Oguz Han Ozdemir Term Paper b 6

8/12/2019 Oguz Han Ozdemir Term Paper b 6

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To what extent does Islamophobia have an impact on the lives of Muslims

and / or Non-Muslims?

Todays world is full of differences and people cannot get rid of these discrepancies.

The weightiest one is religions, this is not any kind of ordinary element or trivial part

of identity of an individual, and it affects an entire life. While Islam is one of the mostwidespread religions all around the world and it is modest and peaceful according to

Muslim communities, there are numerous people in the Non-Muslim communities are

thinking that Islam is the core of terrorist activities. Islamophobia is a particular

concern to Muslim society. Clearly there is a motto in Islam that is Islam is the

religion of mercy and this motto is supportedby a verse from Quran; We sent thee

not, but as a Mercy for all creatures (21:107), on the other hand a wide range of

group of people who are represented as scared, despiser and eschewer.

Notwithstanding that the nearest historical incidents, 11 September and 7 July, Islam

does not belong to terrorists and Islamophobia is a strong discrimination, becausenot all Muslims are terrorist or supporter to these brutal events.

To understand the subject of Islamophobia we should look at the background of this

phenomenon and how this term comes to light, what are its effects and etc? Nearly

all of the scholars think it is a side-effect of the attacks of the twin towers of World

Trade Centre in America, known as the 9/11 incident. As a summary of the 9/11

story, there were four groups of terrorists each with a well-trained pilot. They

captured airplanes and crashed the towers and the Pentagon, the forth one crashed

in an empty land in Pennsylvania. After these attacks the US government detected

the responsible, which is an extreme Islamic terrorist organisation, al-Qaeda.However this plot of the story is just an external appearance of the reality, is there

anything hidden under this attack? As far as Malik is concerned, yes there are and he

mentioned the poll by Pew Trust, forty three percent of those polled thought that 9/11

was caused by US wrongdoing; forty five percent disagree (Malik, 2011). There are

some conspiracy theories and the most famous one is America made it with his

hands. According to this theory America gave some permission to al-Qaeda to do

these attacks, but of course this is clandestine. These fictitious attacks gave legal

right to walk into some Muslim countries and America liked it pretty much. Malik

argued that nearly a decade ago Samuel Huntinghon who is an American politicalscientists noted the idea of the clash of civilization and after a couple of years, only

a month passed from that attack date, Osama bin Laden told the same subject

(Malik, 2011). Taking into consideration all these points, it appears that there is an

intimate relation between America and al-Qaeda.

The other specific contradiction in the slogan of a considerable part of Westerners,

which is Muslims are terrorist, is not right according to Malik and he express his

thoughts like that; our question is Why is it so difficult to find a suicide bomber these

days?, even though over a billion Muslim live in todays world, considerable part of

them hate the West and they have adequate economical resources, however we donot see terrorist attacks every day on television. (Malik, 2011)


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This anxiety and hatred over Muslim society causes some irrevocable outcomes

which have direct links between relations with the societies which are scared from

them. The change is not only in public attitudes, also political. Moreover, In the West

political policy had been shaped by fear of terrorism, of immigration and of the other,and resentment about the loss of power and prestige abroad, and of the supposed

erosion of Western culture at home (Malik, 2011, p.1). As it is seen clearly, a

considerable part of the Western countries or maybe we can say Christians, took

strict and definite measures about Muslims. Furthermore, these kinds of legislations

and the behaviour of governments normalise Islamophobia, thus new generation

believe that people should protect themselves from Muslims (Chong & Sentas, 2006).

Another important effect over Muslim lives is being targeted. Muslims usually worship

in mosques and they need some special instruments, such as some Islamic outfits for

men and women, while praying. These Islamic requirements caused some

misunderstandings in governments or non-Muslim populations sight. Wearing same

typed or shaped clothes is assumed as a uniform for a group who have same ideas

and desires. Also meeting in mosques regularly gives so many chances to make a

plan to put their desires into practise. After these commonly Muslim-based terroristic

actions, all Muslims put in same box and they seem like potential terrorists in non-

Muslims eyes.Chong and Sentas mentioned this social effect in their article like that;

if you are a Muslim who prays at mosque or they are devout Muslims, possibly they

are on frontier position to blame as terrorist than the other non-Muslims (Chong &

Sentas, 2006). Actually this targeting situation is the main cause for all the othereffects. For example; the lower class Muslims face with financial difficulties in their

lives, because no one wants to have a Muslim employer, a potential terrorist or

someone who has common values with terrorist, in his company (Chong & Sentas,

2006). One of the religious duty of Islam is zakat. It is kind of donation of money to

poor Muslims. All Muslims have to do this and it is quiet big amount of money, one-

fortieth of all property of person. Chong and Sentas (2006) argue that, While in our

experience the Muslim community is generous, these families are not getting the

support they need from the Muslim community. Instead, they had to turn to traditional

non-Muslim charities for assistance.(p.2). They did not get any support fromMuslims, because all the organizations which are made by Muslims related with

some terroristic activities, it means the money which is collected by Islamic

organization is accepted ad terroristic help.

These conspicuous oppressions over Muslim lives led to considerable amount of

substantial social effects. All of them have relations with the others; none of them is

individually free. It is a kind of chain effect. One of the chain rings is assimilation.

Maybe this ring is the last one, because knowing yourselves and the things that

related with you makes yourselves you. After forgetting everything about you, you are

not you at all. Salatia (2005) mentioned that, In this case, it was not a forcedassimilation that other ethnic groups, primarily natives have experienced. It took the


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form of the repeated statements:Theyre American too;Theyre American, just like

you;They also love this country. (p.151). Muslims who live in non-Muslim countries

have to accept these sentences; otherwise they need to leave the places where they

live. They made anything to look like an inculpable and they lost themselves in the

others. Generation by generation they are alienated from their own cultures,

traditions and even their religions. Parents do not want their children get damaged

mentally or physically by the non-Muslim children at school or they can be scared of

disintegration, to solve this problem they started to cover themselves with fake traits

and outfits. The aim is being one of them and protect from damages.

These are not the only effects of Islamophobia over Muslim life also it does not have

only effects over Muslims, non-Muslims are affected by this situation. Actually there is

only one real effect of Islamophobia, disempowering of the Muslim community

(Chong & Sentas, 2006). Islamophobia is a racist activity which is continued by the

countries which are roughly against racism; more precisely they showed themselveslike anti-racist. Most effective way to annihilate this prejudgement is being together

with all other Muslims and telling the non-Muslims terror is not same formation with

Islam.

Chong, A., & Sentas, V. (2006, March). Monitoring the Impact of Terrorism

Laws on Muslim and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities.

AMCRAN(Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network). Retrieved from

http://amcran.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Salatia, S. (2005). Ethnic Identity and Imperative Patriotism: Arab Americans

Before and After 9/11. College Literature, 32.2(Spring 2005), 146-168

Malik, K. (2011, Sep. 9). myths and realities of 9/11. Retrieved fromhttp://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/bergens_911.html

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Oguz Han Ozdemir Term Paper b 6