Religious persecution has been around since the beginning of recorded history. Within the past decade, Muslims have been the target of religious persecution because of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Most people today will not go out of their way to learn about another culture’s religion and would rather believe that all Muslims in America have the same bad intentions in their mind. Because of these actions Muslims in America are treated unfairly. Muslims have also taken a lot of harassment from those of the Christian faith as well because of their religious faith. In this essay the persecution of Muslim’s will be discussed and the various solutions that can be used to end their unfair treatment.
One of today’s biggest problems towards Muslims is the hate that is displayed towards them after September 11th. We blame the innocent because of the works done by the extremist, “Second, I see as a victim the image of Islam around the world, which was distorted by extremists who do not speak for one billion Muslims around the World.” (Bhutto 294). These extremist would see any other religions wiped off the face of the planet because they do not believe in the Islamic faith. Not all Muslims think like this, but because people have taken in the idea that all Muslims think like this people think that they all have bad intentions in their minds.
The solution to this problem is that the people of the United States need to stop blaming the average Muslim person for what happened. It is not the everyday Muslim who bombed the twin towers. It was the Muslim Extremist group of Al-Qaeda. Because of this hatred towards them the average Muslim has been made to change their way of life, “Many Muslims in America live in terror o...
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In the article “Modern-Day Witch Hunts”, Jamie Dailey focuses the attention on problems that Muslim Americans commonly face on a day-to-day basis. He first paints a picture by comparing the violent acts performed on Muslims to the Salem Witch trial in 1692. The Salem Witch trials resulted in 19 deaths of innocent individuals, because they were accused of witchcraft. Dailey goes on to explain in America, the type of persecution Muslims endure has many forms. A more recent controversy towards this religion involves the building of the Ground Zero Mosque in central New York. The name of this building is very misleading, especially to the eyes of an American. Even though this structure is actually built a few blocks away from where the former World Trade Center stood, problems have still risen from the public. Americans often mistake Muslims as the group of people who had performed acts of terrorism on American soil, when it was actually an Islamic group known as Al Qaeda. Mosques all across the United States started being vandalized by people protesting against their religion. This article shows how irrational fear can corrupt the thoughts of people.
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The attitudes toward Muslims today have not changed significantly since September 11, 2001. Any Muslim person; man, woman, or child is automatically suspect to instigate pandemonium, based strictly on their appearance and faith. Regardless of any evidence, reasoning, or perspective to the contrary, Muslims are seen as an enemy to United States citizens. The events of 9/11 left Muslim Americans unceremoniously lacking any respect from U.S. citizens regardless of any affiliation with Al-Qaida. We assess Muslim people with a common image of terror. We see the turban or hijab and assume a terrorist is hidden within its folds. Our mentalities inevitably come to a paralyzing halt, and we can never see through the fabric of the religious garments. When we see any one of these people, one person comes to mind, and that is the person who attacked our country. Today, in our nations cities and towns these arrogances still exist forcefully. Muslim people are still profoundly victimized and discriminated against by the means of assumption and negative mental sets. In the novel Zeitoun, author Dave Eggers takes time to assess the spitefulness encountered by Kathy and Abdulrahman Zeitoun, along with narrating the family’s endeavors with hurricane Katrina. Zeitoun presents racial differences in America, primarily in New Orleans, by discussing how they are created and the ways in which they exist today.
On September 11, 2001, since the terrorist attacks, many American Muslims have been stereotyped negatively in the United States. Salma, a Muslim woman, says that the way Muslims have been recognized in the media has played a big role in the antagonisms directed to her. “I don’t know how many time I heard my classmates accuse me of being al-Qaeda or a terrorist” (Mayton 2013). Salma, along with other Muslims, even after a decade, are still struggling with trying to find their “American” and “Islamic” identities, while facing verbal attacks for their ethnicity. Too often, the general Muslin population gets lumped in with the immoral acts of a few because of the lack of knowledge about their culture.
As the racial targeting, hate-crime increased, racial discrimination bullying, becoming victims of prejudice, and having unequal publicity because of bias racial after 9/11 towards the Islam-Americans. It was often proven how Islam-Americans have become pariahs in all religion that are in the categories of Islam, because of the similarity in the image that a Sikh-American or Muslim-American holds. However this bias view in society towards the Islamic-American is certainly wrong because it has created an unfair environment in communities for them which leads them to become and feel pariahs, as it should be change by speaking up, changing the way we socialize around the topic as it may spread.
Islam, a religion of people submitting to one God, seeking peace and a way of life without sin, is always misunderstood throughout the world. What some consider act of bigotry, others believe it to be the lack of education and wrong portrayal of events in media; however, one cannot not justify the so little knowledge that America and Americans have about Islam and Muslims. Historically there are have been myths, many attacks on Islam and much confusion between Islam as a religion and Middle Easter culture that is always associated with it. This paper is meant to dispel, or rather educate about the big issues that plague people’s minds with false ideas and this will only be touching the surface.
Muslim children face high level of discrimination at their schools as they are welcomed with negative comments about their religion by the children of other religions. Though abnormal but normally Muslim students are labeled as Terrorists and they are often verbally coerced and mocked to migrate back to their native countries. The overall conclusion can be drawn as the study that United States suffered a lot during the attacks of 9/11 but the ones who are still facing the aftermath of that incident are the Muslims around the globe and especially those present in United States. Various reasons other than 9/11 attacks behind Muslim stigmatization around globe include stereotyping against Muslims in terms of non-flexibility, uncommon culture, simple life style and aggressive behavior.
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After 9/11 has induced negative attitudes towards Muslim peoples who tend to be strongly associated with any act of terrorism. The media has played a colossal role in developing such negative association wherein it constantly portrays Muslim people in combination with violent terrorist acts. It does so in a way that they both go hand-and-hand. In other words, it has made it as though the Islamic religion is synonymous with terrorism. The media has perpetuated Muslim stereotypes over the years that followed the 9/11 incident. Because of this, society has developed, and still has developed, this prejudiced mindset about the Islamic religion and the Muslim communities around the world. People immediately assume that any violent act being depicted through the media is the direct result of Muslims. They automatically generate this idea that the act was performed by a Muslim terrorist even when they were not involved whatsoever. Regardless of whether it was true or not, Islamic religion and its Muslim adherents are at the top of societies’ agenda just waiting for the evidence to be generated so that they can then safely blame them for such world affairs. Again, this has led to the attack on the Islamic religion itself wherein people have come to postulate Islam as an act of oppression, violence and hatred towards non-Muslims. Anti-Muslim sentiments and campaigns have resulted from such misinformation the media has been generating and feeding its viewers.
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