Does Islamophobia make democracies less safe for everyone?
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Raven Ruma
- . January 29, 2023
- . Update: January 29, 2023 3:42 am
Islamophobic acts, such as the recent public desecration of a copy of the Quran in the Hague, affect not only Muslims but the societies in which they occur, according to Dalia Mogahed, Research Director at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), Al-Jazeera reported.
Earlier this week in the Netherlands, a Dutch far-right leader, Edwin Wagensveld, publicly desecrated a copy of Islam’s holy book and published a video of the act on social media. This followed an incident on Friday in which Rasmus Paludan, a far-right activist who holds both Danish and Swedish citizenship, burned copies of the book near a Copenhagen mosque and outside the Turkish embassy in Denmark.
Paludan had already enraged the Turkish government by burning the holy book near the Turkish embassy in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, on 21 January.
He has promised to continue every Friday until Sweden is admitted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
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Both Sweden and neighbouring Finland applied to join the military alliance after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the so-called special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February, but require Turkey to support its membership bid. As Turkey is already a member of the group, it can block another country from joining, as all 30 members must agree before a new member can be admitted.
“Should non-Muslims living in Western societies care if a holy book they don’t believe in is used in a hateful publicity stunt?”, Dalia Mogahed from the ISPU has asked.
In her opinion, Al-Jazeera reported, “they should. Because the propagation of Islamophobia makes democracies less free and less safe – not only for Muslims, but for everyone.”
