Dr Javed Jamil
We are living in the midst of perhaps the biggest ever lie heaped on a community despite colossal facts and clear evidences on the contrary. Muslims are being not just recurrently but almost constantly targeted as the perpetrators of violence and hate. The truth on the contrary is that they are the victims not the perpetrators of both violence and hatred. Yet the international media, with all its magical power of producing and propagating falsehood, and nothing but falsehood, finds, almost on daily basis, one way or the other to target the Muslim community and Islam. Poor Muslims, too naive to understand the machinations of the aggressors and too uninformed to know the art of counterattack, and many of them partners of West or local governments in the crimes against Muslims, keep just defending themselves. Since 9/11 the campaign has become too heinous to bear at the global level, and since the installation of Hindutva Government in India, the Indian Muslims are now facing a double assault. The media is now abuzz with stories describing Dr. Zakir Naik as the “King of the Business of Hate” and “the brain behind the radicalisation of Muslims.” This campaign has begun just when the UK released the Chilcot Commission Report clearly telling the world that the invasion of Iraq was planned on false assumptions. Is the debate on Naik aimed at covering up Chilcot? Not only the Indian media has remained totally silent on the findings of the Chilcot Report but the Muslim Media too has failed to grab the opportunity to hit back at the enemies of Islam and Muslims. The report is the most notable and categorical document to prove that it is the radicalisation of West, not that of Muslims, which is the greatest threat to the international peace. But still, the focus of the international media continues to be on “Islamic Radicalism”.
That Muslims are the biggest victims of violence is clear from the following:
First, since 9/11, more than 5 million Muslims, almost all of them innocent, have lost lives due to Western invasions, interventions or machinations. The perpetrators of 9/11 attack perished with the planes and the alleged mastermind was killed in an isolated attack in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda has not killed more than 6000 Westrerners including the less than 3000 in New York. ISIS may have killed tens of thousands in last few years but the majority of them except a few hundred are Muslims. The fact that most of the ISIS fighters are from outside Syria and Iraq and many from Europe and that they have used the weaponry which could not have reached them without the direct or indirect support of the West proves that ISIS is not just the product of West’s violent campaign against Muslims but a deliberate creation to plunge Middle East into civil war fuelled by sectarianism. Even before 9/11, the Muslim World has been the recurrent target of Western bombs and invasioins.
In India, more than 41000 people have died in terrorist related attacks. Out of these, Muslim outfits have ben allegedly responsible for the deaths of no more than 1500, the rest being committed by persons with Hindu names.
Yet, it is Muslims who are always on the defensive. The killers of 5 million reamin the champions of peace and the killers of a few thousand become the “threat”, which needs to be surgically dealt with. Muslims are expected to denounce and condemn every single act of violence committed by a person with a Muslim name, but Christians, Hindus and others are never condemned for the thousand fold violence committed by people bearing Christian or Hindu names.I have repeatedly argued in my articles and books: Let’s condemn every single act of violence whoever the culprit whoever the victim, whatever the motivation behind and wherever the place and let us condemn each country/community in accordance with the magnitude of violence it has caused. But nobody, not even Muslims, seem to listen. Muslim spokesmen appearing in the media are chosen in a way that they do not dominate the debates, and most of these spokesmen are either not well versed about the facts or, for reasons unknown, do not want to say what is true.
Not only violence, the same is true about the campaign of hatred. Just google the Net for the hate material against Muslims or Islam, and the books and articles describing Islam, Quran and Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in the ugliest colours will be abundantly found everywhere. Muslims on the other hand never indulge in hatred and vilification of the sacred books and figures of other religions. In fact, Muslims will be found expressing profound reverence for the Bibles, and many scriptures of other religions, Moses, Jesus, even Ram and Krishna.Yet, Muslim preachers are described as the “preachers of hatred”. Now, pressure is being built on Muslims not to even call or consider their religion “best”. Why should we remain Muslim if we do not regard and openly admit our religion as the best? And why should any Hindu, Jew, Christian or Buddhist (or any other ideology) remain what he is if he does not consider his religion/ideology best. While we believe and claim our religion as the best (being the Final Version of the Religion established by God through various scriptures and figures held dear by different communities) we grant the same right to the believers of all religions and ideologies. If they are true believers in their religions/ideologies, they must consider them best; if they don’t, they must try to find out the best. But in no condition, anybody can be allowed to spread hatred against others.
I have always maintained that the real threat to the current world comes not from religion as such or its different versions but from the atheistic, immoral ideologies based on the supremacy of economics and the desire to establish hegemony over the world. Alas, the religious communities, instead of uniting on the basis of the religious morality preached by all of them against the forces of exploitation are busy spreading hatred against one another on the basis of religious identity. If religious morality not the religious identity becomes the basis of our campaigns, the world can be saved not only from the clutches of the daily violence (wars, civil wars, murders, suicides, rapes, indirect violence caused by alcohol, smoking and sex) but also from the clutches of the forces of hegemony and exploitation.
Courtesy: Muslim Mirror