The Christian Science Monitor says we have nothing to fear from islam. Tell that to the Christians of Nigeria, the Coptic Christians of Egypt, the Buddhists of Thailand, Hindus in India, Kashmir and Bangladesh, Catholics in the Philippines, the Sudanese people, Serbians, Israelis, Indonesian and Malaysian Christians, the numerous women and girls who have been genitally mutilated, had forced marriages, had acid thrown in their faces, who were flogged or stoned etc. The list of victims of islam worldwide is endless. Yet its amazing how there are still those, the CSM among them, who actually act as though negative feelings about muslims have no basis in reality.
Islam and Muslims should not scare you
By Amjad Mahmood Khan / March 23, 2010
Los Angeles
The image of American Muslims is in serious disrepair. A January 2010 Gallup poll found that almost half of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Islam. About the same number of Americans harbor personal prejudice toward Muslims, according to the poll.
These numbers become especially troubling when we consider that two-thirds of the Americans polled admit to knowing little to nothing about Islam.
Why are many Americans distrustful of a religion and people they know very little about?
People tend to fear what they do not understand. Americans, for the most part, have been brought up in a Christian society. They might not agree with it, but they are familiar with it and thus tend not to feel threatened by it.
On the contrary, we've become distrustful of islam precisely because we have become more exposed to islam and thus more knowledgeable about it. The less is known, the more likely to naively see islam as a "peaceful religion that's been hijacked by a small number of extremists".
Because Islam is still a minority religion in America and has had little positive public exposure, Americans have built up a strong distrust of it.
Islam deserves a media makeover. At a time when the United States is mired in two wars in locations where the majority of the people practice Islam, the future of American-Islamic relations is at stake.
The image of islam is not the result of a PR problem. In fact the American media is very deferential to islam and underreports the atrocities taking place in the name of islam around the world. The image of islam is the result of violence perpetrated by muslims themselves and the oppressive nature of islamic societies.
The behavior of some radical self-proclaimed “Muslims” does not help public perception. Each time a terrorist commits a suicide bombing in a hospital, or a religious cleric issues a fatwa against Mickey Mouse, or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust and 9/11, another American grows weary of Islam and Muslims.
Those familiar with Islam understand that these acts are not representative of the religion and shouldn’t be associated with mainstream Islam. The rest of the US does not.
Reporting the acts of a handful of radical Muslims as if they are accurate portrayals of Islam would be akin to intimating that every priest involved in a scandal accurately represented Roman Catholicism.
A "handful" of radicals? This is laughable. There are thousands of those actively engaging in terrorism and jihad and tens of millions who give their financial and moral support to it. Polls show large percentages of muslims in the west support terrorism against non-muslims and support the implementation of sharia law. And even far larger percentages in muslim countries.
I'm tired of apologists for islam claiming these acts are not representative of the religion yet how is it that so many muslims misunderstand their own religion? And why don't we see this amount of relentless and widespread violence in any other religion? Why is it that a supposedly peaceful religion inspires such hatred and massive bloodshed on a global scale unmatched by any other group?
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