Orlando conundrum

The Muslim world must stop accepting funding for institutions which promote violence among the most vulnerable

The growing list of murders carried out in the name of religion is staggering. The Orlando attack is the latest in this list and comes while bloody scenes of France and the 136 dead are still in the forefront of Westerners’ memories. We are in the midst of a critical juncture in the history of the Muslims of the world, from the most extreme to the most peace-loving and moderate.

How the next few years play out in the US is anyone’s guess at this point. Neither leading US presidential candidate can be mistaken as a friend of Islam. Donald Trump has never shied away from the issue. He openly called for a ban on Muslims entering the country as well as for the monitoring of mosques until “representatives can figure out what’s going on”, well before the Orlando shooting took place. Hillary Clinton isn’t quite as openly brazen. Even if she was, there is little reason to pay attention to her public communique when it is in such stark contrast to her actions and private correspondence (now public). Clinton’s close ties to Israel, her vote to invade Iraq, the push for intervention in Libya, and desire for increased intervention in Syria cast quite a bit of light on her attitude towards the Muslim world.

Muslims now make up about one per cent of the US population. We only need to look back about 75 years in history to witness the last time Americans locked up the same percentage of their population in internment camps. The majority of those interned were American citizens — Japanese-Americans to be more precise. President Roosevelt and his administration were against the idea of the camps at first, but eventually succumbed to public outcry for action after fears continued to build following the 1941 Pearl Harbour attack. Now largely seen as a black spot in US history, it was once considered entirely rational by many. How many San Bernardino and Orlando events will it take until enough people lose patience and decide to react with extreme actions of their own? Anyone paying attention to the news just witnessed a reaction in Europe. Much of the support for the UK’s exit campaign from the European Union (EU) was driven by fear of Syrian refugees coupled with the prospect of Turkey becoming a member of the EU.

There is no easy answer to reversing the increasing trend of murders being carried out under the banner of religion. The Orlando event blew a hole in a popular theory that fellow Muslims need to step up and report the threats in their midst. Omar Mateen was reported and thoroughly investigated by the FBI before it determined there was no threat.

Of the remaining actions that the Muslim world can do to protect its interests is to stop accepting funding for institutions which promote violence among the most vulnerable. There are countries in the Middle East that have spent billions of dollars on dispersing the most intolerant form of religion across the globe, under the guise of education in the past three decades. Cutting off this funding will at least work to prevent the spread of such misguided values being spread amongst the next generation. What is needed is the provision of access to an honest education and real opportunities for the youth.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 27^th, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.