By Saman Hasan
Admittedly, the world is feeling a bit of déjà vu right now. We find ourselves confronted with yet another menacing force at work in the Middle East, using the mantle of Islam as their propaganda. The United States is, as one would guess, heavily involved in this conflict, with recent drone attacks and airstrikes in Iraq against the sinister group that is the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria”, or ISIS. With all this chaos and turmoil, people are overlooking a very real and serious issue playing out in the United States right now. Anti-Muslim sentiment, or Islamophobia, is on the rise once more, and it’s as ugly as ever.
The first question we must ask is this: has there truly been a resurgence in discriminatory sentiment against Muslims? The answer is undoubtedly yes. Statistics from the NYPD tell us that anti-Muslim hate crimes have been up 143%, and steadily on the rise. As of September 18, there have been a total of 17 hate crimes in New York City, compared to a total of seven in the previous year. In one particular instance, a man allegedly pushed and spat on a 15 year old Muslim girl aboard a bus, calling her a terrorist because she was wearing a headscarf. What’s worse? Not one bystander helped her. When asked to comment on these crimes, Jerome Hauer, commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland Security, said “As time goes on, [threats] to both the Jewish community and the Muslim community are going to be more organized. I think they’re going to be more targeted.”
These crimes are coupled with increased anti-Muslim sentiment in the media. The most outrageously blatant and horrifyingly racist example can be made of Bill Maher, whose recent panel regarding ISIS and Islam went viral on the web. On his show, Maher made the claim that Muslims will kill you for leaving their religion, backing up his statement by spewing out statistics that were laughably wrong. He went on a tirade about Islam being “the mother lode of bad ideas” and made another incorrect claim that jihadists made up 20% of the religion. His segment may be amusing in a shaking-your-head way for some people, but the sad truth still remains: Bill Maher’s audience was cheering him on.
So why is Islamophobia on the rise? The root of the problem is ISIS, but it is not the only answer.
ISIS has been wreaking havoc in the Middle East, and their level of violence and chaos has stirred a great amount of fear in the world. They identify as Muslims as a group, even though in reality they violate the very pillars on which Islam is based. Unfortunately, the association with other Muslims has already been made and the damage is done. With this mayhem comes the fear. Hauer says, “The more that happens in the mid-East, the more that the U.S. commits to try and go after ISIS, the greater the threat will grow here.” From the videotaped executions of American citizens by ISIS to U.S. involvement in Gaza, the fear of war grows. Fear is a motivator, driving a person to help combat the fear in whatever way they can. It is human nature to place blame when something is going wrong, because people need an outlet to channel their fear and anger. Thus, the correlation of ISIS with Islam leads to the inevitable: the entirety of the Muslim population becomes the scapegoat of this crisis. Muslims somehow become accountable for crimes perpetrated by these extremists, even though these terrorists do not properly represent Islam. Spencer Ackerman, a senior correspondent at
Wired.com, said, “I’m an American Jew, and I have never had to explain or defend actions of Jewish people around the world. I realize I am in a privileged position. So why do American Muslims have to explain themselves or defend other Muslims’ actions?” It’s a staggering double standard, but a sad truth of American society nonetheless.
In all honesty, the media is the prime instigator of these sentiments. A person’s perception of the world is based heavily on how the media portrays it. The coverage of this crisis in Gaza has played a huge role in these skewed sentiments, because it gives the argument emotional support. NYPD deputy chief Michael Osgood said, “The Gaza Strip becomes a major news story and stays consistent in the media through July and August, every single day, every single morning, front page of the New York Times, front page of the Wall Street Journal. […]…the group ISIS becomes a major news story and they stay consistent in the news media, [and] that creates what I call an emotional surge.” The news about ISIS is often very charged, an example being the executions of the American citizens, and this generates a swell of emotion in the viewer. As Osgood says, “A person, who would normally not offend, now offends. He’s moved by the emotions.” Thus, these emotional stories lead to emotional people, who commit hate crimes in order to channel their feelings.
Politicians across the country, including President Obama, have gone on record to state that we are “not at war with Islam”. If this is true, then why do I have to cringe while watching supposedly liberal shows like Real Time with Bill Maher, where Islam is spoken of in the same way one might talk about a disease like Ebola? If this is true, then why is the death toll of innocent Muslims in the Middle East higher than the death toll for terrorists? If this is true, if we’re simply combating extremism, then why is there such blatant discrimination against Muslims in nearly every aspect of society?
What we need is a deeper understanding. We need awareness. Lack of exposure to the real Islam, the peaceful, loving, and beautiful religion that is Islam, is what lends towards the fear and hate. “Most Americans don’t travel, [they] only assume,” said Ackerman, who encourages the need for Americans to broaden their horizons and understand other people and cultures. Americans are poorly informed, and this in part is due to poor media coverage and politicians who propagate this fear and hatred. Knowledge is the only way to combat these perceptions, and everyone—people, politicians, and the media—needs to come together and be a more impactful force to counter this negativity. Whether or not Islamophobia decreases in the coming years is on us.
