summer rain
Mum of 5
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- May 5, 2010
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...And I'm Muslim and I've been attacked for being Muslim, including half a bottle of cider poured over my head and my hijab ripped, if a woman passer-by hadn't intervened I would have had my head kicked in. In that case I did know some of the youngsters involved and yes they were Churchgoers; doesn't mean I think all Christians are out to get Muslims and hate us by default. On other occasions I have been spat on and verbally abused. The perpetrators weren't Jewish in those cases but I do have Arab friends living in a mainly Chabad Lubavich area of Manchester, and some from that sect have links to extreme zionism, so they have been verbally abused and sworn at. People from the same sect have put bricks through the windows of their fellow Jews purely for belonging to a non-Zionist Haredi sect, in Salford. Also a few years ago I saw a Haredi Jewish woman yelling at a Muslim women in M&S and lauching a massive tirade against her purely because she perceived her to be Arab (I think the woman was actually Pakistani or Bangladeshi)-this was before I was Muslim but it was very upsetting to see that done to anyone and I would have been furious whoever perpetrated it. Also some extremist Jews have now joined forces with the EDL and BNP because they hate Muslims that much. So yes, there are people from all walks of life who are extreme and hate others for their religion, race or culture, it isn't exclusive to Muslims and it worries me you cannot make this distinction. Anyone reading your message who doesn't have experience of Muslims would believe that all Muslims hate Jews and go maurading around looking to attack Jews and non-believers, this simply isn't fair or true. Who knows if the security guard ignored your friend being attacked because he was Muslim or whether he was just a useless jobsworth like many of those working in such positions. Also no-one wears a 'burqa' in the UK, I think you mean a niqab...?
Most Muslims are very respectful of Jewish people because Islam teaches this; if you look at the community in Stamford Hill there are extremely good community relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities, with mosques and synagogues side by side, same with many other areas of London and the UK on the whole. My husband grew up with many Jewish neighbours/schoolfriends and got on really well with them and was brought up to be extremely respectful of Jews as they are Ahl ul Kitab (people of the book). Some of my best friends have been Jewish. Also some Arab Christians unfortunately also have this irrational hatred of Jews so it isn't a religious thing either. The bottom line is that statistically Muslims are more likely to be the victims of racial and/or religious hatred than perpetrators of it yet you wouldn't get this impression from the media. To prove my point this is a blog written by non-Muslims with no political or religious agenda though I would say they are quite left-wing; anyway they record incidences in the media of Islamophobia and Muslims being attacked specifically because of their dress etc-this is their section on violence against Muslims and their places of worship (and this is only stuff reported by the mainstream media; a lot of attacks on Muslims are not reported because it doesn't fit the overall picture they are trying to achieve)
https://www.islamophobia-watch.com/islamophobia-watch/category/anti-muslim-violence
Anyway I don't see why it was mentioned these girls were 'Muslim' in this case except with the intention of stirring up racial and religious tensions; they are only Muslim in the way that someone from the UK would be considered Christian by default, Somalis tend to be very secular, even when they were in Somalia most people there are not religious and yes many of them do drink and do drugs and live completely non-religious lives. Judging by these girl's features they do look like Northern Somalis (Somalilanders) and while you do get some really good ones; on the whole they are even more irreligious than those from other areas; and quite a few of the traditional Somaliland proverbs are based on cursing Islam and Allaah and would according to many scholars render someone outside of the Islamic faith. The community in Leicester are particularly irreligious and into all kinds of crazy stuff, some of my husbands family have lived there and its pretty shocking what they tell us. Their lawyers had to come up with an excuse for their clients behaviour and it was quite a pathetic one; I bet these girls have been drinking and doing drugs for years and they probably grew up with alcohol in the home. You do get some extremely good Somalis though both from the major tribes/groups and the minor. Somalia is an extremely ethnically diverse country anyway; there are Somalis who look Italian or Spanish, ones that look Iranian, ones that look like they come from India or Pakistan (and indeed some do originally), my husband is culturally Somali (amongst other things) but not from the main ethnic groups there and like most Somalis living in this country he is extremely hardworking, honest and well integrated into society. It isn't fair to judge the many on the actions of a few xx
?. On one occasion in Stansted the police officer gave him this weird business card (he gave it to us and we had it until recently) and was told if he helps out the police by reporting people he knows are involved in terrorism then he won't have the trouble of being stopped again-but he doesn't know anyone involved in terrorism and if he did he'd report them to the police because thats right; not because he wants to get through airports more quickly. In the US it is even worse; my OH was born in the middle east and because it says a middle Eastern city as his place of birth on his passport; they say they 'have' to detain and question him, he has been detained up to 6 hours before with no food or water.
