It's Open Season On Muslims, And Trumps Tweets Prove It
29 November 2017By Ruqaya Izzidien
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning retweeted a number of posts by
Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the UK-based far-right group, Britain First.
Donald Trump's three retweets depicted supposed Muslims committing offences
and implicitly blamed all Muslims or migrants for the crimes. No context or
verification was given, nor was the religion of the victims mentioned, nor the
fact that Muslims make up the majority of victims of terror.
But there should be nothing shocking about Trump's retweets; this is not his
first Islamophobia rodeo.
Trump famously pledged in his election campaign to establish a "Muslim
register", and spent months battling to implement the so-called Muslim ban
which restricts admission to the US for travellers from six Muslim-majority
countries.
Trump's retweeting of Fransen's posts should therefore come as no surprise,
but they do underscore the increasingly emboldened and tolerated Islamophobia
that has become entirely commonplace in the world today.
The most baffling of President Trump's retweets of Jayda Fransen - who was
recently charged with "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour" -
was that of a man speaking Arabic who breaks a statue of the Virgin Mary.
This can hardly be considered a crime worthy of the president's outrage in a
society that preaches the freedom to mock and caricaturise religious figures
as a cornerstone of democracy.
It's fashionable to hate Muslims, because even the US president does. In the
past month alone there are scores of other such examples.
This week The Daily Mail ended its contract with columnist Katie Hopkins, days
after she gave an incendiary speech at the far-right American think-tank the
David Horowitz Freedom Center. Hopkins called for the audience to arm
themselves, to "get furious and fight back", while attacking Sadiq Khan, "the
Muslim mayor of Londonistan", and claimed that areas in the UK were controlled
by a "Muslim mafia".
Katie Hopkins has previously referred to migrants as "cockroaches" and "feral
humans" and called for a "final solution" for Muslims in the wake of the
Manchester bombing in May.
Former equalities chief Trevor Philips this week deemed the Islamophobia
awards - an annual satirical event in the UK, organised by the Islamic Human
Rights Commission - "genuinely dangerous" and stated that the label "painted a
target on the back of people on the list", apparently oblivious - or
indifferent to - the target that Islamophobia paints on its victims' backs.
A 24-year-old British man was sentenced to two years and three months in
prison last week for attempting to locate and stab a Muslim passer-by, and
electronics company Huawei faced a backlash and calls for boycott in China for
a phone feature that reminded Muslims of prayer times and could direct them to
the nearest mosque.
Last weekend, Martin Strid delivered a speech at the Sweden Democrats'
national conference, stating that Muslims were "not completely human". The
local politician later resigned over his comments, which stated that even
former Muslims did not qualify as a member of the species.
"On one end of the scale you are 100 percent human, a person, everything
that's part of that concept. At the other end, you are 100 percent
Mohammedan," he said.
Earlier this month, UK school regulator Ofsted announced plans to quiz primary
school girls in hijab, and white powder was delivered to a Manchester mosque,
trapping dozens of children inside while emergency services dealt with the
threat.
The result of the perpetual flurry of Islamophobic normalisation is that
ordinary Muslims are trapped in the role of aggressor and it becomes very hard
to imagine a Muslim victim.
This is exemplified though the lack of international response to the ethnic
cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims, and the refusal of politicians to put
pressure on Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of Myanmar.
It is exemplified with the case of Hadiya, a Muslim convert from Hinduism, who
had her marriage to a Muslim annulled by the Supreme Court of India and who,
this week, at 24 years old, has been placed under the custodianship of the
dean of her college.
Her father and the courts suspect her of converting under duress and have
refused to allow her to live with her husband.
It is exemplified in the expression of Muslims not doing enough to combat
terrorism, or when we are photographed in the aftermath of an attack not
looking sufficiently traumatised.
When commentary on politics, terrorism, or society is examined, Donald Trump's
tweets are not surprising at all.
Britain First has called for the reinstatement of punitive hangings. It
members have supported calls for a religious war in the UK. The group are
notorious for forcing their way into mosques and for organising "Christian
patrols".
Trump's tweets represent a clear trend of the selective outrage,
sensationalism and right-wing inclinations that have been witnessed since the
start of his presidency, from both within, and without, the White House.
Ruqaya Izzidien is a British-Iraqi freelance writer specializing in social and
cultural affairs. Her work has been published in The New York Times, the
Guardian, the BBC and Al Jazeera English, and her upcoming novel is entitled
The Watermelon Boys.
Follow her on Twitter: @RuqayaIzzidien
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