Muslims in US facing harassment since 9/11: Republican candidate

LAHORE

It is easy to associate all violence with IS, but the truth is that the post 9/11 attitude of victimisation, marginalisation and harassment of Muslims in the US never mitigated and Muslims still live everyday in fear and consequent anger.

This was shared by California Republican candidate for state assembly Khalid Jafri, as he sat down to discuss the San Bernardino mass shooting and the state of affairs in California and the US at large vis-à-vis radicalisation, extremisms and Islam phobia.

Violence is not justified at any cost and must be condemned but failure to address the cause of such intense dissent that leads to such severe reaction by Muslims is not a wise strategy and would only perpetuate the extremism in the USA, said Jafri.

He went on to explain that ever since the 9/11 attack, the Muslim community has been living in a hostile environment facing hate crimes and harassment as a part of everyday life, while the mainstream media portrays it as if it were a momentary thing that faded away.

Jafri said, “I know it’s very commonplace to complain about the media bias, but it is undoubtedly the major culprit in stirring up Islam phobia. There are so many acts of terrorism in the USA every month, but the media chooses to play up the one in hundreds, religious extremism and radicalisation. This media hype spreads mass hysteria and Muslims all across the country are seen as and made to suffer as terrorists.”

When the pro-life advocate attacked the Planned Parenthood centre, everybody partly acknowledged the cause of his dissent, whereas the everyday mass harassment, suppression and victimisation of the Muslims are ignored as if it does not exist, he said.

The way forward for the Muslims in the USA is more representation in the congress and senate said K Jeffery Jafri, and added the community is focusing on producing successful lawyers as it helps in paving the way forward towards a political career.

Other religious minorities such as Jews and Indians are able to influence media and build positive public rapport. He talked about Bobby Jindal’s journey to republican presidential race and how the presence of seven Jewish Senators shapes the media narrative in favour of these minorities, and when it serves their interest, against Muslims.

“The incidents of being called terrorist, go-back-to-your-country, and Hijabs being pulled off girls’ heads are more frequent than most people believe”, K Jafri said with a wave of concern, and worry running through his eyes as he spoke. It is something every Muslim child learns to live with everyday. We preach and train the Muslim youth not to confront such harassers as it leads to even worse. “We train them to leave the spot where they are called names or teased.”

It was rather disturbing and unsettling as one couldn’t help noticing the extent to which Muslims like Jafri had been pushed against the wall. Despite being financially very strong, socially very well connected and politically established, repression and defensiveness was the only behaviour he thought could help sustenance.

K Jeffery Jafri is among the founding members of the ‘American Muslim Alliance’ in California to provide a sense of belonging to the Muslims and to advocate their issues. PhD from Berkley University Dr Agha Saeed is the Founder and Chairman of the American Muslim Alliance and a lecturer in the Programme in Asian Studies at California State University, East Bay.

The alliance, Jafri said, helps Muslims in USA to deal with this situation by helping them vent their frustration through sharing and by training them on how to avoid conflict. “We held special “Religious Sensitisation Sessions”, he told, under the alliance’s banner where we taught the young Muslims with the help of the police department on how to act in case they are assaulted based on faith.

While discussing the future of American politics and especially that of the Republican Party, K Jafri, who won the Republican primaries for the California State Legislative Assembly, was of the view that the Republican party would need to reform its stance over issues of immigration and immigrants. “California used to be Republican stronghold, but with more immigrants coming into the state, the change of demography led to popular support for the Democrats, which is because of what people see as anti-immigrant policies, exaggerated Islam phobic views and hysteria”, he commented.