How to reason with bigots who lose their state of mind: Abubakar Kasim
Published by Webbmaster November 8th, 2008 in Contributions
The most effective way to deal with hate mongers is by intellect and reasoning in order to make them use their minds rather than emotions in order to be able to see things the way they are really are.
My colleague at work was venting. We were sitting in front of a television set which was broadcasting carnage and sectarian violence in Iraq. She said she can not believe these Muslims killing each other while belonging to the same faith and all worshiping the same God.
She expressed resentment of Muslims in general and the terrorism they commit in the name of their faith.
Society at large is confused when it comes to understanding Islam and its followers.
People have been brainwashed to believe that all Muslims are terrorists whose aim in life is nothing but to create mayhem and destruction.
People can discuss about any subject with intelligence, civility reasoning and common sense except when it comes to Islam and Muslims.
They are overtaken by emotion and anger and become judgmental, irrational and jump to conclusions without using their minds to analyze the issues at hand in an objective manner.
Prejudice turns off the switch of reasoning and understanding. It freezes and obscures the intellect and a person can not think clearly and critically. Emotion then takes over and controls the thinking process.
You can discuss with your colleague at work about any serious murder case such as the recent beheading and decapitating of a passenger on a Greyhound bus.
It was reported in the Globe and Mail on July 31, 2008 that a young man traveling on a Greyhound bus was stabbed to death and beheaded by a stranger in a horrifying act of apparently random violence.
There was no mentioning of the accuser’s faith but things would have been quite different had he been a Muslim.
You can also even bring up the issue of clergymen who have been accused of sex crimes against children. The faith of the pedophiles will never be blamed even though the accused hold prominent positions in their faith.
People involved in the discussion will never lose their rationale. They will keep their cool and analyze facts without blaming the ethnicity, the faith or the culture of the person accused of the crime.
The religion of the accused will never be the issue even if he was a devoted follower of a particular faith and did what he did in the name of his religion.
Robert Pickton of British Columbia, for instance, was accused and convicted of the killing of many women in the most serial killer case in the Canadian history.
Despite his testimony and confession through his letters to a friend that he acted as such out of faith, the religion he belonged to which was Christianity was never even mentioned in the media. Nor all Christians were blamed for the heinous crimes that he was accused of.
According to the Financial Post on Dec. 10, 2007, it was reported that Mr. Pickton believed that he was put on earth to rid the world of its evil ways and that those who are immoral and impure will suffer the anger of God.
The tone of discussion will take a dramatic turn when the subject is about Muslims in general.
The religion is then dragged into the witness box for questioning and the entire community is held liable for the crime.
My colleague at the airport was emotional and irrational in her discussion. I had to bring her back to her sanity and restore her conscious.
I had to show her that not only Muslims, even people of other faith kill each other in the name of their religion.
“It is indeed saddening to see people belonging to the same religion turning against each other in such a barbaric manner, ” I said in agreeing with her in a process of trying to stabilize her state of mind so that she can think clearly.
I then went on to discuss about the conflict of Ireland where Catholics and Protestants - all of whom were Christians - were murdering each other for many years in the name of their religions.
I then brought up the subject of the Mafia and their secretive and violence world. I played ignorant and asked her whether all Italians are Mafias.
My colleague then regained her conscious and started using her intellect to respond. She started educating me about the Italians and how nice they were.
We should not associate the entire nation with the actions of some of its members who might do wrong things, she emphasized.
Tension in the room had suddenly disappeared and my friend had started to use her mind and intellect, with civility and objectiveness.
Muslims need to turn on the switch of reasoning in people’s minds when they see ignorance and prejudice against their faith.
People filled with prejudice do indeed have minds that could be utilized and directed in the right direction.
All that is required is someone to touch the button and turn on the switch of intellect in order to restore the consciousness of a person.
People need to be reminded that as all Italians are not Mafias so are Muslims who are law abiding citizens like everyone else.
Muslims are humans who have mad men in their midst as all other communities do.
The renown boxer, Mohamed Ali, used the intellect to restore sanity back to a news reporter when he lost his mind altogether and started acting in an unreasonable manner.
When the legend was visiting ground zero in New York right after the Sept. 11 tragedy, the reporter asked him whether he was ashamed to belong to the same religion of the suspects of the heinous crime.
With all confident, the boxer replied with a rhetorical question by asking the reporter whether he felt the same for sharing his faith with Adolph Hitler who had committed the worst human carnage in recent history.
People lose focus when their minds are overtaken by hate and prejudice. The mind then gets frozen. Only emotion runs the thinking process. The only way to restore sanity back to the person is by reasoning in a civilized and constructive manner.
If Bush who acted out of religious conviction to invade Iraq and as a result created death and destruction in the country and Christianity is not blamed for his reckless action, equally so, it would not be fair and just to blame Islam and Muslims for the actions of some lunatics who might commit a crime and murder innocent people.
JazakaAllahu khayran. That was an amazing read and I look forward to implementing your suggestions.
So true. Subhanallah.
You are one hundred percent correct. Remember though that we are dealing with human nature. It is not that those people did not also suffer, the thing is that humans tend to operate a lot of out sight out of mind mentality. its like an older woman who has a younger woman with young kids visit her house, she will be flabbergasted and express outrage later to others about the way the kids behaved and what the young mother had done wrong. She will have forgotten that there was time when her kids did the exact same things, and that she had the same problems, she will rationalize with thoughts that her kids were not that bad.
When the problems in Ireland were occurring their was backlash for them. There was a time when in this country when Catholics were really insulted and they suffered a lot of discrimination, and many still do. Similarly Jewish people also suffered and were discriminated against. Their were organizations and associations and companies which would blatanly let it be known that Jewish or Catholic were not welcome.
The point is that lets not become defensive so much as Muslims, but rather lets learn from history. What did these other groups do to rise out of their predicaments. Why is it that they are now not discriminated? Is there something we can learn from them? Lets focus on being proactive, so that we can bring Muslims and Islam out of this time period. And it has started. Look at the many voices that are becoming vocal to our plight and calling out the injustices being done. But if we think that non=-Muslims are the ones who are going to come and stand up for us, then forget it, that isn’t going to happen.
If your child was being hurt, would you ait for someone else to come and help him or stand up for him? If on one side another person’s child was crying and on the other your child was crying, who would you run to first? Your own of course, but lets say instead of your child, the second child was your best friend’s child, you will no doubt first approach your best friend’s child. This is our people who are suffering, it is our place to stand up and help and to do something about it.
And blaming the everyone else is not going to solve it. We can sit and play the blame game, but then we are part of the problem not a solution.