Islamophobia appears to be on the rise and the western media is making it worse by portraying negative images of Islam and Muslims at a time when the hottest trouble spots are in Muslim land!
For five days no one has responded to the question or mentioned any fears? Do I presume that it is not the educated academics that fear Islam, or at least to the extent of being islamophobic?
My diagnosis: I think what many people fear is that Muslims from those "hottest trouble spots" will bring the attitudes and behavior that made those trouble spots hot with them. Moreover, some of the Muslims who take it upon themselves to speak for Islam put themselves in a very negative light with extreme rhetoric, demands for sharia law, and "fake facts", so it's not always a case of Western media or rightwing fanatics misrepresenting Muslims, but Muslims representing themselves. You can find lots of examples of such spokespeople on Youtube. (No, they are not actors pretending to be Muslim.)
I think that violent and fabricated sects such as ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Taliban have spread Islamophobia in the world, while the moderate and right interpretations of Islam such as Shi'a bring peace and tranquility and tolerance to religious followers and even to non-religious people.
But we should ask ourselves Karl Pfeifer who is responsible for making those hot spots hot in the first place before putting the blame on the natural resultant reaction of resistance (freedom fighters if pro-west, but terrorists if anti-west}. It may appear to the layman that it was negative attitudes and behaviours that have led to such troubled spots, but in most cases a pretext was created beforehand to justify the intrusion.
Reda Elmabruk The question did not ask about responsibility so I did not consider it. However, many other things contribute to the negative image of Muslims that have nothing to do with the sort of resistance you mention; attitudes towards women, for example, which are manifested in actions like public groping, and not just in the West against Western women either. One big problem I see, unfortunately, is a tendency to respond to negative perceptions with self-serving justifications that in effect implicitly confirm the negative perception.
If we judge any religion by the misconduct of its followers then we are definitely going to get a negative impression of that religion. According to the teachings of Islam a Muslim is not supposed to touch a woman outside of marriage, let alone grope one. I do not deny that this has happened and will probably continue to happen if a Muslim’s heart is devoid of inner-fear of Allah (the God), just as those Christian clergymen in the news have molested and sexually abused young boys and girls.
I guess a large determinant of negative perceptions nowadays is what happens out in public in plain sight on a daily basis and is immediately filmed and put on the internet.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychology
- Emotion