of islamophobia in countries with a bigger population ruled by non-Muslims. For example, like in America and in Great Britain. The constant fear comes from the ongoing terrorist attacks carried out by extremist. There were once that my aunt was also being called by the security guard, because a ‘white’ couple were afraid that she was holding a gun in the supermarket. You can’t judge muslims based on what they wear. A hijab is not a kind of weapon. Comparing this, if people wearing hijab is a terrorist, what about a nun? She also wears similar things to cover, from head to toe. However because they are ‘white’ and ‘christians’ they are not called a terrorist? No, because of how to social and political news had impacted the world that they think very lowly of Muslims. Why do they have more respect than anyone else? It is because World history is repeating itself, just like how Germany hated the jews back in world war 2 and we know how that ended up. To conclude we should condemn any media and the people associating with it that promote the Islamophobia all over the world wide web.