NOVANEWS
The American Muslims are beginning to feel alienated from the American society and this is for anyone familiar with Islam is a very alarming sign.
By Dr. Ashraf Ezzat
Islamophobia.
When we welcomed the new global world, we welcomed the great reassembly of forces for the cause of truth and sanity which it offers us.
With the new global world, we thought we had embarked on a new journey that would bring humans who looked afar on the map closer to each other and would make them realize that we’re all alike on the inside. We welcomed a new world of shared knowledge, a world where ignorance is not bliss anymore.
We thought we had said Good-bye to a world where we lived in our cocoon went to sleep in one decade and then awakened in another to find strange forces invading our little space without knowing how to cope with them.
Almost a decade has passed away since one of the bloodiest American nightmares and the Americans still cannot break free of 9/11 trauma. They are awakened in another decade to find themselves haunted by dreadful flashbacks and relentless fears.
The controversy, which has been simmering over several months and boiled over the last couple of weeks when a group of American Muslims declared they were building a cultural community center in New York near Ground Zero brought back those dreadful memories.
In a country regarded as a model for freedom of religion and beliefs, the opposition to the Islamic community center was not clearly understood, most of the opponents elaborated on the sensitivity and wisdom which the Muslim owners lacked in regard to choosing this specific place to build their community center.
It never crossed their minds that Muslims didn`t take this sensitivity issue into consideration for the simple fact that they didn’t feel guilty of committing the crimes of 9/11. The opposition to the mosque seemed politically manipulated; it seemed more like a rationalization of bigotry. But Somehow, the so called ground zero mosque managed to bring out America`s darkest fears.
It was obvious that America as a nation was experiencing a kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Since 9/11 the Americans have increasingly grown sensitive to anything related to Islam. Lots of words – which nobody correctly understood- such as Muslim, Jihad, Hijab and of course mosque were beginning to act as triggers to trauma stroke.
False perceptions
There are many false and distorted perceptions around us. In general, all aspects of human life share this fate. The causes of this regrettable phenomenon are obvious. People in the majority are infantile and want easy and quick gratifications. Thinking demands temporary frustration until the gratification result is achieved.
The infantilism of mankind resists this displeasure, however temporary. Therefore people in general deal with the critical issues of life in a superficial and loose manner. Only the simple concepts are adopted, the others which need work, time and thinking are distorted and reduced to superficialities.
Therefore, in that superficial way, the majority of Americans chose to deal with the 9/11 tragedy. This horrible story needed to be investigated with a lot of profound and critical thinking to get to the bottom of it. But people preferred the easy way; they went for the simple concept, though there was nothing simple about it at all.
All that the majority of the public needed was a suspect, a villain on whom they could blame the whole thing. And since that was already taken care of by the political administration and sinister lobbyists, it was not long- just a few hours- before the villain was identified and the narration of Osama Bin Laden and his group taken for granted by the anxious masses.
And In such an atmosphere, ideas like “the end of history” and “clash of civilizations” were becoming more appealing and few years after the demise of communism, Americans were made to recognize Islam as their new global enemy.
Why Muslims ?
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
the 9/11 file is full of strange accidents, for example; why the twin towers collapsed like a house of cards as in controlled demolition? Why no one was indicted, no one was officially wanted, not even Osama Bin Laden himself…why has Islam been nominated as the new replacement to communism on the American public enemies list?
If the perpetrators of 9/11 were to be North Koreans or East Europeans or even Colombians it would have made more sense to political analysts.
But Muslims and Arabs in particular were not engaged in direct conflict with the United States, so why on earth did the Arab Muslims get stuck with the crime of committing terrorist attacks on American soil? It is not written down in the Qur’an nor is it considered as jihad as some of the misinformed writers claim.
But let us not neglect the fact that Arabs and Muslims are in direct and ruthless conflict with Israel. And since Tel Aviv was the one always whining about being surrounded by Israel-hating Arabs and Muslims. Then, the inevitable question of whose interest presenting the Muslims as the new global enemy to America would serve can no longer be a puzzle.
And if you doubt this thesis, I advise you to take a second scrutinizing look at Iraq and Afghanistan and try to figure out what good did those two wars do for USA? Who really benefited from dismantling Iraq as a political and military power in the Middle East? And who will benefit from doing the same to Iran? or Pakistan for that matter.
How America sees Muslims?
The demonization of Islam in Western thought is firmly rooted in the idea that Islam is medieval and dangerous and the media was mostly responsible for this biased characterization of Islam.
Numerous criticisms have been voiced that the US media – especially its cinema sector and TV networks – tend to create image templates. As in Hollywood’s role in portraying Italians as mafia type , the Spanish as bribe takers, Latin Americans as drug sellers, etc.
Yet, no nation or community has suffered the level of injustice Hollywood has been inflicting on Muslims. In Hollywood films, Muslims — mostly Arabs — are presented as people who hijack planes, set bombs, kill people, etc. — in a word, as terrorists. This template is designed mostly for the middle class. The role tailored for women of the same class portrays women who are oppressed by men and those who are adept at belly dancing, though still suppressed and knowing no love. We may also encounter wealthy characters in these films. They tend to be lustful, fat and passionate types who do not know how to spend their millions.
Unfortunately, this is the biased preconception upon which the west and Americans are stereotyping all Muslims.
