The last couple of days have seen numerous acts of terrorism all over the world. The one common element between them – they were all carried out by extremists who chose to call themselves Muslim.
Let me assure you, there was nothing Islamic about this bloodshed. As Ramzan, one of the holiest months of the Muslim calendar, was ravaged by casualties in Turkey, Iraq, Bangladesh, Lebanon, to only name a few, apprehensions against the Muslim community continued to mount.
Are Apprehensions Against Muslims Natural?
Of course it seems like the most obvious course of action, owing to the ostentatious use of the word ‘Islam’. It is the connecting thread between every suicide bomber and almost all radical extremists in contemporary times – perhaps apprehensions against the Muslim community are not so unnatural, right?
After all, the Dhaka gunmen were young boys who played the guitar and football. They were as average and ordinary as any of my friends. I shouldn’t be surprised then if tomorrow one of my friends also goes down the same road.
Propagandist brainwashing ensured that these boys left their seemingly comfortable lives behind to choose a path of highly distorted religious ideologies. Reasons for making the choices they did could be several – from poverty, the search for glory, disillusionment with existence, to a vehement desire to assert their identity.
Irrespective of the reasons, their actions, like those of other radical extremists before them, only strengthened the anxiety about Muslims, furthering their global alienation and discrimination.
This realisation is disturbing on several levels for me as a Muslim. If someone like me, who is within the community, can begin to understand where these apprehensions are stemming from, we cannot blame those outside for having them, can we?
Attempts to Normalise Islamophobia
However, there is a narrative which operates on normalising the fear of the Other, which assures you that yes, it is alright to fear Muslims, that it is natural to look at Muslims with distrust; and it is this narrative which needs to change.
Irrespective of what ISIS members – terrorists masquerading as Muslims – did in their past lives, their actions can still not be taken as an index for the entire community. And there aren’t enough times this argument can be reiterated.
No Muslim is a terrorist and no terrorist is a Muslim. Islam as a religious ideology is on the other extreme of the spectrum from terrorism. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the distortions of the religion.
Not Trying to Be an Apologist for Islam
There are, however, very few ways one can talk about Islam and emphasise its message of peace, rationality and harmony without sounding like an apologist.
I am a teetotaller by choice. It doesn’t have much to do with my religious identity. I would have still been one even if I were not a Muslim, and I have been one during past phases of atheism/agnosticism. It is easy to write it off as ideological indoctrination. I hope you take the harder road instead.
If I like or dislike something, there is a chance that it might be independent of my religious identities. It would be good for a change to not have every choice and every decision that I ever made analysed as a political act.
(The views expressed are of the writer alone. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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