October 27,2016

Dear Future President:

“If anyone killed a person not in retaliation of murder, or (and) to spread mischief in the land - It would be as if he killed all humankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all humankind.” A quote from The Holy Quran. You see the Muslim religion as a whole does not want to hurt anybody, in fact it’s against their religion. But now because of these extremists, people are scared of the religion. This is called Islamophobia and as a result of this fear, normal people who practice this religion are getting picked on and teased. But, surprisingly for most, Muslim extremist related terrorist attacks make up only a small percentage of the major acts of terrorism in the world. The future president needs to ensure that American and Non-American Muslims are accepted into all communities and not treated as terrorists.

Many people now fear Muslims just because of a few terrorist attacks, this is called Islamophobia. According to Gallup, Inc., Islamophobia is described as: An exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from social, political, and civic life. They also stated that this fear has increased in the past decade, especially after 9/11. But little did we all know that, a study done by the University of North Carolina showed that less than 0.0002% of Americans were killed since 9/11 by Muslims. States Omar Alnatour, student and humanitarian. Omar also says that an American is more likely to be crushed by their couch or struck by lightning than to be murdered by a Muslim-terrorist.

In addition Muslims are getting picked on just because of extremists in their religion. Right now we are practically repeating history. If we keep targeting one religion, or race than we won’t get anywhere in life. We need to make sure that these kids feel safe. For example I’m Jewish and one day at my temple we met up with a group of middle school Muslims who were around our age. They told us that sometimes when people say mean things about their religion or even when they see things on the news that’s discriminatory toward them, that it makes them feel like nothing and that no-one cares. We don’t want our young American citizens going around feeling like they are worthless and unimportant now do we? But this is not only happening to kids, adults are also being discriminated against. According to Siobhan Fenton from Independent, a restaurant in France refused business to two Muslim women because “all Muslims are terrorists”. The man who refused their business was quoted of saying: “The terrorists are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists… They recently killed a priest. This is a secular country and I have a right to an opinion… I don’t want people like you here. Full stop.” He did later apologize and the women were given emotional and legal support. But this was not ok, even though he did apologize things like this really shouldn’t be happening at all. And though this was set in France things just like this are happening in America too. Many people are being very negative and discriminatory against the Muslim religion and we need to make sure it stops.

Lastly, contrary to popular beliefs, Muslim-terrorists have only contributed to a small percentage of American terrorist attacks. According to the FBI, 94% of the terrorist attacks from 1980 to 2005 have been by non-Muslim terrorists. And according to Omar Alnatour, even if all terrorist attacks had been carried out by Muslim-terrorists then that would only represent 0.00009 percent of all Muslims. This also stands in Europe, only about 2% of the attacks there have been by Muslims-terrorists. Another thing that goes with all the blame is that we can’t just blame their whole religion. Quoted from Omar Alnatour, “For the same exact reasons that we cannot blame the entire religion of Judaism or Christianity for the violent actions of those carrying out crimes under the names of these religions, we have absolutely no justifiable grounds to blame Muslims for terrorism.” It’s true, we don’t blame whole religions if extremists have committed terrorism. Just because Muslim extremists have done extremely bad things does not mean that we have to blame and punish them all.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. It’s important to know the true facts about major problems like terrorism. I hope that problems like Islamophobia and discrimination toward all groups, but Muslims in particular, get fixed while you are in office. Also hopefully more people will learn that there actually aren’t many Muslim-terrorists, and maybe just that might fix the issues that people have toward the Islamic religion. I really appreciate you reading this letter and keeping it in your thoughts when you address issues like these.

Sincerely,

Lyle T.

Resources:

Alnatour, Omar. “Muslims Are Not Terrorists: A Factual Look at Terrorism and Islam.” Huffington Post. 09 December. 2015. 25 October. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/omar-alnatour/muslims-are-not-terrorist_b_8718000.html>

Kalman, Izzy. “All Muslims Are Terrorists!” Psychology Today. 19 April. 2016. 25 October. 2016 =<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resilience-bullying/201604/all-muslims-are-terrorists>

Fenton, Siobhan. “French restaurant 'refuses to serve Muslim customers' because 'all Muslims are terrorists.’” Independent. 28 August. 2016. 25 October. 2016

<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-restaurant-refuses-to-serve-muslim-customers-because-all-muslims-are-terrorists-a7214581.html>

“Non-Muslims Carried Out More than 90% of All Terrorist Attacks in America.” Global Research. 13 June. 2016. 25 October. 2016.

<http://www.globalresearch.ca/non-muslims-carried-out-more-than-90-of-all-terrorist-attacks-in-america/5333619>

“Islamophobia: Understanding Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the West.” Gallup. 2016. 25 October. 2016 <http://www.gallup.com/poll/157082/islamophobia-understanding-anti-muslim-sentiment-west.aspx>

Shah, Zia. 9/11 and Islam: Islam unreservedly condemns every form of terrorism.” The Muslim Times. 10 September. 2011. 25 October. 2016

<https://themuslimtimes.info/2011/09/10/911-and-islam-islam-unreservedly-condemns-every-form-of-terrorism/>