Daily Times

Sanity prevailed and Geert Wilders decided to cancel the stupid contest but it is now time to discuss the extreme Islamophobia that has become part of the new Europe. On the one hand, it preaches civility to the world, but on the other hand, it makes no effort to clean its own house. The world must remember that it was not so long ago when the same continent showed the world the darkest side of humanity.

These episodes are not new and European countries often hide behind freedom of expression. There would be some credence to this defence if it were true. While they consider ridiculing the sentiments of over a billion people “freedom of expression”, they freely legislate on the holocaust and what was and was not, genocide. Minarets become a threat that demand constitutional amendments but making mockery of a person that Muslims hold dearer than their dearest is “personal opinion”. The French tennis federation’s president can find time to comment on the dress of Serena Williams but Charlie Hebdo is not considered worthy of any intervention.

Europe is behaving no differently than the absolute worst side of the Taliban. They destroyed sacred statues to show their shallowness, while Europe makes them to demonstrate their hollow cultural superiority. The extremists want to force women to wear more clothes and Europe wants to rip them off. They want to take away a women’s freedom of association and Europe wants to demand that they must accept unwanted touching from men.

While they consider ridiculing the sentiments of over a billion people “freedom of expression”, they freely legislate on the Holocaust and what was and was not, genocide. Minarets become a threat that demand constitutional amendments but making mockery of a person that Muslims hold dearer than their dearest is “personal opinion”. The French tennis federation’s president can find time to comment on the dress of Serena Williams but Charlie Hebdo is not considered worthy of any intervention

It is time that the world stops looking at Europe as a beacon of freedom and calls it out for what it is — a cradle of hate. The cartoon, hijab and handshake episodes are all part of the same disease called Islamophobia. As the Muslim population is expected to rapidly increase in Europe, this hate may surely lead to a sad repetition of their chequered past. And the world that once pledged “never again” would be left beating a dead horse.

There is little hope for European legislators to come to their senses, so corporations must step in to control this mess. Today we have technology to recognize images so it is high time for companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook to pledge that they will never index such images. They already have policies around hate speech and inciting violence — so such a policy statement will check these European excesses against one of the largestreligions in the world.

I pray, that common sense prevails and Europe gets out of their infatuation with Prophet Muhammad’s caricatures and Muslim women’s dressing.

Moreover, European Legislators should bring some parity in European laws where they protect all of their citizens equally. The corporations can provide a counter balance to cover the gaps that they will inevitably leave.

The writer is a former community columnist with “Oshkosh Northwestern” and is a member of “Muslim Writers Guild of North America”. He also maintains a blog at http://saadahmad.blogspot.com/.

Published in Daily Times, September 23^rd 2018.