Another brutal wake-up call for Bay Area Muslims
Raza Ahmad awoke Wednesday morning, which takes a certain amount of courage when you’re a Muslim in Donald Trump’s dumbeddown America.
Shock — the news was unset- tling.
“I think it’s one of the very bad things to wake up to,” said Ahmad, assistant director of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Silicon Valley.
Trump had retweeted three insidious videos, all purporting to show Muslims engaging in cruel and gratuitously provocative behavior. We won’t be linking them here. But the titles speak for themselves: “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!”
Coming soon: “Man who was once polite to a Muslim shoots puppies out of a cannon!”
Trump’s triple feature landed with a thud. It was a win-win for the president in that it sent hordes of decent-minded citizens of the world into frothing fits of denunciations, expending energy that could have been better spent raging against the Grinchian tax bill oozing through Congress.
The videos were the handiwork of British First, an extremist political group that could be Trump’s brother from another oligarch. Their aim, and Trump’s aim in sharing their videos, is to other-ize segments of society. Muslims are a favorite Trump target, as Ahmad is reminded every morning when he wakes up in a world in which a social media post can have serious widespread repercussions.
“These tweets are deeply concerning and problematic,” Ahmad said. “The first (video) portrayed a Muslim boy fighting with a Dutch boy. They were both Dutch. That’s false information. In the second one, a Muslim person was shown breaking a statue of the Virgin Mary. The Holy Quran reveres Mary as the greatest woman who ever lived. The third is a tragic video of someone throwing a boy off a roof.
“They risk the safety of millions of Muslims,” Ahmad said of the videos. “They also risk advancing white supremacy. Sentiment against Muslims is at an all-time high.”
Trump clearly wields the biggest megaphone in any debate by virtue of his office. But Muslims are trying to push back with informational campaigns of their own. One, formed in the aftermath of the 2015 San Bernardino mass shooting, is called True Islam.
“Through that campaign, we are educating,” said Ahmad, who emigrated from Pakistan and works in computer sci- ence for a research company. “We’ve had several campaigns for blood drives, one on 9/11 at Ground Zero. We’ve donated thousands of units of blood. We are doing humanitarian services. We’re working actively in the Houston floods.”
They have Coffee, Cake & True Islam events across the country. They get to know the local school boards. They’re not above standing in “any busy public spot” with a sign reading, “I’m Muslim. Don’t be afraid to ask me anything.”
“This is something that is in our interest as a nation and a country,” Ahmad said. “We want to be free to express our beliefs and our religion. This is the right time to do these things. If we don’t do it now, when will we do it?”
Ahmad likes Silicon Valley and its diversity. “We haven’t faced any problems here,” he said. But he fears what might happen if the drumbeat of anti-Muslim sentiment causes people to lose hope and take matters into their own hands.
“People in increasing numbers in our religion have been targeted,” he said. “It’s been shown very clearly that social injustice leads to radicalization. Today it’s Muslims. Who knows, it could be Jews tomorrow. If we start cleansing out other minorities, it could be a great threat to America.”