VOICES
Stopping Islamophobia
October 1, 2017 | ISSUE 8
By Tom Han
Since September 11, 2001, the word terrorism and terrorist began to appear in our life. The American government started the war in Afghanistan and Iraq as revenge for the attack. the terrorist attack were starting to get frequent again because most of the terrorist attacks have been announced by ISIS so this has caused many people started to be scared of Muslims and spread out hateful speech about Muslims on the internet, people called this behavior about fear of Muslim “Islamophobia.” In turn, these hateful speech and video about Muslims have made many Muslims uncomfortable to in the U.S. To learn more about Islamophobia and terrorism, I interviewed few people to see what is their thoughts.
First, I interviewed Ms. Pops, the 11th grade math teacher, Yuanrong, an 11th grade student, and Mr. Liang.
Q: Do you think terrorism is a Muslim issue?
Ms. Pops: There are some terrorist attack is not about religion but they used the name of religion then that makes people think the terrorist attack is caused by religion.
Yuanrong: No, because from my understanding terrorism is not about Muslims, anyone can be a terrorist not only Muslim.
Q: Are you afraid of Muslims or Islam because of the news about terrorism?
Yuanrong: No, because there could be bad people in one race and good people in one race, so I won’t afraid of one people because of some bad people is same race as him or her.
Q: Do you think ALL terrorists are Muslims?
Mr. Liang: I don’t think it is about the race or a group of people, anyone can be a terrorist.
Q: Do you think Islamophobia or fear of Muslims is a big problem in America?
Ms. Pops: I think that’s a problem because people are afraid of something that they don’t know or they just listen to the news and they think that’s the truth so they start to be scared of muslims.
Next, I interviewed two 12th grade Muslim students Yasser and Zain to get their views about Islamophobia.
Q: Is there anything in your religion connect with terrorism?
Yasser: No, from what I know there is nothing in my religion about hurting people. From the religious text of Islam, the Quran, it teach us have to be peaceful and do good things.
Zain: I was growing up at a religious school before I came to the United States, in that school all they teach us is to love everyone, they never told us about hurt other people.
Q: Does Islamophobia offend you?
Yasser: Yes, when I meet new friends I have to explain about there is good people in a religion bad people in a religion. Just like the Las Vegas Shooting in October, we can’t blame on Christianity because the shooter is Christian, so same of Islam why people blame of Muslims be ink there are so many people have Islamophobia, they just want to get attention from other people.
It was really enlightening to speak to these people from our school. Unfortunately, there are many activities and speeches today that are causing fear and hate towards Muslims. Such things can’t do anything to protect the country, it only can make the Muslims who are live in our country feel upset. The national motto of the United States is called “E pluribus unum.” This is Latin, meaning “Out of many, one.” This means every states, every person, and every races should unite we should unite together as one people, and not let any of us down. Therefore, we need to stop to make certain people in the country feel they are not belong to here.