The Multi-Million Dollar War on Islam | Focal Point with Imam Tom Facchine

 

Who profits from making people fear Muslims? In this Focal Point episode, Imam Tom exposes the multi-million dollar network fueling Islamophobia—fake experts, front organizations, and political actors who weaponize misinformation for profit and power.

This isn’t ignorance, it’s strategy. Who funds the fear? Who benefits? And how do we counter it?

How Would Indians Feel if I Say Hindus Should Not be Allowed in UAE, Asks Princess Hend Al Qassimi

Over the last few weeks Princess Hend Al Qassimi, who belongs to the royal family of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been flagging hateful and Islamophobic comments on her social media timeline. Many of these were by Indian citizens working in the UAE.

Responding to the worrisome trend, Ambassador Pavan Kapoor told Indian citizens that “discrimination is against our moral fabric and rule of law” and Indians in the Emirates must remember this.

News 18 spoke exclusively to Princess Hend (which means India) and she sounded both anguished and angry over the remarks she has been reading from some individuals. She said Emirati-India relationship is over centuries-old “but this is new, we have never experienced hatred from the Indians."

"I have never heard an Indian attack an Arab or a Muslim before but now I have reported just one person but you can see my timeline is full of people insulting the Arabs, Muslims. This is so un-Indian.”

Princess Hend though realizes that the comments of a few individuals were not representative of the vast majority of Indians working and residing in the UAE but she did subtly put a message across when she said, “Is India trying to force us to pick and choose, who to allow in the Emirates – only the Muslim and the Christian? This isn’t how we were raised. To us, they are all Indians we don’t put them in any category - like we will work with them only because they are Indian Muslim.”

There are around three and a half million Indians in the UAE which is approximately 30 per cent of the population according to the embassy website. This makes Indians the largest ethnic community there.

“How would the Indians feel if I say publicly that that Indian Hindus should not be allowed in Emirates? Close to 14 billion dollars are being remitted back from the Emirates to India every year – in the past year. Imagine if that were to be cut off? The Indians work very hard in this country and I don’t think they deserve people who misrepresent them like that,” Princess Hend added.

She said she is not a political person and hence has not contacted the Indian government over her concerns. But she revealed that she has been in touch with the former Indian ambassador to UAE Navdeep Suri who expressed concern and told her that her message has gone out “loud and clear”. She said hate speech is illegal in her country and she will continue to raise her voice to put a stop to hate, because “she is just a friend of India.”

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“Blaming Muslims For Coronavirus Is Nonsense & Extremely Dangerous”: Historian Yuval Noah Harari To India Today’s Rahul Kanwal

World-renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari appealed Indians to develop solidarity and benevolence and not hatred to fight the coronavirus epidemic, which has engulfed the whole world.

The historian, who was talking to TV anchor Rahul Kanwal at India Today Group’s E-Conclave Corona Series, raised concerns over people blaming the pandemic as a “deliberate act of terrorism” by Muslims, saying that this is “complete nonsense and “extremely dangerous”.

He said, “we don’t need more hatred, we need solidarity, we need love between people.”

Ever since Delhi’s Markaz Nizamuddin emerged as a coronavirus hotbed after numerous people who attended a Tablighi Jamaat meet in mid-March tested positive for the viral infection, there has been a deliberate and malicious attempt to blame Muslims for the spread of coronavirus, producing violent and deadly outcomes.

Ever since Delhi’s Markaz Nizamuddin emerged as a coronavirus hotbed after numerous people who attended a Tablighi Jamaat meet in mid-March tested positive for the viral infection, there has been a swathe of fake and malicious news published against Muslims, leading to attack against the community across the country.

Last week, a video of a group of people attacking two Muslims with sticks and irons rods in Karnataka’s Bagalkot district went viral on social media. The attackers could be heard saying: “You people (Muslims) are the ones who are spreading this disease… Don’t touch them. They are the ones spreading the disease.”

In another incident that took place in Kadakorappa village in the same district, villagers barged into a mosque and attacked elderly people praying there.

In Delhi, a young Muslim man was brutally thrashed after accusing him of being a part of the conspiracy to spread novel coronavirus.

In Himachal Pradesh, a Muslim man hanged himself to death after allegedly being taunted by some villagers, who suspected him to be suffering from COVID-19 despite testing negative for it.

In Rajasthan, a pregnant Muslim woman was refused admission in a hospital by its staff citing her religion. The woman after leaving the hospital delivered the child inside the ambulance but the just born could not survive.

Last week, a young Muslim man was beaten to death in Jharkhand after a mob accused him and two of his friends, who survived their injuries, of spitting on surfaces to spread COVID-19 to Hindus.

These attacks were not an anamoly but a well-orechestrated campaign to blame Muslims for the spread of the virus in India.

Since the Nizamuddin fiasco, there has been rampant disinformation and a tsunami of fake news attributing old and often unrelated incidents to Muslim, blaming them of a consipiracy to spread the pandemic.

News channels and even some politicians from the ruling BJP have malicously termed the coronavirus pandemic as ‘Corona Jihad’, ‘Terrorist Virus’, insinuating a Muslim-led conspiracy behind its spread.

Recently, Rahul Kanwal too was lashed at for his communally inflammatory news report targeting Madrasa going children.

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Dear Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook Is an Engine of Anti-Muslim Hate the World Over. Don’t You Care?

DEAR MARK Zuckerberg,

What happened to you?

Back in December 2015, you spoke out loudly and proudly against anti-Muslim hatred. “I want to add my voice in support of Muslims in our community and around the world,” you wrote in a post on Facebook, two days after then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced his plan for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the country. “After the Paris attacks and hate this week,” you added, “I can only imagine the fear Muslims feel that they will be persecuted for the actions of others.”

The headline in the New York Times? “Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Reassures Muslim Users.”

Yet here we are in December 2019. Four years later, you and Facebook have gone from reassuring Muslims to amplifying hate and bigotry against us. You have allowed what the actor Sacha Baron Cohen recently described as “the greatest propaganda machine in history” to be used to target and persecute some of the most vulnerable Muslim communities on Earth.

I’m talking of course about the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. In March 2018, the chairman of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, Marzuki Darusman, told reporters that social media companies like yours had played a “determining role” in the violence, having “substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict.”

“Everything is done through Facebook in Myanmar,” added Yanghee Lee, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Myanmar. “I’m afraid that Facebook has now turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended.

You know all this, Mark. Your company has, basically, admitted to it. In November 2018, your own product policy manager, Alex Warofka, acknowledged that you and your colleagues at Facebook had not done enough “to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence” in Myanmar.

And what have you done since? Warokfa claims Facebook has “improved proactive detection of hate speech in Myanmar.” Yet Matthew Smith, the founder of Fortify Rights, a human rights nonprofit focused on Myanmar, disagrees: “Facebook has a lot of work to do,” he told me. Yes, your company has appointed more than 100 new content reviewers for Myanmar, but there are more than 20 million Facebook accounts in the country and, as Smith argued, “efforts to date are not enough to tackle the misuse of the platform.”

“It’s not clear that the senior leadership fully understands the gravity of the situation,” he said. “The company should be thinking about reparations for Rohingya and other initiatives to end and remedy the harms.”

How about India’s Muslim minority communities? Does their fate keep you up at night, Mark? If not, why not? In October, a report by the nonprofit activist network Avaaz accused Facebook of having become a “megaphone for hate” against Muslims in the northeastern Indian state of Assam — where nearly two million people, many of them Muslims, have just been stripped of citizenship by the far-right Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Another report, by the South Asian human rights group Equality Labs, found “Islamophobic content was the biggest source of hate speech on Facebook in India, accounting for 37 percent of the content,” as Vice News noted in June.

You haven’t said or done anything about any of this. You have, though, repeatedly met with Modi — the world leader, incidentally, who has the highest number of Facebook followers! You even introduced your parents to him. I wonder: Will you be introducing your parents to any of the Indian Muslims who have had their WhatsApp accounts deactivated by Facebook in the wake of the Modi government’s lockdown in Kashmir?

How about the Muslims of Sri Lanka? When members of a Colombo-based advocacy group called the Center for Policy Alternatives came to your company with multiple examples of inflammatory and Islamophobic videos and posts on Facebook — including a post declaring, “Kill all Muslims, don’t even save an infant” — the New York Times reports that nearly every complaint of theirs “got the same response: the content did not violate Facebook’s standards.”

A call to kill all of Sri Lanka’s Muslims, spread through your platform, doesn’t bother you? Doesn’t shock you?

Let’s not forget the Uighur Muslims in China, either. More than a million people have been locked up in concentration camps across Xinjiang province, where they have been beaten, tortured, and raped. Yet BuzzFeed News reported in August on how “Chinese state-owned media is running ads on Facebook seemingly designed to cast doubt on human rights violations” against the Uighurs.

Are you OK with Facebook helping cover up what experts are calling a “cultural genocide” in Xinjiang?

THEN THERE’S THE U.S. In May 2018, a detailed report by the Southern Poverty Law Center explained how “anti-Muslim content finds a home on Facebook.” A more recent investigation from Reveal found that while “Facebook has removed groups tied to white nationalist organizations … the social network continues to host groups that are openly hostile to Muslims, such as ‘DEATH TO ISLAM UNDERCOVER.’”

Again, Mark, you know all this. You do. You can’t plead ignorance. You recently hosted Farhana Khera, of the civil rights groups Muslim Advocates, at your home in California. Khera says she told you “about the pain and suffering that Facebook is causing Muslim communities, here in the United States and around the world.” Did her personal testimony not affect you?

Then again, you previously hosted Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, who once called Iraqis “semiliterate primitive monkeys,” and Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro, who has falsely claimed the majority of the world’s Muslims are “radicalized.” Last month, you also had a secret dinner with President Donald Trump and refused to disclose what you discussed with him. (What a difference four years makes!)

Meanwhile, The Guardian revealed this week that two Muslim members of Congress, Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., “have been targeted by a vast international operation that exploits far-right pages on Facebook to inflame Islamophobia for profit.” The Guardian’s revelations “show how Facebook has failed to stop clandestine actors from using its platform to run … hate campaigns” and how these online Islamophobes have “operated with relative impunity.”

You must be aware of how social media hatred has real-world consequences, right? Patrick Carlineo, who pled guilty to threatening to assault and murder Omar in November, spent years using your platform “to taunt Muslims, attacking them with racist slurs and saying he wished he could confront a group of Muslim politicians with ‘a bucket of pig blood,’” according to The Guardian.

Facebook moderators in the U.S. didn’t lift a finger to stop him. Is it any wonder that Omar agrees with me that you’ve helped put a target on her back?

The sad reality is that, across both the developed and developing worlds, Muslim minority communities are being demonized, targeted, and attacked by far-right nationalists. And these far-right nationalists are being aided and abetted, whether directly or indirectly, by self-styled liberals in Silicon Valley. By Facebook. By you, Mark.

Is this really how you want to be remembered? Not as the founder of a company that brought together 2 billion people online through funny memes and friend requests, but as the founder of a propaganda machine that helped incite and organize the mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Muslims?

What happened to the Mark Zuckerberg of December 2015 who told his Muslim employees that he would “fight to protect your rights and create a peaceful and safe environment for you”? Who told the rest of us that “as a Jew, my parents taught me that we must stand up against attacks on all communities”?

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Q&A With Asma Shuweikh, The Muslim Hero Who Defended A Jewish Family

We caught up with Shuweikh over the phone on Wednesday morning. The stay at home mother of two lives in Birmingham; on the fateful day of the tube ride, she was in London visiting family.

The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Why did you decide to intervene on the tube?

I decided to intervene because it was a very disturbing situation — the fact that he was talking to the children, and looking at the children and explaining to them that they’re not really Jewish people, and that they are going to be slaves — and I thought that was really, really uncalled for, honestly.

I’ve got my own two children — I’m a mother, and I’m also a practicing Muslim, and as a practicing Muslim, you have to speak up to injustice. If you see someone who needs help or someone that’s in trouble, especially when you’re going about your daily life, it’s your duty as a Muslim — and as a mother and as a British citizen — to go out of your way to help.

Who modeled this for you in your life?

My model was definitely our prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. He did not accept any of this kind of intolerance toward ethnic minorities. He had friends from other faiths, from the Jewish faith and the Christian faith.

I mean, this is what Islam teaches us, but obviously it never gets shown in the media. This is what normal Muslims believe in but it does not get portrayed that much — which is why I decided to talk to people and explain it to them so that they understand what it’s really like to be a proper Muslim, and really a proper citizen as well, and even human being really. We should not accept anything like that.

My mum always told us to stick up for yourself and don’t allow people to discriminate against you for who you are. And I have to be an example to my children as well. They live in a multicultural society, so we have to show them how, because they’re the future.

Have you ever been harassed in public yourself?

Yes, when I was growing up, I was spat on, and people used to pull off my hijab. At that time, the Muslim community was less well known and there weren’t as many Muslims around so it was quite difficult. It’s not as bad now, but especially with what’s going on with Brexit, we still get a lot of attacks, slurs, racial aggression towards us. And when someone does say something like that to me, I do have to talk back, I do have to say something. It’s my character, really; I’m not the type of person who stands for anything like that.

That’s one reason why I spoke up on the tube: I did get a flashback of that day when that had happened to me. I thought, if you don’t want someone doing that to you, why would you allow it to happen to somebody else? Especially with children, it’s a very sensitive situation. If I was with my children on the tube and someone did that to my kids, I would like somebody to come up and say something.

On the tube that day, it wasn’t just me. There were other people who stepped in — the person who was filming stepped in between the man arguing and the victims. Another man tried to stop him, too, and he got a bit aggressive with him. And after both the family and I left the train, somebody else confronted the man and was having a bit of a discussion with him.

Did you tell your children about what you did on the tube?

Yes, of course I did, I had to. My son is still too young to fully understand what’s going on, but my daughter does. She was asking me questions: What did you do? And I always instill that kind of character in my children. I have to tell them, when you see something like this, you should not be quiet or allow people to discriminate against you or say anything bad to you. Stand up against what’s wrong in a respectful way.

I tell them that’s how to be a law-abiding citizen and a good Muslim, which is how our prophet, peace be upon him, taught us to behave in society — to coexist with other religions and other races.

Do you think the attacker actually took in anything you said?

My main purpose was to try to calm him down. I didn’t really want to reason with him. I think that speaking to him in a very calm manner, and getting kind of on his level so he doesn’t feel like I’m attacking him, was probably what made him calm down.

He attacked me as well, but you don’t see that in the video. After the camera switched off, he came up to me and got into my face and my personal space, and I just panicked. Then I told him to back off and I said you need to keep your distance, that I was just trying to help so this doesn’t escalate. He attacked my religion. He attacked what I was wearing. I didn’t expect any less, to be honest. I knew that if I was going to talk to him, that he was going to turn on me. But at least I didn’t have my children with me, while the other man did, so his situation was much more sensitive.

I don’t believe you can change somebody’s mind, if they’re very firm with their beliefs. But you can try to make them understand that that kind of behavior is unacceptable.

You later reunited with the father from the tube. What was that like?

It was lovely. I was thinking about them after I left the train, hoping they were okay. I had been in a rush to visit my friend in hospital, but I made sure the situation was quite calm before I left.

He brought me a lovely bouquet of flowers, we sat down, talked about our experiences, our backgrounds, what kind of food we like. I asked him about how his children and wife were doing. It was wonderful chit chat and I said it would be nice to keep in touch and he said he would.

Has the publicity changed your life at all?

Oh yes definitely! Anyone who knows me knows that I am not the type of person who likes the spotlight. I’m not very into social media and I didn’t have a Twitter account until my friends told me the video had exploded. A friend sent me a link and asked, Is this you or is this your look-alike? I said, No that’s me! I couldn’t believe it.

I had no recollection that someone was filming the incident. But I’m glad that they did film it, because at least now we can use it as a positive to help everyone to get together and be more understanding of one another’s background and faith.

When have you ever seen a story like this? You haven’t. Usually you see only the negative things about Muslims in the media, so if something positive happens, we should push it forward — especially because this wasn’t just any family; it was a Jewish family. There’s this kind of speculation about Muslims, that they don’t like Jews — which is wrong! It’s a completely wrong statement. It’s not true at all.

This is a positive thing, with me being a British citizen, me being a mother, me being from an Arab background. And also the other side of the story: that father is a human being, a Jewish person, and a British citizen, too. It balances everything out.

My message is that everyone can learn to coexist in a multicultural society. I think everyone should take time out of their lives to meet people from different backgrounds, not just believe what they see in the media. Befriend them. Meet the Jewish community, meet the Muslim community, meet the people who are passionate about their religion instead of just assuming what they believe and who they are.

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Bystanders’ silence can be devastating when facing bigotry

 Nazneen Uddin is a family physician based in Oakland.

I thought becoming a doctor would finally win me acceptance and serve as proof that being Muslim and American are not mutually exclusive. But throughout my medical career, I have repeatedly experienced bigotry met with a deafening silence and dangerous acceptance from bystanders.

“You’re not American, show me your passport” was a statement I would often hear from patients during medical school. I would explain that I was born and raised in Detroit, while my supervising physicians remained silent.

In medical residency, I learned that Islamophobia can be lethal. My co-resident lost her brother Deah Barakat, his newlywed wife, Yusor Abu-Salha, and his sister-in-law, Razan Abu-Salha, when they were murdered inside their North Carolina home by their neighbor.  This shook me to my core.

In them, I saw myself: American Muslims studying to become professionals while dedicating their free time to community service. It was a stark reality check that no place is safe, not a liberal college town, nor one’s own home. Law enforcement immediately reported the incident as a parking dispute, but many saw it as what it seemed to be — a hate crime.

A few months after this tragedy, as I walked into work, a fellow employee said, “She can’t be a terrorist, she has a badge on.” Once again, I heard a vacuous silence from the other staff.  This brought flashbacks to an incident in high school when a student shoved me into a locker yanking my headscarf while shouting, “You f–king terrorist.” The hallway full of students watched, as I cried my silent tears.

I have completed 12 years of medical training since then, yet in my first job as an attending physician, I was pushed by a patient during an examination. He shouted, “Get out of the room! You’re not a doctor, you’re Muslim!” The bedside nurse and family present just watched.

Considering these incidents, I wasn’t surprised by the silence from my social circle surrounding the atrocities at the two mosques in New Zealand that left 50 dead. Initially, I didn’t even cry because it felt like I had run out of tears.

Most of my friends have not reached out, and this has also been the experience of my Muslim peers. I was hurting, and I can assure you that your Muslim neighbors—though they continue to show up to work or smile—are hurting and scared. This extends to the many communities that are hurting as a result of bigotry, such as the Jewish community struck by a similar wave of pain after the synagogue shooting in Poway, California during Passover.

The effects of hate crimes bleed beyond the victims’ families; it trickles into the entire community. The loss of innocent lives should not just be a loss for those family members or that community, but should be a collective grief.

The common denominator in my personal experiences has been silence, which comes in many forms. Silence can be observing injustice and not saying anything. Silence can be being in a position of leadership and not fostering an environment of inclusion. While the effects of this silence can be devastating, something as small as a hug or a text, like one I received, “We stand with your community during this difficult time,” can counter it.

Allyship is not abstract. It means proactively humanizing people who have been excluded. It’s about showing up and supporting the alienated, even in the smallest ways. Victims of hate are too worn out from carrying the trauma and responsibility on their shoulders.

Use your skills, power and privilege to help demolish the rising tide of Islamophobia and bigotry across the nation. Let’s remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

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MY 12 YEAR-OLD SON GAVE ME A LIST OF ISLAMOPHOBIC NAMES HE'S BEEN CALLED. THIS IS TODAY'S AMERICA

Terrorist, Taliban, Osama Bin Laden, bomber, killer, Allahu Akbar (God is great), Muslims are terrorists, Muslims are bad.”

What was supposed to be a normal conversation between a father and his American born middle school son on a drive home turned into a story sharing session no parent ever wants to face.

Today, he was letting it all out. And the worst part, he was looking to me for a solution. After all, why wouldn’t his father, a Muslim American U.S. Marine Veteran (yes, I’m referring to myself — just in case you were wondering if Marines come in Muslim) and founder of MuslimMarine.org (known for fighting hate, bigotry and Islamophobia) not have a perfect solution.

I was speechless.

“Don’t worry about it... they just don’t know... be the better person,” I said. I changed the topic.

Angry, upset, frustrated, I was internalizing everything I had just heard. But I couldn’t show him. I had to keep my poker face on. After all, I had to be the example. But deep inside I knew my answer hadn’t cut it. And though I had changed the topic, my mind kept drifting back, repeating over and over again everything he had just shared with me. My son was struggling, he was in pain, and I wasn’t sure exactly how to help.

I tried to imagine the life of a 12 year-old child in today’s anti-Muslim America. I knew what I was seeing first-hand as an adult but I couldn’t imagine being in his helpless shoes. It’s a critical age where children not only begin to battle the onslaught of puberty but find themselves in discovery mode trying to figure out their unique place in society.

Then next day I asked him to write down everything he had ever been called.

I wanted to know: Had I missed something? Were there warning signs? Indeed there were but I hadn’t fully given it the due diligence nor the appropriate attention.

I began recalling other incidents. There was the one following President Trump’s election when a child approached my son and said “no offence but see you later man, I guess this is goodbye.”

And another one, when a child approached my son’s open classroom door and yelled “Allahu Akbar (God is great) you’re all going to die,” slammed the door shut and ran off down the hallway.

Everything was coming together. But just when I thought that was it, another incident came to mind.

I recalled the incident of a teacher (yes, teacher) asking my son if he knew how to speak English. That one definitely caught me by surprise. Even if I wasn’t there and didn’t have all the facts, I couldn’t understand why a teacher would ever ask a child such a question. Shouldn’t have to say this, but rest assured my son is fully fluent in English.

Hate crimes against Muslims over the past few years have risen at a disturbing rate.

For Americans who are naïve to the facts or simply aren’t following, hate crimes against Muslims over the past few years have risen at a disturbing rate, and that’s just the reported ones. And what many may not know, is that Muslims make up about one percent of the U.S. population, yet they are one of the most ridiculed groups of people in our society. To me, that's actually the definition of bullying.

Just this month a high school in Pennsylvania ran a training session with an ‘active shooter’ wearing a scarf almost identical to the ones worn in the Arab world. Coincidence? I think not, although they deny that was the intent.

And then there was an incident late last year in Massachusetts, when an elementary school Muslim girl had a note left in her cubby stating, “You are a terrorist.” And then when she came back to the class later, another note, “I will kill you.”

Consider this a dire warning. Because today it might be my kid, but tomorrow it could be yours. And just because you think you’re not the problem, the racist, bigot or xenophobe—choosing to remain silent and being the bystander is just as bad. As the famous quote goes, “no response is a response. And it’s a powerful one. Remember that.”

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Dane who wants to deport Muslims, ban Islam to run in election

Last year, Christian Hansen's 10-year-old son returned from school asking who Rasmus Paludan was.

"He told me that the pupils had been playing the 'Paludan-game' in the schoolyard, dividing each other into Christians, Jews and Muslims. The Christians then had to catch the Jews and Muslims and put them in [imaginative] cages and insult them," said Hansen, a 42-year-old software company owner in southern Denmark.

Hansen was frightened that Paludan's message had reached his son through social media.

"This is extremely dangerous," he said, "because his hateful views become a part of these children's early understanding of minorities."

Since founding his party in July 2017, far-right politician Rasmus Paludan, a Danish lawyer, has risen to virtual stardom for his Quran-burning demonstrations in Muslim-majority neighbourhoods - stunts which have been triggering counterprotests.

Paludan - who did not respond to Al Jazeera's request for comment - tells his supporters that Denmark is for "ethnic Danes", that he wants to deport the country's more than 300,000 Muslims and ban Islam, as he warns that "civil war is coming".

With the rise of these new anti-Muslim players, I think a lot of Muslims have considered whether it's worth staying here.

While few took him seriously weeks ago, Paludan's Hard Line (Stram Kurs) party is now running for office in the June 5 general election having gathered the roughly 20,000 voter signatures needed to contest the poll.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has condemned the Quran-burning sessions, writing on Twitter that they are "meaningless provocations with no other purpose than causing division".

Observers say that the emergence of two new far-right parties in the country - Hard Line and The New Right (Nye Borgerlige) - could harm Rasmussen's chances for re-election with a centre-right alliance.

Against the backdrop of Denmark's cartoon controversy, senior politicians have warned that scenes of a Danish politician burning the Quran could be used to stir hatred against the country.

At a demonstration in October 2016, Paludan echoed the "rivers of blood" phrase by Britain's Enoch Powell, a Conservative politician who rallied against immigration 50 years ago.

"Our streets and straits will be turned into rivers of blood," Paludan said, "and the foreign enemy's blood will end up in the sewer, where the foreign enemies belong."

In a video from December 2018, he says: "The best thing would be if there were not a single Muslim left on this earth. I hope that will happen someday. Then we would have reached our final goal".

We have seen a process of normalisation in the negative discourse about Muslims since 2001. There is a focus on Islam, even among mainstream politicians, as being something negative and non-Danish.

His popularity had been limited to young people who follow his YouTube and Snapchat accounts, but in recent weeks his fame has grown.

Danes of all ages have taken selfies with the party leader while flashing the V-sign.

"We have seen tightening of policies and rhetoric around Muslims since leader of Danish People's Party Pia Kjaersgaard [now speaker of parliament] declared war on Islam in 2001," said Tarek Ghanoum, a 27-year-old Danish Muslim political commentator.

"With the rise of these new anti-Muslim players, I think a lot of Muslims have considered whether it's worth staying here … if this development continues.

"Hard Line and The New Right are parties which have formed their identities solely around attacking Muslims. Forget about climate, economy and eldercare, these are all minor issues for them. It is all about Muslims, immigrants and their descendants."

On April 14 this year, Paludan - convicted earlier in the same month of racism for suggesting that Africans are less intelligent - held a "Quran-throwing" demonstration in the heart of Blagards Plads, an area home to many Muslims.

He threw the Quran into the air, letting it fall to the ground. On other occasions, he has set Islam's holy book on fire and smeared it with bacon. In Norrebro that day, dozens of residents protested against him.

Cars, tyres and waste containers were burned on the streets, one person was wounded and 23 were arrested.

Police fought off protesters with clubs and tear gas and Paludan was evacuated.

Paludan's fame surged after the incident and, in a short time, he managed to gather the support needed to run in the election.

"We have seen a process of normalisation in the negative discourse about Muslims since 2001. There is a focus on Islam, even among mainstream politicians, as being something negative and non-Danish. To a certain extent, Paludan is a continuation of this trend," said Garbi Schmidt, a professor at Roskilde University.

In recent years, the centre-right government, with support from the right-wing Danish People's Party, has introduced a series of measures that affect Muslims, who make up around 5.5 percent of the population.

On April 15 in Copenhagen, about two dozen people were arrested in connection with riots during counterprotests to Paludan [File: Mads Claus Rasmussen/EPA]
Last May, Denmark joined several other European countries in banning the full-face veil in public spaces.

In July last year, the government established stricter criminal laws for people living in so-called "ghettos" - poorer districts in Denmark - and imposed Danish classes on children there, in which they were taught Danish "values".

In December, the government approved a plan to send unwanted migrants to an island.

"There has been a significant turn to the right in a large segment of the Danish public. Thus the debate about 'foreigners' has been an easy way for politicians to gain popularity. Instead of discussing complex issues such as inequality, welfare and public health, many mainstream parties have chosen the easiest solution," said Schmidt. 

According to a recent poll, Paludan's party is set to secure six seats in parliament with 3.3 percent of the votes. The New Right could be elected with five seats.

In the meantime, Paludan continues to provoke.

At a demonstration on May 1, he was protected by dozens of police officers. A large crowd of supporters and counterprotesters had shown up.

"Not all perkere (derogatory slang for immigrants) are bad, but I agree that most of them should be expelled," said Sofus Andersen, a 20-year-old unemployed supporter of Hard Line.

An elderly Jewish man, meanwhile, looked on with concern.

"I used to be Paludan's barber for many years. He is a very intelligent young man and we had many political discussions, but I'm shocked that he ended up becoming so radical," said the man, who requested anonymity. "This is how the rise of fascism begins."

Link

'Islamophobic bullying made school a nightmare'

Bullies at school started calling me "Bin Laden" or "terrorist" and they didn’t limit their attacks to just verbal abuse. Sometimes I was left to go home to my parents with my physical injuries clearly visible. On a few occasions, the attacks got really bad and I ended up in hospital. I kept thinking that if I ignored the taunts, they would go away but that didn’t happen.

The impact has stayed with me - to this day, if I experience abuse, my initial reaction is “What did I do to deserve this? What have I done? I must be at fault.”

By the time I reached secondary school, aged 11, I’d developed an eating disorder. I still struggle with depression and other mental health issues today. The bullying made going to school a nightmare. I struggled to make friends and kept quiet in classes. I was too scared to offer an opinion on anything.

Back then, all I wanted was to be seen as "British" and to be treated like all the other non-Muslim kids in my class. But I was denied that. I was told time and time again that I “wasn’t British”, that I was a “terrorist" and worse. That, somehow, I was to blame for the actions of murderous extremists who claimed to share my religion.

Going away to uni in Nottingham was a huge culture shock for me, having grown up in a predominantly Asian community in east London. I’m often the only Muslim and/or the only Asian in class. At home, the sight of a Muslim wearing a hijab is much more common. At uni, I’ve met people from rural areas who have only ever seen hijab-wearers on the TV or in the newspapers.

 I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to explain that yes, I wear the hijab out of choice. And no, I’m not oppressed. I’ve been lucky enough not to be attacked on campus for wearing it, but I do know girls who’ve had theirs pulled off.

When I first started at uni, I wanted to begin a new chapter in my life away from the bullies and taunts. And to feel free of the fear of being different. So for a few years, I wore my hijab more like a turban, to make it less obvious and to look more like a fashion accessory.

At first I was worried I might not cope so far from home and that the same feelings of not being safe or belonging would resurface. Thankfully, I’ve developed a strong support and friendship network now. I also spent six months studying abroad in Malaysia, an experience I might have been terrified of when I was younger.

Today, I feel more confident in myself and have found my voice through student politics. I still struggle with my mental health and the scars of the trauma I experienced at such a young age will never leave me.

I have recently returned to wearing my hijab the traditional way, like I did when I was at school. For me, it’s reclaiming a symbol of my identity as a Muslim and these days I wear it with pride. Even in the face of hate.

Link

Distinguished New York City imam preaches tolerance, unity

Religion has a galvanizing force that can catalyze both prejudice and social change. Geneseo highlights this power with the annual MacVittie Theology Lecture: “Racialized Religion.” 

Executive Director of the New York University Islamic Center and Chaplain for the New York Police Department Khalid Latif spoke on Tuesday Nov. 14 for the Robert MacVittie lecture series. 

“The reality that numerous minority populations in this country face … are things that we have to be acutely aware of,” Latif said. “Foundationally, in my opinion, we can understand the country to be rooted in anti-blackness.”

Latif clarified the insidious ways that prejudice can even affect people like him, despite his privileged position as a leader in the New York City Muslim community. 

“I’ve shared stages with the Dalai Lama, been interviewed by Stephen Colbert and Katie Couric, been on the cover of Newsweek,” Latif said. “I’ve still had the FBI up in my house … despite all that though, I can’t tell you what it’s like to be black in America.”

Latif further wove his own experiences, his theology and the perspectives of others into a series of interconnected stories. One of the main memories focused on the different ways people treated him and other Muslims who lived in New York City during and after the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001. 

As a Muslim student at NYU on 9/11, Latif was often shoved into the spotlight as people profiled and either verbally or physically attacked people they thought looked Muslim. Following 9/11, Latif experienced Islamophobia in the form of questioning at the ninth anniversary 9/11 ninth anniversary ceremony. 

“I was at the ceremony in my police uniform—an Inspector’s uniform—talking and mingling, but I still had my beard and my head cover,” Latif said. “Three men approached me wearing suits and said that Secret Service had spotted me from the top of a building and wanted to check my credentials ‘just in case.’” 

Latif urged the audience to use the tenets of love and religiosity when approaching injustice in the United States and the world.  Latif—who recently accompanied international aid organizations on a relief trip for Rohingya Muslims refugees in Bangladesh—emphasized the apparent Western disregard toward the ongoing genocide in Myanmar of Rohingya Muslims.

Above all, Latif implored the audience to really listen and try to understand other people, especially those who are unlike themselves. The only way to approach the crises and injustices that pervade the country and the world today is through a real love and devotion for other people, according to Latif.

“You are at a university—a space that embraces and appreciates dialogue and diversity,” Latif said. “You can sit down and become informed and then you think of yourselves as potential partners.”

Link

https://www.thelamron.com/posts/2017/11/16/distinguished-new-york-city-imam-preaches-tolerance-unity

“I was thinking, ‘Please, God, don’t let it be a Muslim,’” Sarsour said in an interview Wednesday morning.

Her fears were realized around 1:45 p.m. when she saw reports indicating the attacker allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” after fleeing his truck.

Around 2:45 p.m. authorities identified 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, who is originally from Uzbekistan, as the suspected driver.

Sarsour, who routinely wears a hijab, said no one at the airport gave her dirty looks or comments Tuesday. After tweeting her condolences on Twitter, however, the responses she received were predictably vicious.

Full article 

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Rise Above Hate - I Am Not What is Broken | Khalid Latif