Many overseas Pakistanis including myself, while going abroad for the first time, get the final advice by the family at the airport: ‘ never indulge in a talk about Islam, even to defend it or explain it, no matter how much someone hypothesizes and assumes about it’.
So, we never talk……! The assumptions become misconceptions and misconceptions become suspicions; suspicions lead to delusions, and still we never talk. The delusions lead to firm beliefs and the beliefs are transferred to the next generations who then again assume based upon their inherited beliefs, thus the vicious cycle continues…and we still do not talk !
Disaster of Islamophobia happens when we do not talk. I have written about Islamophobia (Islamophobia: a mysterious pandemic) earlier that it is becoming a new pandemic. More prevalent than cholera and more lethal than AIDS.
More metastatic than cancer and more debilitating than polio. A disease that needs immediate diagnosis and cure. Otherwise, even the babies in the mother’s wombs will be blamed for their beliefs, and thus be discriminated and prosecuted.
Prosecuted Not in the courts but on the streets by the homeless druggists. Prosecuted in the mosques by the white supremacists. Prosecuted by the most “prosecutable” people on the streets.
Prosecuted by the mobs on the roads.
In a time less than what is required for the sun to travel from east to west, the Islamophobia traveled from east to west, and that is why I call it a “ pandemic”. In the East, a Muslim woman 6 month pregnant was assaulted just because of her dress (scarf) in Sydney.
Even after being brutally beaten, first thing she did after settling down was “adjusting her scarf”. Truly, in this so called free modern world, it is easier to walk half naked than to eat fully covered.
The world has become a terrible place to live. I am sure when the ultrasound of this mother would have been done in a Sydney hospital after this assault, that 6 month fetus would have been screaming this: ” I am not even born. I am not a terrorist 
…!”
…!”Australia has got a serious problem. Where the senators like Pauline Hanson come in the assembly in “Burqa” to mock at Hijab. Where the racist supremacists Brenton Tarrant are esteemed. Where the parliamentarians like Fraser Anning make hateful comments; hateful enough to be “egged” by a 17 year old William Connolly.
In the second incident in the West, an anti-Islamic protest was held by an organization named “SIAN” (Stop Islamization in Norway) in the city of Kristiansand (Norway). In spite of the police warning the protesters not to burn the Holy Quran, the leader of SIAN “Lars Thorsen” (who had spent one-month prison because of his hateful speeches against Islam in the past) burnt the holy book in the name of the “freedom of speech”.
He was attacked by a young Muslim guy named Ilyas who tried to stop him, and both were arrested.
I salute the mother of Prime Minister Khan (Late Ms. Shaukat Khanum) who never taught her son to adopt such diplomatic rather submissive strategy while explaining the misconceptions about his religion.
On the 27th Sep 2019, while addressing to the 74th session of the General Assembly at the UNO headquarters, New York, the PM of Pakistan Mr. Khan delivered an intellectual speech explaining the pathogenesis, causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of this new epidemic called Islamophobia.
He did not seem less than a scholar while explaining in 30 minutes what was not explained in 30 years by any Muslim world leader. I posted a video made from his speech created by me as a humble attempt to explain this to the world that “There is no such term as radical Islam”.
I would encourage all of my friends and colleagues (especially non-Pakistanis) to watch it and share it to enlighten others as Religion should be the last thing to divide the humanity. I do not know about others but while watching the video, I myself felt as if my parents were being burnt alive.
There are eight million Pakistani Muslims living abroad. We are obliged to share the views discussed in the Khan’s speech with our friends and colleagues abroad as this is the least we can do.
“Are we children of a lesser God?Doesn’t it cause us pain? We are children of Adam and hence equal.” (Imran Khan at UNGA on 27th Sep 2019)
As Isaac Asimov said:
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”
Blog by Waqas Nawaz
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The post Children of a Lesser God..?” (Islamophobia: a pandemic) By Waqas Nawaz appeared first on Trends Of Pakistan.
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