Analysis Post

Within the last year there has been a rise of anti Muslim Feelings in the United States. One cause to what seems to have ignited the rise in discrimination against Muslims is the right winged Republicans. The upcoming U.S. Senate political elections have caused many Republicans to use anti Muslim sentiments harbored by the nation as a tactic to promote their campaign. There is no doubt that Muslims are the most negatively viewed faith in the U.S., as a result political leaders have been known to propagate anti-Muslims feelings to support their campaign. Consequently there has been a multitude of expressions of anti- Muslim feelings over the past year, a popular example in the media is the opposition of the construction of an Islamic Center near ground zero, also known as the “Ground Zero Mosque”. Although it’s been nine years since the catastrophic attack of 9/11, its aftermath still resonates amongst U.S. citizens. Muslims have fallen victims to this attack because it created a great extent of discrimination towards Muslims; the 9/11 attack is where the majority of anti Muslim feelings emerged. But within the past year Americans feel that they are becoming threatened by Muslims, this has caused an increase in Islamophobia, which is the fear and hostility towards Muslims that lead to acts of discrimination and injustice against them. A lot of terrorist who have attacked the United States happened to be connected to radical Muslims and from the Middle East. For this reason many individuals believe that the U.S. is at war with Islam, but it’s not. President Bush and President Obama have both tried extremely hard to point out that there is a difference between Islam and the radical Muslims. However this confusion has caused many to classify all Muslims into one group, refered to as terrorist. Thus essentially the anti Muslims feelings that developed towards all Muslims are due to the actions of a few radicals individuals.

If we take the Ground Zero Mosque for example, there are strong feelings against its construction because of its sensitive location near ground zero. One side of the argument is that Muslims shouldn’t build their mosque close to Ground Zero out of respect and consideration of the 9/11 victims who died in the horrifying attack. This side opposing its construction says allowing Muslims to build a mosque in this location will show terrorists that they have won the war. I respect the innocent victims that lost their lives due to the 9/11 attacks and thus support the Ground Zero Memorial on the actual land where the twin towers once stood as a place for victims to always be remebered and honored. Muslims are not trying to build a mosque there because they respect the memorial as a place to remember the nation’s loss on that day, which includes Muslims who also lost members working in these buildings. The proposed site for the “mosque”, as the media refers to it, while it is actually a community center open to the public, is a couple of blocks away from the Ground Zero. This highlights that there is no disrespect to the Ground Zero victims because the Islamic Center is not on the Ground Zero Memorial.

The argument that building an Islamic center is letting the terrorists “win” is also a poor argument. Unfortunately 13 Muslim terrorist attacked the U.S. on 9/11, but that does not mean that all Muslims are terrorist, in actuality these terrorist are extremist. Due to anti Muslim sentiments people just affiliate all Muslims with terror. So the argument purposed by those opposed the Islamic Center holds not true. The “terrorists” won’t have won anything because it’s not the terrorist who we are letting build this center but rather the American Muslims.

The right winged Christian Republicans has been the main force opposing the Islamic Center by coming up with discrimantory attacks against Muslims. As I’ve already mentioned both these opposing reasons do not make valid arguments against the Islamic Center’s construction, however the Republican goal seems to be to increase Islamophobia among U.S. citizens inorder to gain more support of those who are anti-Muslim. Republicans are conservative Christians so they are favored by individuals who don’t like the liberalism of Muslim activity in the U.S. So in a sense one major aspect of their campaign is Muslim tolerance. If they can persuade more people to become intolerant to Muslims by believing they are dangerous terrorists, then they will have more supporters voting for them when Election Day comes around. Although President Obama has mentioned several times that the U.S. is not at war with Islam and Muslims have the right to religious freedom, citizens are having a hard time believing Obama while Republicans are trying to distort the image of Muslims for their own political gain.

Due to politics Republicans have been trying to destroy the image of Muslims in order to achieve success in their personal political agenda. By deliberately increasing Islamophobia there will be more anti Muslim expression thus there will always be discrimination against Muslims in the U.S. Its politics that are creating the stereotypes and hate crimes that exists today. This can be depicted with the fact that the construction of the Islamic Center has been proposed for a while, but its debate didn’t actually start till recently. Why is that? Possibly because its election time and republicans are trying to get more supports by stirring up anti-Muslim feelings in the nation. Whats worse is the lack of education about Islam has led people to accepting false facts presented by the Republicans.