Christchurch Attack and Islamophobia – Yusuf Ismail Interviews

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assalamu Aleikum and good evening my name is used to be small in the program you watching as I beg to differ. This program focuses on interactive debate on socio economic, political, cultural and religious issues affecting us as South Africans and certainly looking at some of the global dominant trends in the international community. A week ago Brenton Tarrant and Australian born suspect shot dead dozens of Muslim worshippers in Christchurch in New Zealand, in fact, published prior to the shooting a manifesto of US President Donald Trump and and this brave ej, the Norwegian white supremacist who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011. The 77 page dossier which has been described

by Australian Prime Minister as a work of hate hailed Donald Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose. Well, that's what we're going to be discussing this evening. The rise of white nationalism, the far right movement, the systematic hate towards Muslims, and the increasing an ongoing Islamophobia, leading to hate crimes and violence. And joining us via Skype, we're joined by Adnan Rashid, Adnan Rashid has been with us before. He's an historian studied at the University of London, and an astute political commentator on international global issues. Welcome at nine, it's good to have you again and Islam Aleykum.

Thank you for having me again, let's let's start with what we saw.

This 28 year old who is now apparently in police custody, claimed to have had initial contact with brain damage. This particular attack in New Zealand out of all places seems to be the result of an ongoing phenomenon of increasing hate,

misunderstanding and a growing degree of animosity towards Muslims. Yes, absolutely. I don't think in this case, it was a misunderstanding. This individual seemed to have studied history. Well, his Gods had names of individuals and gone dates, and some incidents, historic incidents, or historic battles. So this individual was actually quite well versed in history, he seemed to understand. He seemed to have understood history quite well, and

the conflict between

Muslim forces and Crusaders, so he had a view on history, of course, he saw the world in black and white, there are two sides, just like other terrorists to the terrorists have similarities. They have things in common with each other, they see the world in black and white, they don't see the nuances. And this particular case was no different. Just like an ISIS terrorist would see the world. in black and white, you know, there are two sides, right. And they choose one side, they want to kill the other side. In this case, that seems to have happened as well. This person sees the world in two camps. One camp is the normal, white middle class individual as he described himself, and the

other side is the barbaric Muslim who needs to die who deserves to die. And the outcome is walking into the mosque, firing, shooting our children, women, men, elderly, all sorts of people into a crowd of innocent people gathered to worship the God in their own way. I was just told, you know, the Bangladeshi side in fact, the Bangladeshi cricket side, missed being shot by just a span of minutes. But what I seem to what we seem to see is that not just in Australia and New Zealand, but certainly in different parts of the world, but more particularly in the context of the New Zealand shootings. Australian media outlets and politicians have been complicit in broadcasting similar

views to what's contained in the 73 page Manifesto. I was not I was quite surprised when you've got politicians in the fall. I Pauline Hanson, for example, is one example. She openly states that Islam is a disease we have to vaccinate ourselves against it. But then you've got more mainstream, the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. He goes on to say that radical violent extremist ism

Islam opposes our way of life and therefore has to be confronted. And and it seems to me that the kind of the roots of what you see are the the, the the manifesto that kind of articulated all these ideas and the ideology which underpin the rottenness of his actions have been basically broadcasted before by politicians, by the mainstream media, there's nothing new that we see.

Yes, this is very disturbing. You see, when Western politicians, some of them spew hatred against Muslims openly on mainstream outlets, they are seen as intellectual, they are seen as politicians who have a legitimate grievance against Islam and Muslims. But when terrorists do the same thing when they inspire hundreds of people to commit atrocities, or when extremists or some scholars or some politicians do the same, from the other side, they are seen as extremists as terrorists, they are seen as uncivilized barbarians. But when someone does the same thing speaking, eloquent English slang in English language and,

and wearing suits are sitting in one of the Western Parliament's that it is seen as legitimate criticism. This is what doesn't make sense. And it's people like Hansen. And that senator who commented immediately after the attack, is people like them who inspire this form of terrorism, which is much worse, which is, in my opinion, it is much worse because these terrorists are not actually on the radar of the police and intelligence services. These particular individuals who committed this atrocity were on the watchlist for some reason, they managed to accumulate all those weapons, and get ready in the military gear in this particular in this particular case, this person

was able to walk into the mosque with a stash of weapons, fully loaded with magazines and guns and bullets, and he's firing indiscriminately as if he has a good supply. How was he able to do all that? Because he was not

on the watchlist, as some other terrorists are. Just because he happens to be white, just because he happens to be one of the far right extremists, doesn't mean that he is as dangerous as ISIS terrorists or Maoist rebels or some other like Tamil Tigers. I mean, they can, I can give many names and example. The roots of the rhetoric and none basically, some have argued can be traced back to the 2001 federal elections in Australia just after 911 with the then incumbent Prime Minister, john, john Howard, he in fact used anti immigration rhetoric to win another term in office, in fact, and since then you have the entire Australian political discourse, the New Zealand discourse has been

dominated by the discussion around Muslims, immigration, refugees terrorism, in fact, in 2006, just 2006 radio broadcasters incited a race riot in cronulla, with 1000s of white Australians gathered and assaulted anyone that they deemed to appear in Middle Eastern appearances. So the issue here is that, do you think and and certainly, I mean, even looking at the United Kingdom and Europe, you guys are not too far behind that the policy of

mandatory indefinite offshore detention of asylum, for example, in the Australian context, that's been maintained as a result of the ongoing fear of Muslims and immigration immigrants. And that that fear has basically played on the public mind played into the, into the psyche of the, of the of the mainstream society, resulting in these kind of hate crimes being perpetrated.

You see,

use of this campaign has its roots in the 90s, when a book titled The Clash of Civilizations

by an author called Samuel P. Huntington was public, that theory provided the intellectual impetus for what you see currently in the West in general, Australia is not alone in this, you know, you give an example of Howard and how things happened in 2006, in Australia, and onwards, but this is happening throughout the West. This is happening in the US this is happening in Canada, not so not so bad as what's happening in the US. This is happening in Europe. This is happening in Britain, where I live right now there are radio stations that have programs on Muslims and Islam and they have very hateful individuals representing

you know, he decided the positions. So if they will have a Muslim he will be either ill informed or

uneducated or not very eloquent or outrightly extremist. On the other side, you will have a radio host who knows little about Islam, and will be deliberately in some cases misrepresenting Islamic view. So this is happening in Britain. And the outcome is attacks like what happened outside the Finsbury Park mosque where a similar terrorist tried to mow down Muslims. We have similar things happening in in Norway, you know, this particular individual has a lot in common with brevik.

Who killed close to 100 people. And he cited brevik as his inspiration in his manifesto, he did do that. There you go. There you go. That's that's where the similarities brevik had very similar grievances. He had given us against immigrants. Problem with Muslims, although his target was completely misplaced. He went to kill his own people instead of killing Muslims, which is very strange. But in this case, this person, he seems to have, unfortunately chosen Muslims as his target. And he went not that Muslim or non Muslim is separate in this. I mean, we feel for all, we are against any form of terrorism, regardless of the victims, whoever the victims may be. The point

here is that these terrorists are inspired by an active movement on Western political landscape. You can see this movement very, very clearly, it is very visible, it is well funded. It is a well oiled machine. And I call this machine the Islamophobia industry. The Islamophobia industry doesn't only have media, outlets backing it, it has politicians backing it. There are politicians, influential politicians in the West, when I say the West, I mean, wherever you see, the western system, dominant, I mean,

Canada, the US, Europe, and other Western countries, this is what you see, politicians, trade against Muslims openly in the parliament. And just before we go for an ad break, I was just before I just came to the studios. I was interestingly, also listening to commentators on the far right, we discussed Robert Spencer, the last time I was listening to an interview with Scott discussion he was having with David Wood this morning. And strangely enough, they rationale or what I would say justification for the attack was the idea that people are not being given the free rein to vent a critique against Islam, against jihadi terrorism and all that kind of nonsense. So their perspective

is that people are being labeled as Islamophobic and racist. And so they resort to violence. So in a bizarre fashion, they try and attempt to find a link by suggesting that people are being curtailed from criticizing Islam, therefore, they result in this kind of violence, which I found quite obscene to the extreme.

Absolutely. This is the

peak of your madness. Actually, it's not madness. It is well calculated. Robert Spencer, the one you mentioned just now, Robert Spencer has been directly behind what brevity graphics, yes, is probably one of his inspirations was Robert Spencer, Robert Spencer is a well known, well funded, well supported islamophobe, who had been teaching at the US government departments, you know, he had been teaching courses on Islam. Now when it comes to providing education to security services in the US. So he is well known, well funded, well supported, and brevik quoted him directly. Now, if this person quoted brevik I believe he is also inspired by Robert Spencer, if not directly, definitely

indirect. In fact, if

you look at the 74 page document, he quoted diamond roof, who murdered nine black churchgoers, he quoted for example, on this Breivik, he quoted President Trump and Candace Owens, in fact, in respect to President Trump, he basically goes on to suggest, you know, he he in fact articulates a lot of Trump's anti immigration views. We're going to deal with that we just have to go for a quick ad break Adnan. We're going to be back and we're going to discuss this tragic situation and scenario. We'll be back shortly.

Welcome back to I beg to differ and if you've just joined us

I'm in the studios. Joining via Skype is Adnan Rashid, a historian from London, and we discussing and analyzing the tragic shooting that took place a week ago, at Christchurch in New Zealand. And then the New Zealand mass shootings that left 50 dead, I mean, now say as numbers are increasingly going, seem to be part of a disturbing trend, violent acts perpetrated by racist and far right extremists. Why is it I mean, there was a trend, certainly in European society with the rise of fascism in the 40s and the 50s. And then subsequently, the decline, decline of communism. But since 2000, onwards, post 911, there has been an increase in far right politics in thing, the main

spectrum of the political domain. I mean, in countries that you probably never see before Poland, places in Norway, Sweden, Holland, which was viewed as liberal, your own country, the United Kingdom, you see the rise of Britain first, for example, jayda funds, and I believe, and

the English Defence League people like Tommy Robinson, and so on. What Why is this? Why is this phenomenon so common nowadays?

Before I work on,

I would like to the previous point you raised about Robert Spencer, talking about not enough freedom? Yeah, sure, a great deal that, that causes this kind of terrorism, it would be like saying that ISIS extremists are not given enough freedom to spew their hatred. And that's what causes terrorism. This is absurd. It would be exactly the same thing, saying that ISIS terrorists are not given enough freedom to spew their hatred against the West would be saying the same thing as Robert Spencer is saying that some of these far right extremists are not giving, not given enough freedom to criticize Islam. That's why they're committed to acts of atrocities. It is like telling people

that you're not giving people enough poison to save their lives. Well, he was he was making the comment was with David Wood, who represents the Christian side. And it's remarkable that the Christian missionaries are aligning themselves with the far right aligning themselves as far as extremists, and they postulate the idea. We not given free reign, YouTube, he was citing bizarrely, the fact that YouTube accounts are being shut down, Twitter accounts are being shut down. Facebook accounts will be so people are frustrated. And whilst on the one hand, he doesn't condemn the violence. I mean, very, he puts out a disclaimer there that he doesn't condemn. He condemns

violence. Still, he's attempting to provide indirect justification for this. And it seems to me that the the christian right and certainly the far right, have an uncanny Alliance together, whether they're atheists or not, they still are in bed together. You see the point?

There is clear policy when it comes to treating terrorists from either side. Okay. When terrorists commit atrocities using Muslim names, they are treated differently on terrorist atrocities using Christian names or they happen to be white. Their atrocities are some are humanized or justified or somehow explained as to what maybe the grievances certainly give is this come up when Muslims are the victims. As it happened in this case, some of the grievances come out. Immigration is blamed or not that the minds and influences and the inspirations of these people should be blamed. The causes that do not exist are blamed. Immigration is blamed. Immigration has been happening for the last 70

years since the Second World War. Immigration has been happening into the West. People were coming to the US in the in the 19th century. Immigration started to the US in the 19th century, right. Many Chinese people went there. Many Yemenis went there, many Muslims went there, many, many people from Europe went to the US. Same thing happened to Europe, after the Second World War, immigration started to happen. Why is there a problem with immigration today? There is a problem because Islam has become very assertive in the West. Muslim youngsters who are born to their families are asserting their Islamic identity. They are expressing their strong attachment to their faith and

their culture. This is what some racist islamophobes cannot tolerate. And I believe it is well funded. Islamophobia industry is well funded. Robert Spencer is just not a random guy who's writing ill informed, poorly researched books.

Randomly no he is well funded. He is supported. He has a team working for him who gather information to spew hatred against Muslims. Okay if you selectively choose information from historical history

narratives or historic

anecdotes, and accumulate them into a book, and then put them forward as the most representative book on Islamic history, then obviously, you will have problems. It's like if I were to write a book on Western history, and all I could see was crusades, the massacre of Native Americans, the treatment of the aborigines, and how Christopher Columbus systematically destroyed all the native tribes of the islands he landed on, and what happened to the Native Americans in southern America, all these things, or Native American native native Canadians, if I was to focus on these things, all I would see would be barbarity if I if I, if I ignored all the philosophy, all the poetry, all the

literary work done by Western scholars, and all the positive things done by Western scholars by ignored all of that, and I focused on

bad things that happened in history that all I would do is hate. All I would do is hate, I would hate the western civilization, I would hate the people living in the West. This is exactly what's happening with the Muslims, all the positive achievements of the Muslims, the library's their scholars, are philosophers, our points, our civilization at the heart of Islamic art, for that matter, Islamic books, okay. All the contribution of Muslim thinkers to the global intellectual development is completely sidelined, it is ignored. And the focus is put on wars with the Crusaders, for example, the Ottomans and then we come to the resist a recent phenomenon of terrorism, we can we

can also come back and say, all of this is happening, because these terrorists are not getting the word out. They're not given the freedom to express their grievances. That's why they quit. And that's the whole point at nine is that and it's clear that we need to articulate that it's as hate towards Islam, not maybe not what because they always put forward the argument as a disclaimer, they don't hate Muslims, they hate Islam. Well, that is a case run, articulate this, that they want to present. Islamophobia fundamentally lies in presenting Islam in the worst possible light, the worst possibly like thereby resulting in hate towards everything Islamic and hate towards its adherence

with the result that the actual violent actions, and the hate crimes that follow can be traced back to this ideological underpinning, which lays the foundations for subsequent acts of violence towards Muslims. And that's the point that needs to be come out quite clearly. And and I think, quite quite strangely enough, is that, you know, when I see some of the political commentators in the West, people like Ben Shapiro, just yesterday, in his Twitter account, Ben Shapiro had the audacity and the nerve, and I'm not sure if you saw his tweet, whereby he openly claimed, we should not mention the, the killer Brent terrines name, we should not mention his name, we should not mention his

manifesto, we should not share his particular video, we should not give route to his ideology. And but the point he was trying to show was that he was giving the indication or purportedly giving the indication that we should not give him publicity. But the reality is, that in actual fact, he didn't want to give publicity to the ideology that underpins the actual attack. Because when Omar Mateen, if you look at the Florida killings, Omar Mateen, or the watchi brothers, and when Muslims are in fact involved in terrorist activity, they are very quick to screen out from the puppets screaming from the rooftops that it is Muslims involved that this is the ideology behind it, but strangely

enough him Donald Trump Jr. Both were adamant that we should not give publicity to this particular activity, because according to them, it gives unnecessary publicity to the killer. But the point is, that's not actually the reason the rationale is it exposes the woodland ideology that they in fact, spawn and in fact, represent and promote through words or through writings or through other means.

I mean, to to comment on your first point, one cannot hate the seat and not hate the tree. It is not possible. If you hate Islam, you hate Muslims, period. This is how it is. You cannot play this game that we don't like Islam, or we hate Islam, but we don't hate Muslims. This is it's like saying, I I hate water. But you know, I don't hate what water produces is it just doesn't make sense. You hate what water produces but you don't hate water. So reverse that logic. But I mean, it's it's obscene in terms like like what you face in Hyde Park every week. I mean, you have these Christian fanatics coming to you. They say they love Muslims, but they abused Muslims humiliate them instead.

them. I mean, it's it's obscene. Basically, it's like saying that we love you, but we hate everything about you. We love you. We hate everything about you. Muslims are Muslims because of Islam. Islam is a beautiful fate. Unfortunately, we haven't had a fair chance to represent our view on Western media. Western media outlets, deliberately choose individuals who only come and escalate the hate. For example, they have this imposter this hypocrite, this lying the journal called counter Ed, he has been, he has been going around on Australian media, deliberately spewing hate against Muslims. And Muslims have been, you know, complaining about it. Muslims have been campaigning

against this particular individual. Muslims have been making this claim that this particular individual is actually paid and funded by right wing, racist Islamophobic establishment in Australia. He has nothing to do with Islam and Muslim. But all of those pleas are ignored systematically. People like Imam Tahiti who is not a bomb on him. That's a point nine because a lot of organizations in Australia and New Zealand have questions credential disqualification. This guy is a fraudster masquerading as any mom. Just credentials are not important in the discussion. He may have a PhD he may have a certificate from an Islamic seminary. What does that prove? It is what he's

saying. He's saying he's dressed like any mom. He has a turban. And he wears a gown. And he's saying on TV that Islam is barbaric, barbaric Islam needs to be changed. This is how we know he's an imposter. He's paid by the right wing, racist Islamophobic. establishments, well funded internationally, in Australia. And this is what the problem is. This is what we see around the globe. In most western countries, we see puppets like that. We have one like that in Britain called Majid Nawaz, Maya was asked for attachment to Islam, he pretends to be a Muslim, and all he does on daily basis is attacking Islam. And he is a he is a is an anchor on one of the radio stations here

in London called LBC. He has a very important slot, and all he does is spew hatred against Islam and Muslims. So this is systematic. This is well thought well planned, and it is now bearing fruit. This is the fruit when you produce extra and coming back to your point of humanizing Western terrorists, white supremacist, Western Christian terrorists, how they are seen differently when it comes to other terrorists. Okay, I was looking at some of the news reports today. And Daily Mirror, which is a very big newspaper has a headline on this particular individual. And the headline, which has an image attached to the headline of the young

terrorist. Do you know when he was a young child, and it's tearing him and the headline goes, angelic boy who grew into an evil far right mass killer, so they humanize him? They humanize him? That's the point. But I've not just stopped stop there. I just need to stop you there. I'm just being told we have to go for an ad break. We're gonna come back and explore this disturbing trend in the mainstream media. And we'll be back shortly.

Welcome back to our big to defend if you just joined us we are discussing the New Zealand attack and certainly the ongoing rise of far right extremism and white nationalism. And of course, how the Islamophobia industry and indeed Christian missionaries seem to have this uncanny relationship and alignment with these groups and entities which effectively live and make a living out of spawning hate at night, just before we went for the ad break. You didn't mention along the line of your British tabloids humanizing a lot of these white extremists. In fact, presenting the human face to them in order I would assume so that they could draw sympathy and empathy from these particular

individuals. Yes.

And you see words like words like boy, inject angelic boy describing this particular terrorist as a young boy. Of course, all children are energetic. All children are good. It is what they become. That's important. It is what they become. Now, why don't we do this with ISIS terrorists? Why don't we show the child

nude images and say this angelic little boy ended up becoming a monster. We don't do that we don't see that anyone doing that would be criminalized. A case happened in Britain not very long ago. When jihadi john, who was a monster, no doubt, who was a terrorist killer was described by one of the UK human rights activist as a beautiful young man.

When you were a young man when he was a good boy, it was it was a bag was it? Was it big Muslim bag, right? Awesome. Qureshi. It was.

It was awesome Qureshi from Kate, which is a human rights organization campaigning for some of these victims of war against terrorism.

He described jihadi john, in my opinion, wrongly, he shouldn't have done that, in my opinion that was and you know, Ill informed or ill thought thing to do. He shouldn't have used these words, because he should have known better the Western media picked up on that. And they made him look like a criminal. And it was clear that he didn't mean to humanize him. He didn't mean to say that he was a good man. Now, he was saying that when he met him back in the day, you know, he was a good boy, he looked like a normal, you know, young man.

But if you look at these news reports, these headlines on this particular terrorist, who has called,

you know, who is who has committed a cold blooded massacre of innocent people worshipping in a mosque, how would you describe to the child, his grandmother is shown, you know, in one of the Daily Mail headlines, saying he was a good boy, who came home at Christmas, right?

Basically, trying to humanize him trying to show a human image of him that something radicalized him, something made him a terrorist. Well, every child I point, every child is innocent. Every child is angelic, every child is good. Sure. It is what happens to him, what happens and how is molded later on, I just want to bring something to your attention about trends emerging in the world. Joseph Pettit, who's an assistant professor of history at Ohio State University, he was writing in the Washington Post in 2017. This is what he says he says, global white supremacy, has been making a comeback, obviously tying up with the far right, as we make a comeback, attracting adherence by

stoking a new unease with changing demographics, using an expanded rhetoric of delusion, and cultivating nostalgia for a time when various white governments rule the world and local cities, at the fringes, longing for long lost white regimes forge a new global iconography of supremacy. And so the point is, I mean, if you look at London as an example, in the 50s, lily white, you had the old fish and chips shop. Now you go to London, I mean, there's some portions which may resemble Pakistan. I mean, there's a lot of foreigners as Jamaicans. multiculturalism seems to be an inherent fear amongst the dominant class in Europe and American society. Is that why we have the rise of

white extremism?

I think multiculturalism is a great thing. It is happening in the West, it has been one of the best things about the West. I mean, I love some of the things about the Western culture, the western lifestyle, we love the people. People are amazing, people are beautiful, they're tolerant, multi multicultural, has been cherished for the last 100 years, generally speaking, in the West, in particular, in Britain also. So there are some politicians no doubt, who have unknown agendas, who want to paint multiculturalism as a bad thing. Conservative Party has been.

The ruling party in Britain currently has been at the forefront in campaigning against multiculturalism. If you remember David Cameron when he was the Prime Minister. Yes. He he clearly stated that multiculturalism has failed. How can multiculturalism fail in a civilized society, it doesn't make sense. He made these statements, inflating hatred against ethnic minorities, and Muslims in particular, you see nowadays in the West, Muslims have become the modern Negro, unfortunately, to you the very controversial term. You know, back in the day, in the West, the black man was called the Negro and he was seen as the uncivilized barbaric priest. All the things that

were used against black people are being used against Muslims today. Same.

Same tactics, same language, same reporting is being done against the Muslims, just like the Nazis report.

On the Jews in Germany in the 40s, Muslims are being treated exactly the same way. If you pick up some of the news headlines, or newspaper headlines, you will see the words these people using against Muslims are exactly the same words used by Nazi newspapers, in the 40s against the Jews, right? So the point here is that Muslims are being systematically demonized, dehumanized by the media outlets, and it will escalate. If it doesn't stop, go, Well, what is the end goal? In this demonization? What's the end goal? Because, because they are saying that Muslim sources, for example, are now more commonly available. There's more Muslim hate hate towards the ideology books,

tracks, material media discourse than ever before in our history, more now, what's the end goal? Get rid of Islam?

People

see a number of things about this. One of the things is that the end goal is to limit Muslim immigration into the West in general, if not in Europe, in particular, Muslim immigration has grown in recent decades. And Muslims demographically are growing in numbers as well. It is very, very clear that Muslim couples like to have children, on average, 234 children. And on the other hand, when you look at White native inhabitants of the West, or sorry, sorry, Europe, in particular, and other countries in the West, they don't like to have as many children as Muslims do. This may be a problem. I mean, I'm not saying if this is definitely the problem, this may be a problem. And a lot

of Western politicians feel that if we do not change things very fast. Muslims will,

you know, take over demographically, and this is absurd, by the way it is observed Muslim populations are so insignificant, so small in comparison to other populations in the West that they cannot possibly take over demographically. So this fear is pumped into the minds of Western masses. And a lot of people have been affected. Don't make a mistake, this particular terrorist who killed

you know, over.

I think close to 50 people in Christchurch has many sympathizers. You see some of them spilling the hate on social media, you see, some of the tweets are so disturbing, that they cannot be read publicly. You know, some people have the audacity to come out and say things like well done a job well done. Great work, you are our hero, you are, you know, you You are our you know, you should be our Prime Minister, you should be our president, things like that. You're reading things like that. How is that possible? If I didn't Muslims, were doing that out to Billa. Well, may God God forbid that, God forbid, if Muslims did that, when an atrocity took place against Western, you know,

civilians, innocent people, if Muslims are posting things like that they would be getting raided. Here we have 1000s of people tweeting things like this saying things like, so there are sympathizers people have been affected by this poisonous movement called Islamophobia, which is well funded, which is well orchestrated orchestra orchestrated, and which is, you know, normalized. Besides besides sympathizer, none, I mean, the general trend still, and we still having this problem is that the shooters, the shooter here, is seen as a as a nut is seen as an aberration is seen as non representative of a mainstream growing group of extremists yet, for example, according to the

southern poverty law center that's in the United States, the number of hate groups in the US has grown just in the past four years from 784 in 2014, to 1020 in 2018. And that's basically a 30% increase in number of hate groups, I would assume in your country. So it's not an aberration. These are not isolated. This seems to be a great movement to the extent that domestic terrorism is far higher than so called Muslim terrorism, yet the opposite is always presented as a case.

Yes.

That Muslims are being, you know, treated as the black people who are

in the US, okay? They were systematically dehumanized, the value was completely decreased in the minds of the masses, people, even those who sympathize with them did not sympathize with them enough. Okay. This is what we're facing right now. We are seeing different dimensions of sympathy with Muslims, right? There are those who completely sympathize with the terrorists, right? Like the one who committed or

atrocity, this atrocity in Christchurch, there are those who do not sympathize with the terrorist, but they sympathize with his grievances they agree with is that Oh, there is an immigration problem, perhaps Muslims need to get up. Okay. There are those who are in the middle, you know, they don't have any sympathies with either Muslims or the terrorists, right. And there are those who sympathize with the Muslims, but they don't sympathize enough to raise the voice. They don't sympathize enough to raise their voice to come out and say that enough is enough. Stop this Islamophobia, stop this dehumanization, stop this treatment of innocent people who are living, peaceful, law abiding lives

in the West Muslims are, you know, in the millions living in the West, and they are contributing to the societies peacefully? No Muslim contributed positively Islam has a huge history going back over 1000 years in Britain, you know, people think Muslim just turned up in the 50s. It was long before that there was long before the budget.

Let me very quickly make this point. Now, if you go back to some of the historic narratives on the black people i'm not i'm not an I'm just just hold that thought. And then because that's an important point you making but we have to go for an ad break. And we're gonna be back in the final segment, and we'll be back shortly.

Welcome back to I beg to differ. I'm your host use of this smile. And with me via Skype is Adnan Rashid, from London, an academic and certainly an analyst on global political issues. And then just before before we left, there was a point I cut you can you just complete that point that you made earlier on? Yeah, the point was that we, we learn from our history, we need to study our history in order to understand what's going on today. Right? In the US, in the 19th century, post emancipation, when the black people were emancipated from slavery in the mid 19th century, their lives became even more difficult, because now they slavery became legal before previously, it was morally abhorrent.

It was morally unacceptable. But post emancipation, some of the legal procedures are put in place to legalize slavery. So black people were brutalized in the US in the second half of the 19th century. How was this done? It was done by dehumanizing them, it was done by taking the value human value away from them. And this was done by painting them as priests who lost after white maidens that they want to rape them. Okay, there were many cases of religions, with people were actually lynched on trees, in the countryside, in the, in the south of the United States, right? People, black people would be hanging with trees. And you know, there would be 1000s of people watching the spectacle,

people would be selling popcorns to the crowd to see the spectacle, and who would be lynched a man who was accused of lusting after a white woman or possibly attacking a white woman trying to rape her. And many of these allegations

have been shown to be false. Many of these allegations are false. So this image of the black man, the beastly black man, lusting after pure white maidens was created, and the value, the human value of black people was taken away from them. So this is how it became so easy to lift them. It was so easy to lift them, even people, even those people who didn't agree with lynching would be standing there and watching the spectacle. So you see, the demonization extends now to Muslims today, once you demonize them, you dehumanize them, it becomes easier to basically call for their systematic destruction. I mean, you know, the the phrase of Fraser Anning, the MP that made the tweet, he

called for the final solution. I mean, not he's an MP senator, making such comments. I'll give you a very quick, direct examples. What's happening in Britain in particular, recently, there were cases of some unfortunate individuals, some very evil individuals,

you know, taking advantage of some girls in Britain, you know, these grooming gangs, yes, young girls, and they were taking advantage of the advantage of their vulnerable vulnerability. So these grooming gangs were specifically targeting mostly white girls. Now, not all of them white girls, some of them are non white, but a case was made in the media by

In the newspapers and major media outlets that these are Muslim men from the Pakistani background, particularly targeting our young white maidens, similar to what happened in the 19th century against the black people, right? There is no doubt there was some culprits who did this act. But if we studied the statistics in Britain, most pedophiles in Britain and most groomers in Britain are white, because they happen to be majority. But even if we were to even if we were to do calculations, statistically, proportionally, white people are the majority when it comes to pedophilia, and grooming even proportionally when we do the proportions of the population. Even

then, white people happen to be the majority of pedophiles and those who are grooming. In fact, we have statistics showing that hundreds of 1000s of white individuals from Western countries are traveling to Far East countries to have sex with children, places like Philippines, places like Vietnam, places like Thailand, Thailand, even Africa and even in Africa. Yes, so this shows that there is something wrong with reporting. And unfair focus has been put on Muslims to dehumanize them, to humiliate them to take away any sympathy while people may have for them. This is exactly what's happening in Britain. And this is the same card same game, the game being played in Britain

21st century Britain today, the game that was played against Afro Americans in the US in the south. And same thing happened in Germany, some of the immigrants were shown to be putting their hands on pure white German maidens. You know, there was a case again, there was a case made against immigrants that have come into Germany and they're trying to rape white girls in Germany, not that as if White men don't rape white women, right? Same case was made in Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Norway, where some Somalis or some black people who happen to be Muslims were shown to be lusting after white women. So this is happening systematically in the West. All of this put together

with the books of Robert Spencer with the news reports of the daily sun, the Daily Star, Daily Mail, and well to do newspapers like the times and guardian and independent all these people. They will when you look at the reporting, it is never positive on Muslims. You will always see negative stuff. It starts with academics it start with poor researchers like spawn Spencer, it starts with news reports in the newspaper, they start with major journalists sitting on major news channels like CNN, NBC and Sky News and BBC the BBC, the BBC, until yesterday, I don't know what's happening today. I haven't checked maybe I haven't checked BBC today. Until yesterday. The BBC was still not calling it

a terrorist attack. Can you believe it? Can you believe this? The level of discrimination Muslims are facing in the West. Currently, I'm not blaming the western people. Of course, the western people that are amazing people living in the West, there are many people who can see through the facade, they can see how hypocritical how bad this treatment of Muslims is, on the on the highest level possible. I'm talking about the highest level possible, the politicians are in it. And the journalists are in it, academics or edit intellectuals are in it. It is a well funded, well oiled machine, systematically spewing hatred against Muslims and the motive is only one thing, okay? There

can be a number of motives, no doubt, but I understand one motive is to suppress the voice of Muslims, so that they cannot be seen as a growing power. Globally, Muslims have always stood for goodness, we have always stood for morality, we have always stood for peace and justice. And this is what some of these politicians and islamophobes fear that Muslims are seen as civilized contributors to the global,

you know, intellectual movement or global well being, then it will backfire. And I believe, you know, some of the funding coming to people like Tommy Robinson, and it has been reported by Western media also, that Robinson, who is a far right three, spewing a lot of hate in Britain has direct funding coming from Zionist think tanks. I'm not surprised. I'm absolutely not surprised by that. And not just what Yeah, yeah, just one thing and then can you address the myth that is that a lot of politicians but more particularly media analysts, and then some missionaries are pointing out

that the attack in New Zealand, Christchurch and other attacks

are a direct response to so called jihadi terrorist attacks, because that's the argument. Well, Muslims have been engaged in attacks all the time. Well, now there's a response. What do you expect? Can you address it with

some Christian missionaries?

They are all in it, right? People like, you know, J. Smith and his crew in London, although they're very small in numbers, but they have been at it for a very long time. They, they are, you know, cannon fodder for islamophobes. When we look at the the grand scheme of things, they don't have any significance, but they do contribute in a small way towards, you know, hate against Muslims, people living in the West, people like David Wood, and people like Sam Shimon, and people like, you know, dcci ministries in London and these people, I don't want to mention them because we shouldn't give them publicity. They're not worth mentioning In any event, but but, but that's a myth. They

basically present this idea that jihadi terrorism leads to this when actual fact it's other issues. It's white nationalism, insecurity, the rise of the far right politician stoking the fears in the masses, a lot of other factors. It is it is.

It is a plethora of things that lead to such attacks. I mean, firstly, it is deliberate policy that leads to such attacks. I believe it is deliberate. It's not shocking. I wasn't shocked by this attack. I could see this attack coming and more maybe coming if things are not changed very soon. God forbid any more such atrocities take place. Western politicians and newspapers need to understand that it is they're doing they are directly involved in radicalizing, simpletons, like this person, who may not be intelligent enough to to see through the the sophisticated, attacks Islamophobic attacks on Muslims. So it is irresponsible reporting irresponsible politics, it is

systematic dehumanization, and demonization of Muslims, it is a number of things. It is Christian missionaries spewing hatred against Muslims. It is Zionist funded, think tanks, and individuals who are doing this. It's a number of things. They are all in a league, they are all in it together. And unfortunately, the majority, the good people of the West, the tolerant and loving people of the West, I'm talking about the white people, they cannot see through this and they have been affected by it, unfortunately. Lastly, just to wrap up, and then what would your advice be, you know, to the Muslims, and certainly to the non Muslim public in terms of preventing such actions, because there

seems to be an inevitability in terms of witches attacks will reach a crescendo, they will certainly happen. And now particularly hopefully not in the next few years, next few months, what should we do to prevent such actions and attacks? That's a very, that's a very good point and on.

On the positive side, Muslims are making great, you know, achievements, Muslims are achieving great things in the West, there are many educated Muslims. There are many intellectuals there, there are many doctors, many engineers, many,

you know, scholars, what we lack is political representation. We need more political involvement, we need more political representation, we need more Muslims coming forward.

You know, joining the parliaments becoming ministers, possibly between prime ministers and presidents so that they can, you know, put the record straight, we need more Muslims involved in the bureaucracy, we need more Muslims involved in, you know, in the administration of running countries, okay, and no one is stopping us. I don't know why Muslims are so sluggish about this, we need to come forward and contribute on these fronts as well. We need more academics, we need more scholars, we need more researchers, we need more. We need more people to write books, on.

You know, Western societies, our Western societies are, you know, a lot of islamophobes and agenda driven scholars write books on Muslims, and Muslim societies and they link it directly to Islam. Muslims need to do the same thing. We need to write books, intellectually to defend Islam. And to see how these problems are not with Muslims. Only these problems exist in the West as well. There are problems like, you know, alcohol abuse, there are problems like drug abuse, there are social problems in the West as well, which are being ignored. Do we link them directly to Western philosophies and Western living standards, or Western, you know, lifestyles? We don't, we don't. So,

Muslims need to come forward. They need to contribute more on major influential France, where there is influence. We are politically very, very weak in the West and we are very

very weak on the media. We have very little number of general journalists on the media. We have a very little number of politicians doing enough for Muslims in the West. So we need more of that where we can have sincere Muslims who are not agenda driven, who are not paid by anti Islam forces so that they can do the job in putting the record straight. Well on that positive note, Adnan Rashid I want to thank you for joining us and given your comments and analysis on the Christchurch New Zealand shootings. It's good to have you we hope to have you in the future. And that's all we have for this evening folks. We have been discussing the attacks at Christchurch in New Zealand.

And join us next week for more hard hitting interactive debate and discussion on other issues. Till then this is use of a smile signing up for and on behalf of ITV Assalamu alaikum greetings of peace and good evening.