I have little doubt that this picture will become an iconic image in the decades and centuries to come about the climate of Islamophobia and blatant hatred of Muslims that is currently rampant in Europe (and, to a much lesser extent, America).
Armed police surrounding a Muslim lady on a beach in Nice, France, in order to force her to take off her hijab.
Welcome to the land of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité for all… except Muslims.’
EDIT: I had posted the following paragraphs as a comment below, but was asked to place it in the main body so that people could read it:
And by the way, I’m tired of those who retort with, ‘If Muslims don’t like it, they can leave.’
Firstly, Muslim citizens are *just* as part of any nation state as anyone else is, so if *you* don’t like Muslims in your country, *you* can leave, thank you.
Secondly, last I checked, Saudi Arabia and/or the Taliban/and or Iran are *not* claiming secular liberalism and religious freedom for all. France, and Europe and the Western World, are.
So don’t bring in other lands with other systems of government as comparisons. If the Western lands claim to be liberal, their liberalism is independent of the laws of Saudi Arabia, so let them live up to it.
Thirdly, the hypocrisy is clear. Nuns are not and would not be targeted; neither are scuba divers.
Fourthly, given the current climate, it is an undeniable reality that this legislation is distinctly intended to curb the practice of Islam and the religious appearance of Muslims, and only Islam/Muslims.
This will only further marginalize the already marginalized Muslim and N. African community in France, and feed in to the extremist narratives of the radical jihadist groups – frankly much of Western policy, as journalists like Robert Fisk and Glenn Greenwald and others point out, appears to play to radical groups’ advantage, and directly aid the risk of radicalization rather than curb it
Yasir Qadhi
Original source: facebook.com/yasir.qadhi
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of, and should not be attributed to, Isma or Ismaweb.
