“Friggin Muslim terrorist”. i was studying/daydreaming at a desk at uni and those were the three words scribbled on my desk by someone, in pen. The writing seemed fresh, it hadn’t faded yet. Some one else had scribbled underneath that, “Some bloody stupid moron wrote that”.
Anyhow. Then couple days back i was reading this article in an Egyptian newspaper where the US-based author (a “visiting fellow in the Brookings Institution’s US Policy towards the Islamic World Project at the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy”) wrote that he read a bumper sticker on the car infront of him: “Kill them all, Let Allah sort them out.”
Then you have the individual anecdotes of nonMuslims reaching out to Muslims - people being super-tolerant to Muslims etc., especially subsequent to 11th September. One of my Christian profs, an American (whom i used to have a crush on), e-mailed me on 13 September 2001 asking me if i was alright, if there was anything he and his wife could do to help me out, if my family was alright, and/or if there was an event at the uni that he could attend in solidarity with Muslims. Stuff like that reaffirms your faith in the world.
North America-based CAIR had reported that there has been a “70% increase” in anti-Muslim incidents/harassment cases reported. What’s going on? Is Huntington’s theory coming to fruition ? Will fifty years down the road make a positive difference in terms of the tolerance the world shows to each other? Right now, the demographics in most Muslim countries illustrate that there is a young population (aged 15-25); check out the UN indicators for Muslim countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, Occupied Territories - they all indicate that there’s a substantial youth population. Ten years down the road, these guys are going to get married and have kids, maybe immigrate to ‘western’ countries. What sort of cultural-religious clashes are there going to be?
Speaking of which, i remember reading somewhere that by 2020, Toronto’s non-Caucasian population is going to outnumber the Caucasian population… wonder what that will mean in terms of cultural tolerance, not just for Muslims or desis, but between the Oriental ethnic groups as well in Toronto.