Are Islamophobia and Islamic terrorism two sides of the same coin?
By: Manali Jain
Tags: Islamophobia, Politics, Culture, Religion, Terrorism

Not for ever can one enjoy stillness and peace. But misfortune and obstruction are not final. When the grass has been burnt by the fire of the steppe, it will grow anew in summer. This wisdom from Mongolian steppe, appropriately indicates what we face as world today as we fight towards two extreme forces of terror and Islamophobia.

While Islamophobia today is undermining the “war on terror”, it is only a recent phenomenon that was not so popular before 1970s in USA. Although the stereotypes of Muslims being hedonistic and violent were prevalent earlier, but they did not affect the people in general. It was the rise of Islamist ideologies in this time period challenging U.S interests which lead to its development further. In 1979 when a movement in Iran consisting of Islamists, Marxists overthrew the Shah of Iran who was an important ally of America and kept American embassy staff hostage for more than a year, things became worse. Harassment cases against Muslims in America went up during this time. This led to picturization of Muslims as murderous and duplicitous as being shown in many TV shows.

Let me ask a question to you, “When you hear the word “terrorist” who do you picture?” Clearly, it is not a white person. There are two common narratives that we come across. The first is that, “terrorists are always (brown) Muslims” and the second one is, “white people are never terrorists”. This is indicated in a recent study conducted by Caroline Mala Corbin published in Fordham Law review. It is not in the definition of terrorists that make such claims but our views. One analysis of 900 hollywood films, concluded that Arab or Muslim men were usually represented as terrorists or other stock villains. Like the example of attacks on a mosque in Quebec city, where a Moroccan man who was helping the people was initially considered to be one of the two gunmen and was detained by police. The actual gunman was later discovered to be a French-Canadian man. These links that we create to Muslim and a terrorist are due to various myths, racial stereotypes, and pre-existing false ideologies that lead to our unconscious cognitive biases.

After 9/11, there was a significant rise in popularizing images of Muslims based on racist and Islamist ideologies. Since then, there was a rise in Anti-Muslim groups all over USA, but the recent activism has been tremendous in Trump’s administration. The growing right wing populism around the world emboldened in right wing parties getting elected is one of the major factors leading to increase in hate crimes. The graph below indicates the rise in the number of Anti-Muslim groups from 2010–2016 in USA. A rise by 197% in the numbers in 2015–16 itself represent a precarious situation that will be prevailing in the future.

The augmenting attacks such as that of attack on Finsbury Mosque in Britain, Chapel Hill murders in USA, or mosque shooting in Quebec, Canada which killed six innocent Muslims are indicative of the extreme right hostility towards a community.

It is not only these crimes but the perspectives of people. Islamophobia is a systemic and institutional form of racism which includes almost every day practises. It is policing and surveillance of Muslims, it is when merely speaking Urdu is considered a threat, it is defining USA’s former president Barack Obama as a very nice man and not Muslim, as if they are mutually exclusive. It is in Boris Johnson, the current prime minister of United Kingdom comparing Niqab wearing women with letter boxes. It is in publicly chastising a female student leader in a veil by caricaturing her as a monkey.

It is infused in systems, institutions and mindsets where the whole community often gets punished for the misdeeds of few.

One of the recent reports in India which surveyed 12000 police personnel also found that half of them believed that Muslims were more likely to commit crimes. These biases around the globe are worrisome.

These trends shows the similarities in Daesh terrorism and Islamophobia in many ways. Both have been successful in using violence in creating an environment where Muslims and non-Muslims cannot maintain a peaceful and respectful relationship. They have instilled fear and division in the society and come with extreme convictions and ideologies which affect world peace and security. Daesh terrorism kills over 7 times more Muslims than Non-muslims and thus victims over here are not simply Non-Muslims but humanity and faith of over a billion people.

Let us come together and work this out like a global village which aims at sharing happiness. As Hadani Ditmar says, “We have nothing to lose but our imagined labels for each other and the terror of feeling powerless.”