Professor John Esposito (left) and Arsalan Iftikhar
Doha, Qatar: More awareness and policies should be implemented worldwide to combat the rising scourge of Islamophobia, experts have said.
Speaking to The Peninsula recently during a discussion ‘Roundtable on Islamophobia: Policy Framework to Meet Challenges,” organised by the Policy and Planning Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, experts emphasised the rise in Islamophobia after the September 11 attack on the US.
“Islamophobia in the United States differs from Islamophobia in Europe and Asia. Islamophobia is a sort of hatred or fear of Islam or Muslim people. Obviously, after September 11 and for the last 20 years since then, Muslims have been in the limelight when it comes to the media and have been the scapegoats for many of the world’s problems today,” Arsalan Iftikhar, Senior fellow at Georgetown University Bridge Initiative, told The Peninsula.
“It’s something that we should combat worldwide and deal with. Understanding that two billion out of eight billion people in the world are Muslim today and just like hatred against any other religious or racial minority groups is not tolerated, so we too should not tolerate any sort of racism or hatred towards Muslims worldwide,” he added.
In March this year, the United Nations marked the first International Day to Combat Islamophobia. According to the UN, studies show that the number of Islamophobic hate crimes frequently increases following events beyond the control of most Muslims, including terrorist attacks and anniversaries of such attacks.
“We can fight this problem by speaking out against it and calling it out, especially on social media when it comes to hate speech against Islam, Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim,” Iftikhar said.
He added that while a roundtable or gatherings discuss ways of combating the problem, but taking action presents a different challenge.
“What we need to do is to be able to go back to our respective countries and push policies that help alleviate this sort of racism and xenophobia.”
Meanwhile, the Director of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, Washington DC, Professor John Esposito, stressed urgent measures to tackle the problem beyond conversations. He highlighted the persecution and imprisonment of Muslims in China, the sufferings of more than a million Rohingya driven out of their countries, and the issue of Palestine as examples of Islamophobia.
According to him, there’s an awareness that the conversation is not just about discrimination against Muslims in the US and Europe, which he said is getting worse rather than better, and that countries like China, India and Myanmar have recorded an increase in Islamophobia.
“We need to develop a critical group of people who will come together and discuss how it can be addressed in terms of affecting media, governments and how they see things. I think it’s important that governments are made more aware that many countries in the region are critical about policies in Palestine and other areas,” Prof. Esposito said.
Prof. Espositio lauded MoFA for its commitment to addressing racism and Islamophobia. He added that the distinctive trait of MoFA’s commitment is making the fight against Islamophobia a part of their policy.
