More Than 200 Mosques Attacked in Europe and UK in Past 12 Months.
Published by CJ Werleman Independent, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project that seeks to expose and end Western injustices against Muslims. Please SUPPORT my effort against injustice by clicking here.
In a single 24-hour period in the winter of 1938, more than 1,000 Jewish synagogues were vandalized across Nazi Germany. Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass)not only marked the definitive start of the Holocaust, but its memory has also come to serve as an amber alert for societies that have dangerously embarked on a similar trajectory.
So, here is your amber alert:
In the past 12 months, a total of 201 mosques have been the targets of hate crimes across Europe and the United Kingdom.
Human history is short, and our collective memories even shorter. For the past seven decades, Europe has implemented an array of sociopolitical measures to ensure “never again.” Collective security treaties, sworn commitments to liberal ideals of pluralism and tolerance, alongside school curriculums that teach the lessons learned from Europe’s darkest chapter have become the bulwarks against a return of the unthinkable.
But the unthinkable is fast becoming the thinkable for 25 million Muslims who call Europe and UK home.
Hate crimes targeting mosques across the UK more than doubled between 2016 and 2017, a new report revealed, while the German government recently released statistics showing its growing a concern for mosque attacks.
Together these reports reveal a frightening and growing trend of anti-Muslim violence and intimidation:
- Threats of violence against Muslims outside their places of worship increased by 300% in the past year, rising from 14 crimes in 2016 to 49 in 2017.
- Violent crimes against Muslims at their places of worship increased by 200% in past year.
- Crimes recorded as vandalism or criminal damage increased from 12 in 2016 to 15 in 2017.
These headlines are becoming all too familiar:
But while the headlines are familiar, the much needed public discourse that surrounds them remains allusive. When a deranged ISIS sympathizer carries out an attack against Western targets, we seek to investigate what is wrong with the Islamic culture, but when Westerners target Muslims, we never once ask what is wrong with ours.
If we have successfully absorbed the lessons learned from the decade preceding the first Jewish concentration camps in Europe, then we will have recognized that Muslims have replaced Jews as the Other of the 21st century.
“In the past Europe’s salient migratory grouping — one that has profoundly coloured its culture and civilization — was the Jew who was always branded the ‘foreigner,’ the ‘other,’ a threatening presence…. Today, the Wandering Jew is no longer the issue…. Now [Europe] is preparing to defend itself against … the immigrant, more specifically, the Muslim immigrant…. The Jew, Europe’s prototypal ‘other,’ has now largely been replaced by the Muslim ‘other.’ … Prejudice and discrimination once directed at European Jewry is now aimed at European Muslims,” observes political scientist Amikam Nachmani.
No doubt, a wave of violence carried out and inspired by the self-declared Islamic State is at the root of anti-Muslim discrimination, alongside political entrepreneurs who seek to enlarge and mobilize political support by portraying ‘good Muslims’ as ‘bad Muslims’ in waiting. But the point here is that clearly, the bulwarks we put in place to prevent a repeat of history are failing us, and thus now is the time for collective introspection that is both open and frank.
To this end, political elites who advocate policies intended to unfairly target Muslim communities must be held to account for their dangerous irresponsibility. Muslims living in Europe, UK, and the United States are already the targets of counterterrorism policies that are not only discriminatory, but also self-defeating.
We are on a trajectory that has been been traced before. If you’ve ever watched a movie on the Holocaust and thought to yourself that there’s no way you would have stood by silently as 6 million Jews were marched to their deaths, then this is your moment to speak out against rising Islamophobia, because like the 1930s, the embers for the unthinkable are being stoked today.
Please support CJ Werleman’s fight against anti-Muslim discrimination:
Monthly Support: https://www.patreon.com/cjwerleman
One-Time Contribution: www.paypal.me/cjwerleman
