I ended my last column last month, “Islam and the West…No Clash of Civilisations” by demanding that “Muslim scholars, governments, academics… should lead the discussion on not falling into the trap of the clash of civilisations that groups such as Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and bigoted western officials and potential presidential candidates are trying to sow.
“The unholy coalition between Daesh and the likes of Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio has to be broken, because Daesh does not represent Islam and the mainstream Muslims, as much as those Republican presidential candidates and the others, who subscribe to their eschewed thinking, do not have exclusive hold on or represent western civilisation.”
This plea is an urgent one, to mitigate and contain the growing Islamophobia that is raging in the West, whether in Europe or the US, and is playing into the hands of the hard-line militants who are stocking such schisms to set off a clash of religions and civilisations between Islam and the West and a fitnah or sedition within Islam itself.
It was alarming to see the hyped tensions and the overreacting measures taken by some western officials in some European capitals and in the US to warn against terrorist attacks, including cancelling the New Year celebrations in Belgium and employing heightened security measures in London and New York City. In the end, nothing happened. These practices and overreactions poison the muddy and unhealthy relationship between Islam and the West further, and confirms the erroneous narrative of the western view that Islam is inherently anti-western in values and way of life.
Ominous developments
Unfortunately, Islamophobia is being fanned by some US presidential hopefuls and right-wing political party leaders such as the far-right French National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, and other right-wing leaders in Austria, Germany and Denmark. They are venting their bigoted views against fleeing refugees who are being ostracised by some European countries, which are averse to hosting them, and in the US where many state governors have vowed to reject them, despite the federal government decision to take in 10,000 refugees this year. These racist views and sentiments grew after Daesh supporters launched attacks in Paris last November and in San Bernardino, California, last December.
Since those ominous developments, things have descended even further towards polarisation. As I argued in my last column, t The venomous anti-Muslim and anti-Islam language mouthed by the GOP frontrunner Trump is playing into the hands of the Islamist fanatics, the likes of Daesh and Al Qaida, and this is what some candidates warned of.
On the first day of the new year, the New York Times reported: “Al Qaida’s branch in Somalia released a recruitment video on Friday [January 1] that criticised racism and anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States and contained footage of the Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump announcing his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the country. The video, released by the militant group Al Shabab, appeared to be the first time that Trump was featured in jihadist recruitment material. During a Democratic presidential debate last month, Hillary Clinton said that Mr Trump had been used in a recruitment video for [Daesh], a claim that was later debunked” The video was authenticated by the SITE Intelligence Group, which studies religious extremist propaganda, and it appeared to be aimed at the African-American community.
This undoubtedly could create much consternation and deepen the friction between Islam and the West. This also will have tractions and unfortunately, will be employed by some presidential hopefuls to pander and play on their constituents’ fears to garner votes, without paying any attention to the damage it is causing to the relationship between Islam and the west.It is unnerving that views of Muslims and Islam in the West are at all-time low, even towards American and European Muslims. In a recent survey by the Associated Press and the NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research, it was found that “Americans place a higher priority on preserving the religious freedom of Christians than for other faith groups, ranking Muslims as the least deserving of the protections. 82 per cent said religious liberty protections were important for Christians, compared with 61 per cent only for Muslims. People who identified as having no religion were ranked around the same as Muslims in needing support to live out their beliefs.
Democrats also ranked religious freedom for Muslims as a lower priority. Eighty-three per cent of Democrats said the protections were important for Christians, while only 67 per cent said so for Muslims.Nevertheless, it was encouraging to see that the Muslim community in the US had not cowed and cocooned itself and bowed its head to weather the racist and bigoted storm. American Muslims rallied and held a demonstration, attended by thousands of Muslim Americans, the largest in years, to band together and draw support and they vowed to register one million voters to participate and have a say in the upcoming US presidential and congressional elections in November. They have finally mastered the political game and learned what makes American politicians tick.
The objective of the terrorist groups is to set off a clash between Islam and the West. We should not fall into their trap and be held hostage to their sick narrative. We should fight the Islamophobia that is festering and growing in danger and magnitude between the marginal violent segment who have hijacked Islam and kill and maim in its name and, we, the disgusted majority that are being both smeared and accused of being terrorists by some elements in the West stand to lose the most along with the majority of the level-headed rational western community.We have to reject being dragged into what the hard-liners on both sides of the aisle are trying to impose on us. It is our responsibility to band together to defeat not only terrorism but, equally important, avoid falling into the Islamophobia trap.
Abdullah Al Shayji is a professor of political science and the former chairman of the political science department at Kuwait University. You can follow him on at twitter.com/@docshayji.
