“Islamophobia” – A Creation of Capitalist- Imperialist World

Manmohan

‘Islamophobia’ is a new term now being circulated most widely in mass media all over the world. It is basically denoting the danger of growing of Muslim population throughout the world in different countries. Motivated, concocted, false theories and stories are being published that the day is not far off when the Muslim population will takeover not only the European countries, all other countries including USA by 2050. They will enforce their rule of Quran and Sharia rules on the people.  Some kind of fear is being created in minds of the common people and anti-Muslim organisations and groups have been formed throughout the world. All of them are keeping in touch through on-line social media like You Tube and Face book. Average age of the people participating in hate campaign is 17 to 26 years. They commit crimes individually like mass shootings in schools, Malls, busy Market or at religious places killing people with no faults of theirs. Gun culture is taking lives of innocent people. Such individuals are highly intoxicated with the feelings of hatred against the people – nonwhites, coloured, Blacks, Muslims, and immigrants. 

US sponsored wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Turkey, Ethiopia, etc. killed millions of people, children, women, made them homeless, and forced them to leave their countries and become refugees to search for the new homes in European countries, including to USA. Most of them left by small boats and ships risking their lives, and many of them died on the way before reaching to the coasts of European countries. Touts and travel agents, human traffickers made millions of dollars out of misery of these people showing the dreams of new life in Rich European countries. Some of them were very young children without parents, women with infants, and many in disabled conditions. United Nation’s made some settlement plan to distribute these refugees in different European countries. Camps were set ups in those countries to settle them and integrate with local population by arranging the educative course. It is true, that there were cultural gaps, in social behaviour, etiquettes, manners, social life styles, food habits, and level of education, differences in languages. And to that extend these refugees found it very difficult to amalgamate with European Culture and their life styles. Some crimes were initially reported because of these people’s arrival. Shootings also took place that annoyed the local people.  Humanity demands that they should be treated with all human sympathy, support, and makes them feel at home after long sufferings. It definitely added additional financial burden on the budgets of European Governments.  And the existing resources like housing, transports, hospitals, jobs, schools, etc. have to be shared with these immigrants’ populations. Local population if not all felt the burden of it and asked the question why should we pay for them? Why their taxes should be use on them?  Why the Arabian counties who are rich in all respect with resources, have not taken to their responsibility to help them and settle in their own countries? There is no explicit answer for this. Why UNO took the decision to distribute them in different European countries? Probably, UN thought that rich European Countries can afford and support these millions of refugees.

Since most of the refugees were from the Muslim countries, they had their own conservatism in religious backgrounds, in dress, behaviour; particularly women had to face a new environment. They started building their own religious places for prayers –mosques all over wherever they lived. It was taken as new objection by the local people, who opposed the constructions of Mosques.  Conflict of religion along with social cultural gaps, became one of the main issues. The “White people” who considered themselves as superior race, better than Muslims, and coloured people, started developing feelings of alienations in their own lands. Far right, Neo Nazis, Skin heads, White Nationalist, White supremacist, Aryan Nation groups basically are inspired by Hitler’s theory of ‘Aryan Race’ and genocides he committed against the Jews, Roma, Non-Aryan coloured races) were revived again & these groups posed the question that Muslim population would destroy their country, its culture, their fast-growing population would take over their countries rules if allowed to settle here.  It will turn their countries in to a Muslim dominated country after a few decades. This kind of fear was taking birth in the minds of local people. Mosque was not allowed to be built inside the city limits, in Sweden; finally, a place was given outside the city to build it.

So anti-immigrants feeling gradually turned into anti-Muslims feelings. Young population was first infected with such ideas and got imbibed. General economic crises in all the capitalist-imperialist countries, rising unemployment, joblessness, uncertain futures, rising cost of living, and social disparities in living conditions of rich and poor were the few factors that escalated this feeling. Messages spread   that locals are not getting jobs and opportunities because of outside people coming there. It fueled the hatred against the Muslims and gave birth to ‘Islamophobia’. This idea took birth in European countries, but Mr. Trump became the fountain head of this movement. Even before he got elected as Presidents of US, he openly advocated the ‘Islamophobia’ and venom against the immigrants in the US. As soon he assumed the power, he banned the entry to US of the people from five Muslim countries. Strict visa rule was imposed and denied visas to tens of thousands of people to enter the United States. He asked the companies to give jobs to US local people than outsiders. He has proposed to build a wall against the Mexican border to stop the people ‘s entry in to US. He also proposed to throw all illegal immigrants, their children in to jail, he did also. Mr. Trump probably forgets that US is the country of immigrants’, and all its white population had come from the European Countries over the last 200 years. US were the country of Red Indians’. His own ancestors came from Europe. All the contributions to science and technology, and its massive industrial growth was possible because of immigrants’ population who came in search of new life from Europe, China, Japan, Korea, India, and other south Asian countries. It’s Multi-national Corporations, made billions of dollars profits out of the exploitation of such people for the last hundreds of years. Its complete R&D development & massive growth in the field of science, medicines, genetics, astronomy, agriculture, atomic field, etc. is because of these outside people, who are now US citizens. 

Again, it is US, who is responsible for crises in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Turkey, and Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and lastly in Afghanistan. It is the US army who is responsible for bombing and destroying the homes of these well settled innocent people, just for capturing the oil resources of these countries for the benefits US oil companies to help them make to super profits. Most destructive Wars were led by USA and its allies in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan and other African countries. Its Army destroyed the cities after cities by bombing on them. It killed millions of ordinary citizens in those countries and in-turn making millions of people homeless, refugees, forced to leave their well settled homes to save their lives. So, the refugee crises were the creation of USA and its European allies-such UK, FRANCE, GERMANY, who supported it in the sustained bombing, militarily attacks on the common people. Burdon of sharing the refugee population had to fell on all the European countries, because it was their creation. It is the US who created al Qaeda, the Taliban, al-Shabab, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hamas, ISIS, and others, the now so called ‘terrorist’s groups. All them were trained, funded and raised by CIA and US Military commands. Even Bin Ladin was the brain child of US army to fight a proxy war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.  Basically, all the groups now called Muslims- terrorist’s Organisations were Brain child of USA.  It is the US and other imperialist countries, which created this ‘Islamophobia’ branding the Muslims, the people in general as responsible for the terrorist’s acts all over the world.  The worldwide hatred against the ‘Muslims people’, branding all the ‘Muslims as the terrorist groups’, is the creation of these capitalist-Imperialists countries. 9/11 was the peak point of this surge that created an image against the Muslims all over the world. Taking the main inspiration from anti-Muslims tirade all the world over and one-sided bourgeois Media’s propaganda to brand all the Muslims with a broad brush created – like ultra- groups, Far-right, Skin heads, racial groups, Neo-Nazis, white nationalists in different countries.  All these Groups are working in coordination with each other sharing their views and hatred on line. “In countries around the world, anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies have become dangerously normalized ― in institutions, politics, media, and everyday life”. “This is the global nature of “Islamophobia” and because of this Muslims face daily acts of discrimination, bias and threats all over the countries”.” Richard Dawkins, a UK-based evolutionary biologist and former Oxford professor, once called Islam the “greatest force for evil today” (1)

Recent killings of 49 people in New Zealand, who were praying in two mosques, were inspired by the same fear of ‘Islamophobia’, the hatred against the Muslims, and immigrants. “The alleged shooter, identified as 28-year-old Brenton Harrison Tarrant, flashed what appears to be a white power sign. Prior to the attack, Tarrant had posted a manifesto online that detailed his hatred for Muslims, claimed inspiration from British fascist Oswald Mosley and Norwegian murderer Anders  Breivik, among others, and cited U.S. President Donald Trump as a “renewed symbol of white identity”. “Trump denied that ‘white nationalism’ is posing danger to world. But he has emerged as a potent inspiration for ‘Islamophobes” (2)

How the hatred against the immigrants is playing havoc with lives of innocent people can be seen from few examples given here.” The first killing in 2017 that can be tied to the alt-right occurred on January 29 in Canada. A 27-year-old university student named Alexandre Bissonnette allegedly brought a semiautomatic rifle into the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City and shot and killed six worshippers while injuring 19—two critically. Bissonnette was a Facebook fan of Donald Trump and the Muslim-bashing French politician Marine Le Pen on Facebook”. “On May 20, 2017, Sean Urbanski, a 22-year-old University of Maryland student, allegedly stabbed and killed newly commissioned Lt. Richard Collins, III. Authorities described the attack as totally unprovoked. Collins was black”. “On December 7, 2017, a 21-year-old white male posing as a student entered Aztec High School in rural New Mexico and began firing a handgun, killing two students before taking his own life”. “The alleged killer, William Edward Atchison, bore all the hallmarks of the “alt-right”—the now infamous subculture and political movement consisting of vicious trolls, racist activists, and bitter misogynists”. “Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who in 2014 killed seven in Isla Vista, California, after uploading a sprawling manifesto filled with hatred of young women and interracial couples”. “At least 13 alt-right related fatal episodes, leaving 43 dead and more than 60 injured. Nine of the 12 incidents counted here occurred in 2017 alone, making last year the most violent year for the movement.”  “The average age of the alt-right killers is 26. The youngest was 17. One, Alexandre Bissonnette, is Canadian, but the rest are American”.  “A shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, by Chris Harper-Mercer, who killed nine and wounded at least seven others at the college on October 1, 2015”. “Harper-Mercer, who like Rodger was multi-racial, was also motivated by white supremacist ideas.”(13). All these acts of killings by the individuals were inspired by Alt-Right (Alternative Right) group, who were in close touch    with each other on line. It also speaks of the dimensions of its spread in different countries.

Today also press has reported that there have been attacks on the Mosques in UK on 21 March 2019. Doors have been damaged. It is again being linked with rising attacks on Muslims by white nationalists.

The consistent discrimination against the Muslims in the European countries can be seen in the following clips:

“In 2016, when photos emerged of French officials forcing a burkini-wearing Muslim woman on a beach in Nice to remove her clothing, the internet erupted into a divisive fury. France had just adopted the now-overturned burkini ban, which forbade Muslim women from donning a swimsuit designed to cover the whole body. This wasn’t the first time the French government targeted Muslim dress. In 2011, France became the first European country to ban the burqa and the niqab, also known as the face veil. In 2011, Belgium almost unanimously passed a bill that banned full-face veils. In 2010, parts of both Spain and Italy had imposed their own versions of laws restricting Muslim dress. Across the Atlantic, Quebec has proposed a ban to block public employees, such as judges, teachers and police officers, from wearing religious clothing ― a resolution many have said targeted Muslim women who wear the hijab.” (4)

“In 2018, a Muslim couple in Switzerland was denied citizenship because the couple didn’t want to shake hands with members of the opposite sex, citing religious reasons. Later that year, Denmark passed a law that required those who seek Danish citizenship to shake hands at the naturalization ceremony.’’ “In the United States, over 200 anti-sharia bills have been introduced since 2010 in over 40 states. This nationwide campaign against so-called sharia law has been led by anti-Muslim hate groups who lobby lawmakers and attempt to draw public support by circulating conspiracy theories about how a backward and barbaric judicial system will soon take over American courts.”( 5)

“Hungary’s far-right government even passed draconian laws that criminalize giving aid to asylum-seekers and has blocked European Union attempts at resettling refugees”. “European, governments have moved to implement more restrictive asylum laws and put curbs  on family reunification for refugees.”. “Politician Geert Wilders notoriously called Moroccans “scum” and once led a crowd to chant that they wanted fewer Moroccan immigrants in the country. Even some countries traditionally viewed as liberal and progressive, such as Denmark, have enforced restrictive immigration policies that target Muslim-majority countries and asylum-seekers.” (6)

“Anders Breivik who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011 and spoke of forcing his government to stop an invasion of Muslims. Leaders like Viktor Orbán in Hungary, where the Muslim population is below 1 percent, have spread the idea that their societies are on the brink of demographic collapse and must make procreation a top national priority. “We want Hungarian children,” Orbán said last month. “Migration for us is surrender.” Stateside, allies of the fear-mongers in Europe like Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) talk about American culture not being able to endure if it’s going to be shaped by “somebody else’s babies.” (7)

“They cast Muslims as an existential threat, invoking the spectre of an alien religion, racial difference and, in some cases, the influx of formerly colonial subjects. The people who peddle the myth of a white “demographic winter”. “Hyping the threat to white populations has, of course, fed growing demands to restrict migration from Muslim-majority countries. One of Trump’s key campaign promises in the 2016 election was a total ban on Muslim immigration, a pledge he made as he repeated Islamophobic attacks at rallies and proclaimed”. “I think Islam hates us “(8)

“As the Europe has seen an influx of refugees from Muslim nations, its political leaders have doubled down on xenophobia and racism, fears over migration, combined with concerns over an aging demographic, have created a panic in which millions of white Europeans worry that they will be “replaced” by migrants.” “Ann Coulter proposed that America invade Muslims countries and “kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity”.(9)

From the above one can see that how the hatred against the Muslims- ’Islamophobia’ has taken roots in most of the Capitalist-Imperialist countries of Europe and the US. Muslims have been systematically branded as enemies of the people. Fear of ‘White Winter’ when the Christian populations would become minority and would be ruled by ‘sharia and Quran’ is hovering in the minds of European people. The idea of ‘Islamophobia’ is now being propelled and circulated over the mass media in all the countries. Deliberate and false, inaccurate anti-Muslims conspiracy theories about the Islam religion are being presented to the people.

You Tube, Face book, 4chan have accelerated this process. Even known news channels Like CNN and FOX News have been found to be aiding this by giving less coverage on Muslims and more on White nationalists. “In the United States, 80 percent of news coverage of Muslims is overwhelmingly negative, according to Media Tenor, a media research organization, with the majority of coverage depicting Islam and Muslims as sources of violence and malice. A 2018 study by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding found that perpetrators of violence who were perceived to be Muslim received seven times more media coverage than their non-Muslim counterparts”. “For years, media organizations such as Fox News have spewed anti-Muslim disinformation without consequence”. “Press coverage of Muslims in the United Kingdom isn’t any better. A 2011 study by the University of Leeds found that 70 percent of news coverage of the Muslim community in Britain has been hostile (10)

‘PEW   RESEARCH CENTRE’ (14) in USA has done very important research on the Muslims population in world and come to conclusions at present about 1.1% of US population is Muslims and by 2050 it will be about 2.1%. Similarly in European countries projected population growth of Muslims would be 10% by the year 2050. India will have that distinction by year 2050, while remaining majority Hindu country, shall have a population of Muslims about 300 million. These figures have been worked out based on the fertility rates of non-Muslims (2.2%) and Muslims (2.9%) between years 2015-2020 all over the world. And for European countries fertility rates are non-Muslims (1.6%) and Muslims (2.1%). Despite the difference in fertility rates the overall population of Muslims shall not surpass the said projections.  This is contrary to fact what is being propagated and peddled by the Bourgeois’ media and the vested interest that Muslims   population would take over the entire European countries and USA by 2050.

Similarly, the same group conducted the research further, in 2016, and “asked the residents of 10 European counties for their impression of how many Muslims in their country support extremist groups, such as ISIS. In most cases, the prevailing view is that “just some” or “very few but in Italy, 46% say “many” or “most” do.” and “in the same survey asked Europeans whether they viewed Muslims favourably or unfavorably. Perceptions varied across European nations: Majorities in Hungary, Italy, Poland and Greece say they view Muslims unfavourably, while negative attitudes toward Muslims are much less common in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Northern and Western Europe”.  It is interesting to note that the countries like Poland, Italy, and Hungary suffered the most in WWII during the Hitler’s Nazism. Maximum number of Jews will kill in these countries. So, fear among the local population could be of futures wars between non-Muslims and Muslims if allowed to settle there.

The same group further conducted research on how many people around the world want “Sharia and Quran” as rules of life. “Pew Research Center survey of Muslims in 39 countries asked Muslims whether they want sharia law, a legal code based on the Quran and other Islamic scripture, to be the official law of the land in their country. Nearly all Muslims in Afghanistan (99%) and most in Iraq (91%) and Pakistan (84%) support sharia law as official law. But in some other countries, especially in Eastern Europe and Central Asia – including Turkey (12%), Kazakhstan (10%) and Azerbaijan (8%) – relatively few favour the implementation of sharia law.” So, the Muslims population around the world except few countries do not want sharia to be rule life.

This group has also done another survey of the Muslims, whether they are discriminated in USA. “Our 2017 survey of U.S. Muslims finds that Muslims in the United States perceive a lot of discrimination against their religious group. Moreover, a solid majority of U.S. Muslims are leery of President Donald Trump and think their fellow Americans do not see Islam as part of mainstream U.S. society. At the same time, however, Muslim Americans overwhelmingly say they are proud to be Americans, believe that hard work generally brings success in this country and are satisfied with the way things are going in their own lives.” “Only about a third (36%) of U.S. Muslims say all or most of their close friends are also Muslims, compared with a global median of 95% in the 39 countries we surveyed.” This confirms our opinion that after the TRUMP came to power in US, Muslims there have definitely felt some sort of fear and has reasons for discrimination in social life. 

Conclusion: Rise of Neo-Nazis, white nationalist, Aryan Nation, far right, Skin heads, White supremacist, Alt-right, groups basically are inspired by Hitler’s theory of ‘Aryan Race’ as superior race. Rise of immigrants to the European Countries, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, etc   from the Muslims majority countries has created some sort of apprehension that Muslims will become one day majority population in their countries and rule of Sharia would be established. But the facts as per the research done by PEW RESEARCH CENTER in US do not substantiate it. But the press and social media, TV channels of the Bourgeois’ world have propelled the idea of ISLAMOPHOBIA and fuelled it in the minds of non-Muslims population all over the world. Socio-economic- political crises in all the Capitalist-Imperialists countries and their failures to resolve basic problems of life like unemployment, price rise, increasing cost of lives, uncertainty in futures of younger generations, social and moral crises, rise of worst form individualism, cultural degradation and all the anger in the minds of youths of those countries has been diverted towards the ISLAMOPHOBIA, a newly founded enemy.

Attacks on the immigrants, particularly Muslims, sudden killings in these countries by the individual’s inspired by the ideology of ‘White Nationalist or Supremacist, or Neo-Nazis Groups’ is most dangerous phenomenon and leads to killing of innocent people, who are not in any way responsible for their problems. And as such instead of resolving the issues, it is creating a new enmity between Non-Muslims and Muslims all over the world. Muslims are being projected as Terrorists and cause of violence around the world. World population is getting divided on the basis of religions. It will only help the exploiters- the capitalist-imperialists class to continue their game of exploitation. Need of the hour is to exposed the fielders of ISLAMOPHOBIA and preserve the unity of the exploited people all over the world. Simultaneously we also must expose the rise of Supremacist, Neo-Nazis, Aryan Nation, far right, Alternative Right Groups who dividing the common people on the basis of false logic and reason.

In this connection the call given by the Turkish   President   must be appreciated and supported by all. 

“Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday called on the world to fight rising Islamophobia as they did against “anti-Semitism after the Holocaust”, following the attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand that killed 50 people”. “Just as humanity fought against anti-Semitism after the Holocaust disaster, it should fight against rising Islamophobia in the same determined

Faiz Ahmad Faiz38th Memorial Day of the revolutionary poet       13th Feb 1911 – 20th Nov 1984Chand roz aur meri jaanchand roz aur mirī jaan faqat chand hī rozzulm kī chhāñv meñ dam lene pe majbūr haiñ hamaur kuchh der sitam sah leñ taḌap leñ ro leñapne ajdād kī mīrās hai māzūr haiñ hamjism par qaid hai jazbāt pe zanjīreñ haiñfikr mahbūs hai guftār pe tāzīreñ haiñapnī himmat hai ki ham phir bhī jiye jaate haiñzindagī kyā kisī muflis kī qabā hai jis meñhar ghaḌī dard ke paivand lage jaate haiñlekin ab zulm kī mī.ād ke din thoḌe haiñik zarā sabr ki fariyād ke din thoḌe haiñarsa-e-dahr kī jhulsī huī vīrānī meñham ko rahnā hai pe yūñhī to nahīñ rahnā haiajnabī hāthoñ kā be-nām girāñ-bār sitamaaj sahnā hai hamesha to nahīñ sahnā haiye tire husn se lipTī huī ālām kī gardapnī do roza javānī kī shikastoñ kā shumārchāndnī rātoñ kā bekār dahaktā huā darddil kī be-sūd taḌap jism kī māyūs pukārchand roz aur mirī jaan faqat chand hī roz

fashion .In a speech at the meeting of Muslim foreign ministers in Istanbul, Erdogan also praised the sensitivity shown by the New Zealand government and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the wake of the attack” (11)

Not swayed by the killings of 49 people & 20 seriously injured in New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, told that   the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch were “well planned” and could “only be described as a terrorist attack”. The suspects arrested had “extremist views that have absolutely no place in New Zealand and, in fact, no place in the world” vowed never to refer to the alleged killer by name, and urged people to instead “speak the names of those who were lost. Christchurch was the home of these victims. For many, this may not have been the place they were born. In fact, for many, New Zealand was their choice. The place they actively came to, and committed themselves to. The place they were raising their families, where they were part of communities who they loved and who loved them. It was a place that many came to for its safety. A place where they were free to practice their culture and their religion. We represent diversity, kindness, compassion, a home for those who share our values, refuge for those who need it. And those values, I can assure you, will not, and cannot, be shaken by this attack.” (12.).

rEFERNCEs:

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) –“Islamophobia Is A Global Crisis — And It’s Time We View It That Way” By Rowaida Abdelaziz, Akbar Shahid Ahmed, Nick Robins-Early,    HuffPost US 18  mARCH 2019

(11) AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES-   22/03/2019.

(12)  CNN -15 March 2019

(13) ALT RIGHT IS KILLING PEOPLE” BY Keegan Hankes and Alex Amend

(14).’ “Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world’’    BY MICHAEL IPKA.   pew research center- AUGUST 9, 2017