On December 22, 2014 around 17,500 supporters of the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamification of the West (PEGIDA) movement rallied against the “Islamisation of Germany”. A poll conducted by German magazine ‘Stern’ last year, showed that 13% of the 1,006 participants said that they would participate in “anti-Islamization” protests, should they be held somewhere near their homes.
The rise of PEGIDA in Germany has coincided with recent attacks on mosques in Sweden. Three mosques were firebombed in the last ten days of 2014, leaving five worshippers wounded and the Swedish Muslim community fearful of practising their religious rituals in a local mosque.
The rise in immigrants from the Middle East over the past couple of years has escalated the resentment among the Western countries that are providing asylums to those escaping the turmoil in Syria and other parts of the Middle East. Germany especially, in a bid to further distance itself from its Nazi past, has the most lenient asylum rules.
In 2014 alone Germany accommodated 200,000 Middle Eastern asylum seekers, a significant hike from the 50,000 in 2012, and 127,000 in 2013. Germany has witnessed over 70 attacks on mosques during this period from 2012 to 2014.
The resentment against the immigrants has gradually transformed into barefaced anti-Muslim bigotry in the case of PEGIDA, which is using slogans like ‘Wir sind das Volk!’ (We are the people!). Ironically, the same slogan which helped Germans topple the Berlin Wall and unite in 1989.
When PEGIDA’s protest include banners roughly translating into “potatoes rather than doner kebabs,” the manifestation isn’t a movement against Islamic extremists or the ostensible “Islamisation of Germany”, it’s blatant xenophobia against Muslims, most notably the Turks who at three million, make up the largest immigrant community of the country. Unless of course “doner kebabs” is euphemism for something more explosive, which is unlikely, considering the absolute lack of subtlety on display in Dresden’s intolerant protests.
The xenophobes are still a significant minority, with the states being admirably steadfast in their egalitarian principles
Even so, despite the rise of anti-Muslim bigotry in Germany and Sweden, the xenophobes are still a significant minority, with the states being admirably steadfast in their egalitarian principles.
On January 2, thousands of Muslim and non-Muslim Swedes united to show solidarity with the Muslim population, a day after an Uppsala mosque was attacked with a flammable liquid and targeted with antagonistic slogans. The Swedes “love-bombed” mosques with messages of support for the local Muslim community. Similar messages of support came from the locals after the Ottawa shooting in October and the Sydney siege a day before the Peshawar attack, with the #illridewithyou hashtag epitomising the popular sentiment in support of Australian Muslims.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel perfectly demonstrated the official state stance on PEGIDA in her New Year’s speech: “Do not follow people who organize these, for their hearts are cold and often full of prejudice, and even hate.”
Around 18,000 supporters of PEGIDA rallied in Dresden on Monday, with over 30,000 marching against PEGIDA in other German cities on the same day. PEGIDA demonstrators were outnumbered 10 to 1 in Cologne.
With Western countries providing shelter to Muslims refugees escaping the volatility of their states, and the popular local sentiment against anti-Muslim bigotry, the West is playing its part in shielding the biggest victims of both anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamic terrorism: the non-violent Muslims. However, are the moderate Muslims doing enough to counter the rise of either of the two extremes?
When PEGIDA was demonstrating against Muslims in December, simultaneously Pakistan’s civil society was rallying against the Taliban and extremism brewing from mosques – most notably the Lal Masjid in Islamabad. While Dresden managed to assemble 18,000 anti-Muslim bigots, the highest figure in anti-Taliban protests in Islamabad is believed to be somewhere around 300. And the former number won’t decrease till the latter increases.
We need to understand that the striking lack of protest against Islamist terrorists – especially in the Muslim world – is the biggest reason behind the growth of both the terrorism fuelled by Islamism and the bigotry against Muslims. While the Muslim world rallies against cartoons, YouTube videos, Israel and in support of antediluvian laws, it conveniently remains silent on its own brutalities. It has taken an attack as shocking as the Peshawar school massacre for our statesmen to even name the Islamist terrorists.
There are only a few hundred willing to demonstrate against Islamism, with Jibran Nasir virtually the lone persistent voice against extremism, despite the activist’s endeavour to suggest otherwise. He’s fighting the daunting war all alone, with most other voices of dissent limited to proving how the Taliban are supported by the usual nemeses or how they have nothing to do with Islam.
While the “moderate Muslims” in Pakistan are busy defending their religion, instead of fighting extremism brewed by their religion, their counterparts in the West are playing the victim card, with the knee-jerk chants of Islamophobia used synonymously with anti-Muslim bigotry every time someone tries to address the root cause of Islamic extremism.
The use of ‘Islamophobia’ (an ostensible fear of an ideology) instead of ‘anti-Muslim bigotry’ (the veritable prejudice against Muslims), is fuelling both anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist terrorism. And the prejudice isn’t going anywhere until we accept that the radical Islamists are Muslims who are using Islamic scriptures to justify their terrorism.
Yes, the vast majority of Muslims aren’t terrorists, but saying that the lion’s share are “moderate” is stretching it a bit, when multiple surveys – including the regularly cited Pew survey – highlight how 60-80% of the Muslim population supports Shariah law with death for blasphemy, apostasy and “adultery”.
When the moderate Muslims in the West, the self-professed representatives of the Muslim world, refuse to be honest about the extremism prevailing in almost all of the Muslim countries, and highlight anti-Muslim bigotry manifested by the minority in Western countries, their contribution to countering xenophobia is nill.
When stating an obvious fact that Islamist terrorism is committed in the name of Islam is dubbed ‘Islamophobia’ it’s evident that the term has become a ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card.
Yes it’s disgusting to see places of worship being attacked, and hijabs being taken off in public, but manifestations against Muslims in the West shrink in front of – and are exacerbated by – violence against non-Muslims in the Muslim world and the ensuing silence of the Muslims.
Bigotry against any, and every, community should be countered, but Muslims – especially those representing the Muslim world in the West – can go a long way in transforming the prejudice against their religion and their religious community by owning up to its own intolerance and accepting Islamist terrorism as a problem of the Muslim world.
Once we accept Islamist terrorism as our problem, only then can we endeavour to solve it. And when the majority of Muslims denounce Islamism and accept the need for ideological reformation, the innocent Turks selling doner kebabs in Dresden might not be victimised by anti-Muslim xenophobia.
