It is often said that history repeats itself. With that in mind, I can only hope and pray for my beautiful Muslim brothers and sisters.
With the recent attacks on several locations around the world on Nov. 13 and a majority of people ignorantly believing that all Muslims should be penalized for the actions of a few monsters, I can’t help but think back to the way we treated the Japanese during World War II. Following the attacks on Pearl Harbor from imperial Japan, Americans began to turn their heads to their Japanese-American brethren.
Through fear and propaganda, we allowed ourselves to become the very thing our nation was founded to be against. We captured our brethren, removed them from their jobs, their homes, their schools and placed them into internment camps. In a sense, we dehumanized an entire culture simply based on the actions of a few.
This is what I fear will happen to our Muslim brethren. We have already begun to see the first signs of this fear following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. During that time, many angry and vengeful Americans began to unfairly target Muslims. This form of bias was even seen through the law enforcement.
In our modern world, with the rise of ISIS, we are beginning to see an emergence of these shameful behaviors, and we cannot tolerate it. Many of the states within the U.S have already begun to close their doors to Muslim refugees. Throughout the many forms of social media, I have seen many hurtful and disgusting comments regarding Muslims and the Islamic religion.
To be clear, the Islamic religion and the Muslim people should not be blamed for the atrocities that we have experienced from any of these terrorist organizations. We should stop referring to these people as religious extremists and simply label them as what they are – criminals. If we continue to allow ourselves to believe that these people are representatives of Islam, we are opening ourselves to hatred and discrimination.
The Muslim religion is in no way an inherently violent belief. Much like the foundations of most of the world’s religions, Islam was founded on the principles of love and self-improvement. A Muslim professor who guest lectured for my philosophy class said the term “Jihad” – or “holy war” – is actually a reference to an internal struggle between good and evil. He said the goal was for all Muslims to experience a sort of enlightenment, however, due to the manipulating propaganda of terrorist organizations, the term "Jihad" has become a literal act of war and hatred.
Granted, the Quran does have certain aspects that our very questionable and arguably immoral, but the Christian-Judeo Bible also includes many beliefs that would result in imprisonment in our modern society. Therefore, it is unfair for us to judge an entire culture based on our interpretations of it.
We must look deeper into the heart of Islam and humanize its followers if we are ever going to form a united front against these Islamic imposters.
Ask yourself, do you believe that the KKK serves as a representation for Christians? If not, then please do not allow ISIS to serve as a representation for Islam.
