Atmosphere created by people like Trump in US meant to target Muslims: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with Jahangir Mohammad, director of the Center for Muslims Affairs from Manchester, about discrimination against the Muslim community in the United States.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Give us your thoughts on the recent lawsuits filed in California highlighting discrimination against Muslim women there.

Mohammad: I think it’s important that what’s happening in the United States and indeed across Europe in relation to Muslims is challenged. So it’s an important step. But what it does reflect is that the atmosphere that’s been created by people like Donald Trump and other extreme right-wing Zionist Christian groups, the atmosphere that’s been created against Muslims, the language that’s used in the media, has created a climate in which Muslims are the target. And the most visible expression of Islam and Muslims is a woman who wears hijab or niqab and other aspects of the Islamic faith.

And therefore women are very much being targeted often in the United States and in Europe, not just for harassment and for abuse as in this case, but also attacked in that case in London. But ultimately, a climate that’s been created, the anti-Muslim hatred that’s been sung right across the United States, the laws that have been introduced, all contribute to creating a very very difficult climate in which all Muslims are exposed and particularly Muslim women.

Press TV: Let’s say that these lawsuits do reach a conclusion. Normally this doesn’t do much in changing the overall conduct of law enforcement in the United States.

Mohammad: No and firstly and I’m not sure that they will be successful. The legal system and the judges in any country are not immune from the climate that’s been created widely in society. And there is a prejudice that Muslims shouldn’t be wearing them or that the security services have an automatic right to remove them, whereas in this case a female police officer was requested, …no objection to removing it for security purposes. So there’s no automatic view that justice will be served.

And there is a wider problem about anti-Muslim hatred in laws and the perception of Muslims in society, and of course as you rightly point out the police and the judicial system in the United States is still very much racist. It still targets the Afro-American community and the Muslim community as well. So it’s a real dilemma for the Muslim community. Until we change attitudes and until we curb the rising tide of anti-Muslim hatred, unfortunately these incidents will continue.

Press TV: We’ve seen communities of color in the United States rallying against the behavior of law enforcement, we’ve got of course the Black Lives Matter movement and other groups as well, what more can be done to change the status quo in the United States?

Mohammad: I think working through the political system will not affect that change. What you have to do as Muslims is create a wider movement in wider society and create alliances with wider civil society, which help to change the general ideas, thinking and mood of the society at large and attitude. Partly that’s happening in the United States and also it’s happening in the United Kingdom, but unfortunately the powerful neo-conservative right-wing Christian groups they have a lot of power, they have a lot of finances. And it’s their messages that are produced in the media.

And there are also legislation taking place both here in the United States. When the counter-narrative, counter-messages, is put across in the media, there are moves to try and stifle that debate and to declare that as anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and to curb the alternative narrative from coming across in the media and to expose the neo-conservative, the right-wing Christian messages, the Zionist messages, narrative, that are coming across in the media.

And this is a fundamental challenge and I think really the Muslim minorities in both the United States and the United Kingdom cannot address this situation on their own.

Muslims have to act to the global community. We need the support of the Muslim world in helping us to challenge, really, this onslaught of hatred that is being targeted at the Muslim community in the media at the political level.

It’s not a battle that is going to be won easily. It would take a long time. We need partners on the ground in the host countries, but we really need an international support as minority Muslim communities with part of a global Muslim community and we should start to think and act as a global Muslim community.

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