|
Click here for Part 2
This series is an expedition in search of the solution for all of us. We expect many difficult challenges on the way. We are not certain what we will find. God willing, we shall find a way.
Does logic or reason work ?
A grown adult may be jumping around, and running away out of fear from a small tiny insect, where it should be the insect scared for its life from this giant human.
We decided to do an experiment, countering Islamophobia using reason and logic. We felt that perhaps we are not doing a good enough job with certain groups, and if we just try harder, make better outreach efforts, perhaps we can achieve more success in building bridges and promoting peace.
Our experiment
One of our volunteers was searching the internet to place some blogs on various sites, and encourage dialogue, as part of our general charter - love & cooperation. He came across a web site containing many patriotic banners, and full of conservative discussion forums. "Republic" was part of the name, it appeared like a busy site, with new blogs appearing every few seconds. He assumed a good blog there, could be very useful. He is such an innocent volunteer, and had no idea what he was just about to step in.
He put a nice message, with the title "The Moderate Muslims need your help". It was mostly from our site content - Click here to view it.
As soon as that "send" button was hit, an instant reply message appeared with a statement to wait briefly while the blog is reviewed and if approved, will be posted.
Few minutes later, the blog appeared, but surprisingly, attached with many replies (suggesting the internal management posted the replies pretending as "users" while under review). Within just a couple of minutes, there were 16 total replies, and in less than half an hour, more than fifty replies. The replies ranged from obscene, to very nasty, to defamation of the Quran, the Prophet, all the way, to reach threats, and the murder of the volunteer and everyone that is Muslim.
It seemed like 2 or 3 people with various site personalities, just posted multiple blogs to give the appearance of more people, and play on the powerful notion of "fear", to elevate it to a level of "phobia", encouraging real visitors of the site to jump in, on the bashing of Muslims and Islam.
It is likely that no one took the time to read or comprehend the blog, or visit our web site and see that 97% of our content, discuss the issues that we all have in common, and less than 3% discuss our differences which some readers may find a bit too forward.
This innocent volunteer, put together a reply full of love and compassion, thinking again that reason, logic, and love may counter Islamophobia. His login privilege was revoked, and was never able to even post his reply.
What happens if fear is manipulated ?
We all learned abut the techniques used in torture at the Israeli prisons for decades, later transferred to Abu Gharib prison, are based on actual science of human behavior, and social, and psychological manipulation.
It is frightening to see very well organized groups of just few individuals, lobbyists, special interest groups, who are collaborating together and merging faith, fear, science of the human behavior, to cause an enormous impact, reaching worldwide, and its effects are felt by all people, irrespective of religious believes, race, or social status.
Many people recognize the unjustified war in Iraq, and how it was built on fear. Some of the same groups are pressing hard with the same techniques to get us engaged into another war. Looking back, there were millions of people who came out in peace demonstrations, used logic, used reason, but the "instinct of fear and survival" was far stronger - Logic did not prevail.
Some evangelists and right wing extremists often approach us with the most radical interpretations of four or five versus from the Qur'an. When we offer them an answer with reason and logic (see an entire segment on our site titled "addressing Islamophobia" on the main page), they simply move to another topic and try to find something else to pick on. Does reason and Logic work with such people, unfortunately not.
Medical Professionals, we need your help !
In the next days and weeks, we are going to seek the help of medical and social professionals who deal with patients, treat phobia, and excessive fear. We are going to search for a solution to our problem, and if reason and logic do not work, then what are the peaceful means that can lead us to rid ourselves from this excessive fear, Phobia, and Islamophobia.
If you are a medical doctor, expert in this field, or can contribute to a peaceful solution, we want to hear from you, and we all need your help NOW.
Staff Writer: Muslim Bridges.org
|
