Daily Times

There is no end in sight to the far-right politics tainted with Nazism and Fascism, and the rising propensity of Christian radicalism against Muslims in the West. Another attempt of fractious Western racism under the aegis of a fresh anti-Muslim systemic campaign emerged through the unveiling of flyers across Britain with ‘punish a Muslim day’ message, urging acid throwing, beating Muslims or bombing their places of worship and ‘nuking’ Mecca, the holiest city of the Islamic faith.

This poses a significant threat to the very existence of Muslims in the West. The Islamophobia has not only become a new normal in the Western societies, but the tendency has skyrocketed as the political force and propaganda model of international media is behind this poisonous agenda. Spreading lies about Muslims and Islamic culture creates bigotry rejecting the idea of peaceful coexistence between civilisations.

Not so long ago, when the US President Donald Trump had shared the racially charged anti-Muslim videos on his Twitter account in August last year, the leader of Australia’s right-wing One Nation party and Senator, Pauline Hanson ridiculed the Muslims by arriving at the Senate dressed in a black burqa, which was aimed to underscore a call she intended to make to ban the religious garment, prescribing the traditional Islamic robe as national security concern. Moreover, the recent spate of attacks on Mosques in Germany and the statistics show that the Islamophobic crimes continue to manifest at a dangerous pace.

It’s the Western agenda which has been instigated to destabilise the Muslim world through the time-honoured formula of divide and rule, to protect their strategic interests across the globe

The Muslim mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, drew the attention a few days ago by reading out the hateful and Islamophobic tweets branding. Actively exhibiting the uncontrollable fury of west’s growing culture of radicalisation and intolerance targeting the distraught Muslim population particularly will only serve to kindle the sense of segregation, anger and isolation among the Muslims, which may invite a catastrophe through destructive and combative passions among the civilisations.

The ailing policies of the American-led Western world under the rhetoric of concomitant based on the failed intelligence reports and the US’ unprincipled involvement in forced regime change across the Middle East has created the global crisis of mass migration. In addition, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused nearly half a million causalities. Similarly, the recent estimates by the United Nations special envoy for Syria have approximated that 400,000 people have been killed in the past five years of civil war and US drone warfare has eaten up several innocent lives in collateral damage.

Former deputy director of operations in Iraq Mark Kimmitt stipulated that the US-led invasion of Iraq had, in fact, helped create Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).No weapons of mass destruction were found but Iraq by the time had fallen to the militants and terrorist organisations which resulted in the mass migration crisis.

From Fallujah to Aleppo and Benghazi to Myanmar, the defenceless Muslims are under siege and have been under constant threat by far-right extremists, asking a question under traumatic stress: why does the West intend to punish a Muslim?

It’s the Western agenda which has been instigated to destabilise the Muslim world through the time-honoured formula of divide and rule to protect their strategic interests across the globe. The prevailing turbulence in the Middle East and the protracted civil wars in Muslim majority countries are the direct results of American intervention in the region driven by the consistent set of American interests.

The West, therefore, needs to revisit its policies of military interventions and forced regime changes, which have only damaged the global peace and security. It should also make concerted efforts to arrest the rapid growth of populism to avoid any apocalyptic tragedy.

The writer is a freelance writer tweets at @ranasarfraz3417

Published in Daily Times, March 21^st 2018.