A Letter To Some Of My Fellow Muslims now that we’re slightly out of the spotlight
Disclaimer : this was written before the London, Ontario attacks
Assalamualaikum. Please stop palming off being the bad guy. Really, don’t, it’s embarrassing.
You know who you are. One minute you’re happy that your kids are eating Halal Meat for school dinners, then having your hopes dashed down when a parade of Islamaphobic parents start writing to trusted newspapers like The Daily Mail. Then it escalates to reports of dodgy slaughter houses and connecting halal lamb chops to Al Qaeda. Ridiculous eh? Yet now the focus is on East and South East Asians (ESEA) you’re happily sharing comments and posts online about Chinese people eating cats and dogs. Here’s a bit of insider info for you- lizards and locusts are halal in Saudi Arabia. We’re not exactly exempt from quirky menus either.
Taking a ride on Black and Brown Lives matter (who most of you have only just discovered) does not give you a free pass either. Posting trending symbols online and joining marches does not automatically wipe away inner prejudices, including sinophobia. All of us have separate struggles. That doesn’t give us an excuse to simply shrug when elderly and young members of the ESEA community get mugged, stabbed, attacked, abused or murdered. ‘Now you know how it feels’ is not an acceptable answer. Our religion clearly says to protect the vulnerable. Perhaps you got the message mixed up from an overdose of watching too many Kung fu and anime movies where ESEA babies and elderly people have mystic superpowers. Our elderly have been murdered while walking home from AND during prayers in the mosque. Our children, ranging from unborn twins, toddlers in their cots and kids going on school trips have not been spared. They have died horrifically, some in countries where they escaped to from war torn countries. Yet you want to happily mock those who are going through a similar loss. And I suppose you’d be first in the queue to tell a bereaved parent or child ‘welcome to the club’ to their face and expect some gratitude from your expertise.
I remember it was once safe to be Muslim. Yes I’m that old. The biggest challenge for me and my family when I was little was trying to find a decent parking spot outside one of the very few mosques in my neighbourhood. The main focus in the news was on the IRA and the targets of ignorance were the Irish community. As a child my Irish friend was not allowed to play with other children and there used to be signs in hotel windows explicitly banning Irish customers. I remember how relieving it felt not to be the world’s bad guy, until the papers starting printing unflattering pictures of bearded uncles and hijabed women who resembled the ustaz’s at my local madrasah. Then came the alleged links to organisations that scared and disagreed with Muslims more than anyone else. This was followed by witnessing Muslim brothers being stopped and searched outside places of worship and Hijabis/Niqabis being told what they should and shouldn’t wear. While the world looked the other way at thousands of South East Asian and African children being abused by western tourists, we were constantly reminded of a group of Muslim named perverts in Rotherham grooming young girls. My Irish friend, rejected from a social childhood purely based on their background, decided to join a bunch of white supremists. Thankfully, I never heard from them again.
You may think I’m unfair for singling out our community. Traitorous even. Being discriminated against does not give us a free pass to discrimate against others. You want to bring up how ESEAs have had it good with ‘white adjacent’ privileges. When we had the support of our allies, our privileges were never an issue. Stupid as an ignorant world is, most are knowledgable that there is wealth in parts of the Muslim world. No one reminded us about the Sultan of Brunei and Dubai’s wealth before they decided to stand with us. No one pointed out our university degrees and middle class careers before standing with us. When our allies stood with us, they viewed us as human beings who deserved a roof over our heads, an education and a valued life as much as any other. Are you saying that all ESEA communities have it better than our rich sheikhs in their five star apartments?
We’ve come a long way to be seen as human. A really long way. Our situation is not perfect for so many reasons and insyallah, we will get better. But in order to do so, we must be better. Stop blaming ESEAs for a pandemic that our forefathers of the Golden Age would’ve jumped to solve. Stop looking down on others just because you’re on the way to being in the clear. Remember that a massive population of the Muslim community (Eg. Muslim Malays? Filipinos? Chinese? Remember them?) is also susceptible to Anti ESEA racism and they will need the support of people from their faith. And for Allah’s SWT sake, learn some fucking empathy.