Impact on society.

 

The other-ism of Islam has been pervasive both in broader attitudes towards Muslims in Western nations and in official policies. Islamophobia is a part of daily life for Muslims, according to Diane Winston. She cites racial profiling, negative assumptions about the hijab (the veil), a paucity of Muslim elected officials, assumptions that terrorist acts are perpetrated by Muslims etc; all these are manifestations of an intrinsic bias against Muslims in western societies on a daily basis. Where sociopolitical differences are stark, Islamophobia has served to unite the most diverse of ideologies. US-based Muslim Scholar Omar Suleiman is of the view that it is this hatred that unites the European Zionist and the Indian Hindutva, the Netanyahus and the Modis. It’s what inspires the genocide in Gujrat and the massacres in Gaza. It is Islamophobia that normalises the Muslim victim, converting casualties into statistics. And unfortunately, its prevalence has only increased. Todd Green says policies and practices singling out Muslims as a population deserving of suspicion and discrimination abound. This includes surveillance and profiling, detentions, deportations, torture, and restrictions on religious andcivil freedoms. Islamophobia has also proliferated among far-right political movements and politicians. In the US alone, examples include calls for patrolling Muslim neighbourhoods, for excluding Muslims from the possibility of being elected president, and for banning all Muslims from entering the country. One of the major dangers emanating from Islamophobia is that it justifies theanti-Muslim status quo.  

According to Yasir Qadhi, stances which are detrimental to the lives of people in the Middle East and in Muslim majority countries all over the world include military engagements, blockades and the invasions that have taken place. None of these could have happened without the tropes and stereotypes that Islamophobia perpetuates. Yet the discrimination and demonisation remains largely under-reported. Even in the United States, where religious freedom is enshrined in the Constitution, here’s what civil rights activists have been in recent years. 

• Mosques and community centres; Ongoing vandalism and resistance to new mosques 

• Discrimination based on appearance 

• Discrimination against Muslim women 

• Discrimination against prisoners 

• Discrimination against Muslims in the Armed Forces 

• Infiltration and surveillance of Mosques and Muslim communities 

• New York Police Department’s discriminatory surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers 

• The FBI’s surveillance in Southern California’s Muslim community 

• Congressional hearings on the socalled “radicalisation” of the American Muslim community 

• Unconstitutional administration of the “no-fly list” 

• FBI mapping of local communities and businesses based on race and ethnicity

 • Anti-terrorism financing laws 

• Invasive questioning at US borders 

• Government discrimination against Muslims 

• Discrimination against Muslims in public schools According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Muslim communities in the US have faced a disturbing wave of bigotry and outright hostility.

 From religiously motivated discrimination and attacks on existing and proposed Islamic centres to vicious rhetoric from presidential candidates, Muslims in America are being unfairly targeted simply for exercising their basic constitutional right to religious liberty.