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Day: 19 January 2015

#NotInMyName

In May 2013 Lee Rigby, a British soldier, was killed in London as an act of revenge for the British Army killing Muslims in Iraq. In April 2014, Boko Haram, an Islamic Jihadist organisation that claims it is resisting westernisation in Nigeria, kidnapped 276 Nigerian girls. In August 2014 the American journalist James Foley was beheaded by IS in Syria, followed by Steven Sotloff in September, then British hostage Alan Henning in October of the same year. Also in October of 2014, in Ottawa, Canada, a shooting by a Muslim at a war memorial resulted in the death of one Canadian soldier. In December 2014, an attack in Sydney, Australia by Man Monis, an Iranian Muslim, took the lives of two people in a hostage situation in a café. Finally, in January 2015, came the attack in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published cartoons dishonouring the prophet Muhammad. The attack was carried out by three Muslims and resulted in the death of 12 people.

All these attacks were done by Muslims, “in the name of God” and, “in defence of Islam.” As Muslims, every time we wake up to such horrific incidents, we pray: “Please God, not another Muslim attacker!”

Many people view these attacks as war against liberty, freedom, and humanity. This may be true, but it’s also a war against Islam. Some may think this is complete nonsense: How can it be against Islam, if it’s targeting western nations whilst proclaiming “Allahu Akbar” and claiming to seek revenge for affronts to Islam?

Let’s look at the situation, so I can explain:

First, these terrorist organisations have killed far more Muslims than any other group. Following is a collection of statistics of Muslim victims of terrorist attacks committed by so-called “Islamic” terrorists in November and December of 2014:

In Iraq alone, the numbers of dead from suicide bombings included 143 civilians—all followed Islam.

In Afghanistan, 81 civilians were killed, and in Pakistan 69 civilians also perished. Let us not forget the horrific attack on a school in Pakistan that resulted in the death of 145 innocent people­—mostly children.

In Yemen, more than 25 were killed, and five more were murdered in a shooting in Al-Ahsa in Saudi Arabia.

In Egypt, two were killed in a bombing attack.

In addition to this are the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians in the ongoing conflict over the past four years, and the existence of IS that is brutalising and horrifying the Middle East.

These few examples of suffering in the Muslim world are evident enough. For many Muslims around the world going to school, going shopping, becoming a police officer or a soldier means that you don’t know if you will ever see your family again.

The second reason for my argument is that which follows each attack. The lives of the majority moderate Muslims in the Weat are negatively affected after each attack. I do not blame communities in the West for being angry: We are all angry! Western societies fought for their freedom, liberation, and peace. No one wants to feel threatened, or to live under the fear of being on a hijacked aeroplane, taken as a hostafe in a café, being kidnapped, or being shot cold bloodedly at school or at work. No human being deserves this. Muslims know what it feels like when Western countries are being attacked for their freedom, liberty, security, and relatively stable economies.

Following the news of the Charlie Hebdo attack, I came across many comments on the Yahoo! news page that got my attention.

‘Dave’ and many others expressed their anger at the Paris shooting. He wrote: “Want to change Islam. The first thing is to not let anyone from these countries into the west [sic]. No exceptions. Next round up all of the radical ones and either lock them up or send them back to their country. Next isolate these countries completely economically. Accept high gas prices, but buy no oil from them. Make it so hard on these countries that they rid the world of the radicals themselves.”

Of course, ‘Dave’ speaks as someone fed up with what Muslims has brought to his country. He thinks that getting rid of them, and being isolated from Muslims will solve the problem. Of course this doesn’t represent every westerner’s views. Many still believe that those responsible for these attacks are criminals, and showed empathy for other Muslims in their community.

But for how long and how far will people remain empathetic? People want to live in peace in their homeland. They don’t want to live in fear: looking over their shoulders for some crazy fanatic who believes that killing strangers will take him to heaven. Moreover, what got my attention was that most comments on social media targeted their hatred and anger towards Islam and Muslims in general and not terrorists and criminals. Muslims are facing many difficulties with the rise of Islamophobia and xenophobia in the West. In June 2014, a Muslim woman was stabbed to death in Essex as a result of hate crime against Muslims. Attacks on mosques, and hateful statements on social media are prevalent.

Terrorists are stealing our most sacred Islamic symbols. In my opinion, they are affecting Islam in a way that is more dangerous than any other war, even worse than colonisation: They are stealing the Islamic identity.

Throughout history there have been symbols that signify certain ideals, organisations, political movement, and countries. These symbols hold deep meanings and emotions. For example, the symbol of the Nazi party: it automatically conjures horrible images of Hitler, World War II, the Holocaust, genocide, and destruction. I thank God I was not born during that time. On other hand, the swastika used in the flag is originally a Sanskrit symbol that means ‘good fortune’ and is considered to be a sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, and other faiths. Hitler’s actions managed to change what this sign signifies to millions of people around the world by placing it on the Nazi flag.

Now look at the notorious IS flag. Most terrorist groups like Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda unfortunately use the same text. It shows the prophet Muhammad’s signature that he used to stamp his letters, alongside the core statement of the Islamic belief: ‘There is No God but Allah’. A clear declaration of our belief, that there is only one God. Nowadays, if you show this symbol to both Muslims and non-Muslims, what they will think and feel? For both it will bring the images of fear, and opression. It will bring an image of something I never want to be—something evil, against freedom and liberty.

These terrorist groups are hijacking our core values, symbols, our prophet’s name and signature on their own flags. These groups and their actions do not represent Islam, the prophet Muhammad, our Quran, my family, my friends, my neighbours or any Muslims I’ve met in the 35 years of my life. This holds true whether religious or liberal, Arab or non-Arab. None of them remotely approve of what these people are doing.

The prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) said: “There will come a time when holding onto your faith will be like holding in your hands a hot burning coal.” At school, they interpreted the prophet’s saying as: it will be hard to hold on to your faith because life will be full of temptations. It will be hard to be faithful, honest, modest, not corrupted in a time full of material pleasure. But now, as terrorists are putting the whole world in danger in the name of Islam, Muslims globally will reach a point where they will be afraid to acknowledge or show their faith. When Islam is portrayed as violent and oppressive, then holding on to the Islamic faith will be like holding onto a hot burning coal.

What I am trying to say here to all non-Muslims is, in hard times like this, try and remember your Muslim friends, neighbours and colleagues whom you know aren’t terrorists. They are feeling just as confused and lost as you are. It is a time when you need each other the most.

We all need to think critically about terrorism, see beyond the attacks to what are causing these attacks. We need to ask why this phenomenon is growing around the world, what political decisions and agendas are reinforcing it? We need to all stand in solidarity, united and brave against our division. We need to recognise that the media follow their own agenda and everything that we are reading does not necessarily represent Islam. The identity of the terrorists, who are criminals, is not defined only by a word such as ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’, and their motives, which are often politically motivated, do not represent the teachings or ideology of the Islamic faith. We must understand and explain to others the difference between being a criminal and being a Muslim and implore that the media choose different adjectives when describing the events that are deeply upsetting for all of us.

The terrorists are taking the most valuable thing we have in life, they are stealing our faith and our symbols. Worst of all they are brainwashing our youth, especially those who suffer from poverty, oppression, and neglect.

These terrorists are stealing our identity—it’s #NotInMyName.

 

Comments on the Yahoo! article can be found here.

Interview: Daliso Chaponda

Facing a packed out Squirrels bar, Daliso Chaponda pauses with a slight smirk, ready for a perfect delivery. “We’ve come a long way. If we had been here three hundred years ago, this would have been an auction.” The son of a Malawian politician, Chaponda read English at McGill University in Montreal where he decided to pursue a career as a comedian. After graduating, he lived in South Africa before moving to Manchester several years ago. I met Chaponda in Big Hands last semester.

On his Malawian background and going to university in Montreal

“I’m from Malawi, the blood is from Malawi, but I was actually born in Zambia. My dad was an economic refuge, because at the time we had a crazy dictator. A lot of people left the country and he was one of them. Then he joined the UN and became a diplomat.”

After going to schools all over Africa, Chaponda moved to Montreal to attend McGill University. He originally studied computer programming, after being pressured by his family, but switched to English once he realised his potential to pursue a career in comedy.

“I knew I wanted to be an artist beforehand, but I was pressured by my family [into doing computer science], ‘do the straight and narrow, do the straight and narrow!’, because my math grades were good. I think it was only once I was [at McGill] that I got the strength to say ‘screw you!’ I’d rather try and do it and fail, than do the sensible path, because I think the mistake that a lot of people make is that they think they can have it as your side job. So my parents were like, ‘you can do your comedy on the side, and the rest of your time programming,’ but programming is a full time thing anyway. My brother is a programmer, he doesn’t just work nine to five. Doing both became impossible.”

On British audiences

“In terms of the subject matter, they are more OK with people crossing the line. I mean comedians here like doing paedophile jokes and jokes about death and darkness. There’s more acceptability towards a dark sense of humour. But Canadian audiences are more liberal, if you’re using the left-wing definition of liberal. If you do a joke here that is slightly sexist or slightly racist, you won’t be booed off stage. I’ve seen people do it, they do it every week. But you could not do that in a place like Canada which is more liberal in the left-wing sense. Here, you’re politically correct and not politically correct, it depends which subject.

“I’ve got into trouble in Africa for telling jokes and I’ve got in trouble here for telling jokes. [In the UK], you get into trouble if it’s a special interest group you’re targeting. In Africa you get into trouble if it’s a person you’re targeting—that politician, or that public official.”

On getting into trouble in his home country

“I essentially did some jokes about the government. The flag had changed. We changed the flag from a rising sun to a full sun because we felt that the country had emerged. My joke was that the country is falling apart, actually I think we should change it to an eclipse. It was silly joke, and it just sort of spiraled out of control. Nothing actually happened, there were a lot of threats, and I had to talk to the censorship board. Realistically, the worst that could have happened was that I could have paid a big fine, and been arrested for a day or two. But it was more potential fires which I had to put out.”

On telling jokes about colonialism and slavery. 

“I like jokes about stuff that matters. There are some comedians whose entire life is about meaningless details. There are some people who only want to joke about how you spin your spoon or something like that. And it’s funny and it works, but it’s not what my strength is. For me to write about something, I have to start with something that pisses me off, and use comedy to turn it into a positive emotion.

“We can’t pretend we live in this glossed-over utopia, where no horrible things happen. You can talk about those things without being accusative people. We’ve got to accept that they happened, the effects are still here, and that we can now poke fun at it.

“I actually wrote that joke [about the slave auction] in response to people who don’t believe that there is such a thing as white privilege. Or people who wonder ‘why do black people write about it now?’ But I’m like, ‘no, there are still going to be echoes.’ Almost everything in Malawi is still owned by British people. It’s history, but there are so many things that are still going on, and when I do shows in Africa I talk about it a lot more.”

On experiencing racism in the UK

“It’s not something that really bothers me, I know how to deal with it. I’ve lived in places where there is real racism, like South Africa. A slightly drunk guy in Kendal who sings is small-time. For the kind of comedian I am, it’s a very welcoming atmosphere here. For racist stuff, nobody is going to let people get away with it.”

On being politically correct

“It’s all about self-knowledge. You’ve got to know who you are and you’ve got to know how people see you. Take Louis CK. He does nigger jokes, and he’s white. But it’s fine, because he knows how to do it. The truth is, you’ve got to know who you are. For example, it’s no coincidence that Louis CK used to write for the Chris Rock Show. You can be part of a community without looking like that community.

“It’s all about saying something which is true, and then people don’t care who you are. Honestly, any white comic could talk about black people, no problem right, if what they are saying rings true to black people, but if it’s a stereotype that’s when they get very angry. And the backlash to all the generation-back comics in the UK, like Jim Davidson, is not because they were talking about race, but because they were talking about some weird stereotype.

“I think there is always going to be an evolution of comedy. Comedy moves forward, as society moves forward.”

Who would you say are your all-time favourite comedians?

“Probably Bill Cosby, Woody Allen. There are also new people that I love. Joan Rivers who died recently.”

What advice would you give to students today who are looking to break into comedy?

“Write a lot of jokes, get on stage whenever you can. But the other big thing is you have to write about stuff which matters to you, because a lot of people think: ‘Oh, Jack Whitehall makes that really funny’, or, ‘politics seems like a good way in.’ But if you’re not really into it, why would you talk about it?”