Hate Crimes on Muslims

Wow you could not have mis-interpreted my post any worse. You think that was an us and them post? I was saying the only reason this garbage is going on is no one is challenging the stereotypes about Muslims the news shows us every single day. If all Americans and Europeans see all day is the news about how another Muslim blew himself up in a cafe and so on then they are going to begin to have ill will towards Muslims. What makes it even worse is that the Muslim community as a whole says nothing in condemnation of these acts so it begins to appear that there is a quiet acceptance of these insane acts. I will never commit one of these acts and I will never allow one to take place but I can only do so much. Without effort on the part of the Muslim community these attacks are just going to become more frequent. If you cared about Islam you would protect its image from those who would pervert it...
 
If yer refering to me budda there was no misunderstanding. I wasn't talkin bout you. I originally quoted your post to agree with it and then deleted the quoted part to just post a couple of lines of text instead, which may have activated the email notification thingie that I responded to your post. I wasn't refering to you. I was refering to the OP.
 
Greetings,

budda said:
I was saying the only reason this garbage is going on is no one is challenging the stereotypes about Muslims the news shows us every single day. If all Americans and Europeans see all day is the news about how another Muslim blew himself up in a cafe and so on then they are going to begin to have ill will towards Muslims. What makes it even worse is that the Muslim community as a whole says nothing in condemnation of these acts so it begins to appear that there is a quiet acceptance of these insane acts.
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This is not true; an overwhelming number of Muslims have spoken and still speak out against stereotypes and acts of terrorism. This is a theme of many threads on this forum, and your specific claim that nobody has spoken out against it has already been addressed a number of times:

http://www.islamicboard.com/world-affairs/23680-muslim-leaders-condemn-terrorism.html

http://www.islamicboard.com/420474-post264.html

http://www.islamicboard.com/world-affairs/27753-fellow-muslims-terrorism.html

Peace.
 
I think the issue isn't whether Muslims are speaking out, but how loud their voices are. Most media would rather give a loudmouthed bigot an interview rather than a soft-spoken opponent of violence. I do believe Muslims should put as much effort into loudly opposing terrorism as they do loudly opposing cartoons. Not trying to be offensive, but there is an obvious inbalance there.
 
budda said:
Wow you could not have mis-interpreted my post any worse. You think that was an us and them post? I was saying the only reason this garbage is going on is no one is challenging the stereotypes about Muslims the news shows us every single day. If all Americans and Europeans see all day is the news about how another Muslim blew himself up in a cafe and so on then they are going to begin to have ill will towards Muslims. What makes it even worse is that the Muslim community as a whole says nothing in condemnation of these acts so it begins to appear that there is a quiet acceptance of these insane acts. I will never commit one of these acts and I will never allow one to take place but I can only do so much. Without effort on the part of the Muslim community these attacks are just going to become more frequent. If you cared about Islam you would protect its image from those who would pervert it...
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The reason why racist and islamophobic people attack muslims is not because muslims dont condemn terrorist actions aimed at innocent civilians. Many many many muslims speak up against such actions, however, the people speaking up against such actions are rarely given the airtime. A muslim condemning violence is not sensational news, however, the extremist with his/her extreme views is sensational news and helps propagate the negative stereotypes that the media want propagated.

Muslims are continually trying to do something about it! but like i said, the 'moderates' as they are commonly labelled dont make good news, so who will give them the airtime?

This is not just an issue for the muslims to sort out. The governments and media need to change their islamophobic attitude and policies and prevent the media propagating such hatred. The continuing demonisation of a minority people will only result in one thing. If you want to know what that one thing is then read the history of nazi Germany. The demonisation of a peoples by the state has in the past led to a holocaust and it will happen again if something isnt done soon!

Check this list for condemnations of terrorism if you think no one is speaking up against such things! This is by no means the complete list but a selection posted on an american website.

LINK
 
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Keltoi said:
I think the issue isn't whether Muslims are speaking out, but how loud their voices are. Most media would rather give a loudmouthed bigot an interview rather than a soft-spoken opponent of violence. I do believe Muslims should put as much effort into loudly opposing terrorism as they do loudly opposing cartoons. Not trying to be offensive, but there is an obvious inbalance there.
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At any given day there are countless Imams giving fatwah against terrorism. These words are directed to where they are most needed, to the Muslims in the community.

Public protests are just seen as showmanship and a desire to identify with the non-believers by potential terrorists. This is a bit paradoxol as Muslim out cries become more public, the less they are believed by potential terrorists.

I know the non-Muslim world wants to know just what is being done by Muslims to end terrorism. However, those who are opposing terrorism are much more interested in reaching the misguided, not in becoming public celebrities.

Plus there is also the media problem, when we as individual protesters against terrorism strange demonstrations against terrorism, it usualy never makes the status of being news worthy.

One Imam in a remote section of the world calling for suicide bombers will be on all the world media almost instantly. One million Imams world wide speaking against terrorism on a daily basis, doesn't even make the back page of the classified section of the paper.
 
Keltoi said:
I think the issue isn't whether Muslims are speaking out, but how loud their voices are. Most media would rather give a loudmouthed bigot an interview rather than a soft-spoken opponent of violence. I do believe Muslims should put as much effort into loudly opposing terrorism as they do loudly opposing cartoons. Not trying to be offensive, but there is an obvious inbalance there.
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..........and the non-muslims should be as vocal against the racist and islamophobic actions of the non-muslims?

To be honest i don't see a lot of that going on anywhere, wherever you turn you find someone attacking some aspect of islam to gain a bit of notoriety and media time. The only thing they are achieving by there racist and islamophobic behaviour and attitude is adding further fuel to the fires of hatred. The more it happens the less effective the voices of moderation within the muslim communities become!
 
netprince said:
..........and the non-muslims should be as vocal against the racist and islamophobic actions of the non-muslims?

To be honest i don't see a lot of that going on anywhere, wherever you turn you find someone attacking some aspect of islam to gain a bit of notoriety and media time. The only thing they are achieving by there racist and islamophobic behaviour and attitude is adding further fuel to the fires of hatred. The more it happens the less effective the voices of moderation within the muslim communities become!
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I agree with you, the silent majority of moderation should make their voices louder, on both sides.
 
netprince said:
The reason why racist and islamophobic people attack muslims is not because muslims dont condemn terrorist actions aimed at innocent civilians. Many many many muslims speak up against such actions, however, the people speaking up against such actions are rarely given the airtime. A muslim condemning violence is not sensational news, however, the extremist with his/her extreme views is sensational news and helps propagate the negative stereotypes that the media want propagated.

Muslims are continually trying to do something about it! but like i said, the 'moderates' as they are commonly labelled dont make good news, so who will give them the airtime?

This is not just an issue for the muslims to sort out. The governments and media need to change their islamophobic attitude and policies and prevent the media propagating such hatred. The continuing demonisation of a minority people will only result in one thing. If you want to know what that one thing is then read the history of nazi Germany. The demonisation of a peoples by the state has in the past led to a holocaust and it will happen again if something isnt done soon!

Check this list for condemnations of terrorism if you think no one is speaking up against such things! This is by no means the complete list but a selection posted on an american website.

LINK
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:salamext:

Here are some more links to add with brother Netprince's

http://www.cair-net.org/html/911statements.html

http://www.cair-net.org/default.asp?Page=americanMuslimOutreachEfforts

:sl:
 
Keltoi said:
I agree with you, the silent majority of moderation should make their voices louder, on both sides.
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I know what you're saying, but anyone, Muslim or Non-Muslim, who just talks about peace, will generally not get much airtime, no matter how loud their voices are and how correct their arguments are. Crazy violent psychos make better television apparently, and people tend to remember them more.

I'm not saying that the voice of moderation should simply stop talking however.
 
As our brother Woodrow pointed out, the ones that work hard to refute terrorism from an Islamic viewpoint, are our shaykh's and scholars and they don't tend to go out on demonstrations (some of them consider demonstrations to be un-Islamic, but that's another topic). They try to educate the Muslims and spread correct Islamic knowledge.
Also, in Saudi Arabia they have this thing where a scholar will go to the suspected terrorists and show them how Islam disagrees with what they are trying to do, and this might - praise be to Allah 'azza wa jall - prevent future terror attacks. Surely, this is does more good than demonstrations?
 
Behind the scenes work to stop terrorist ideologies is great, and that might be enough for Muslims in general, but I wonder if that is enough to change the growing belief in the "West" that Muslims give lip service to denouncing terrorism and little else. Islamophobia isn't hatred, it is distrust and fear. Muslims, especially those living in the "West", will continue to be looked upon as suspect while bombs continue to go off.

When the British politician mentioned that more should be done in the Muslim community to stop the spread of radicalism, the Muslim community attacked him. If Muslims can't even accept the fact that there is a problem, why should everyone else feel comforted that some clerics are "speaking out against it?" I'm just trying to explain the doubt that exists in the minds of non-Muslims when they hear how such and such cleric spoke out against terrorism...where are the people speaking out against terrorism? If thousands of Muslims can gather to protest some cartoons, surely a few hundred can get together to denounce terrorism.
 
Keltoi

First of all, these aren't "a few clerics". These are muftis and respected scholars. In fact, even the terrorist sympathysers themselves (as few as they might be) usually see these Shaykh's as people of knowledge, who work to spread the true techings of Islam. It's pretty much the issue of terrorism they disagree on. When even the terrorist sympathysers themselves acknowledge the great knowledge of the Shaykh's that denounce terrorism, this tells you something about how influental the fatwa's of these Shaykh's are amongst the mass of Muslims. The low number of militants (in contrast to the number of Muslims) testifies to this.

Second of all, this isn't done "behind the scenes". These fatwa's are out there for all to see. But of course it will seem to be "behind the scenes" since the media doesn't mention this and instead they focus on the few militants. This has been pointed out earlier in this thread by others.

As for protests, well... I don't think that protests will stop the terrorists. What has been shown to stop them is educating them about Islam. The only thing protests might achieve is to change the image of Muslims. However, the condition is that the media reports about this. But since they haven't reported about the fatwa's, the condemnations etc. etc., why would they report about these protests? More than five years after 9/11, people still ask "Why aren't the Muslims doing anything against the radicals", which shows you that the media ignores these kind of things.

It could be asked: Why aren't non-Muslims protesting against Islamophobia? I mean, no one can deny the discrimination of Muslims, the hate crimes, the mosque burnings, the demonization of Muslims etc. going on in Europe. Where are the protests?

By the way, I think that if Muslims were demonstrating etcetera, it would be said that this is only lip service and that actual work needs to be done to prevent terrorism.
 
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The problem is what we actually "see". There have been a number of large scale demonstrations in the last few years over various issues. Muslims in very large numbers taking to the streets in various cities in various countries.

Yet we do not "see" demonstrations condemning terrorism when it happens. We don't see angry muslims taking to the streets condemning the hijacking of islam by terrorists.
 
SilentObserver said:
The problem is what we actually "see". There have been a number of large scale demonstrations in the last few years over various issues. Muslims in very large numbers taking to the streets in various cities in various countries.

Yet we do not "see" demonstrations condemning terrorism when it happens. We don't see angry muslims taking to the streets condemning the hijacking of islam by terrorists.
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Again, terrorists hijacking Islam isn't going to change by demonstrating. You educate them about Islam.
I think that the difference is that when someone attacks Muslims, we usually respond by demonstrating and protesting against this attack from the outside. But terrorism is something internal, something that isn't going to be solved by protests. We have to do actual work.

Now, having said that... It's not about what non-Muslims actually see. It's about what you choose to see. For instance, are you aware of the demonstration in Morocco against terrorism where 150.000 people protested?
 
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