© Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons"I know many Muslims and they're fabulous people. They're smart. They're industrious. They're great," Trump said to O'Reilly in March 30, 2011. Trump noted that there is a Muslim problem, but agreed that it does not encompass all Muslims.
An earlier survey of 2000 registered Muslim voters in California, New York, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and Virginia - the states with the highest Muslim populations - conducted in late January this year by CAIR, suggests that 52% of registered Muslim voters intended to vote for Hillary and 7% for Trump.
While it is difficult to say how many American Muslims voted for which candidate, the above results indicate that the majority (about 1 million) might have preferred Hillary to be their new President. Many among those surveyed by CAIR disapproved of Trump's proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, and many others have shown concern regarding the increase in anti-Muslim sentiment, blaming it on Trump's "anti-Islam comments" and proposed policy. Now with Trump as President-elect, fear among several Muslims increased:
"There are lots and lots of people who aren't going out of the house," said Eboo Patel, a Muslim who heads the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based organization that works with colleges and government officials to build interreligious relationships. [...]Is this fear justified, or is it a result of the pro-Hillary fear-mongering mainstream media where anything racist or Islamophobic Trump has said or did was amplified a thousand-fold? Unfortunately many seem to forget that it was exactly those media channels, which suddenly appeared to care about anti-Muslim comments, that encouraged Islamophobia in the first place.
"There is an intense state of anxiety about the future," said Rami Nashashibi, a parent of three and executive director of Chicago's Inner-City Muslim Action Network, which has been inundated with calls seeking support since Election Day.
As Middle East Eye writer Mohamed Ghilan wrote in his 2015 article 'How the US media is promoting Islamophobia': "The primary culprit in the rise of Islamophobia in the US is the media, and it starts with the insane amount of time dedicated to covering the unfortunate, yet isolated events of violence perpetuated by Muslims. To produce content, they fill their airtime with speculation devoid from facts."
© FBI/Bridge InitiativeHate crimes against Muslims have increased since 9/11. While 2015 saw most crimes (257 incidents) since 2001, it would not have gone away with Clinton as President, as she has been a continuous active part of the problem via her support for military aggression against Muslim majority nations.
Needless to say, former President Bush and Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have accomplished nothing in terms of wiping out terrorism. Nothing. The only thing they achieved is increasing the amount of dead civilians, the majority of them Muslims. While Hillary wanted to stay on the same course, or take a even worse one, Trump has indicated that he sees little sense in continuing the Obama government foreign policy, and admitted in his recent interview with CBS that generals haven't done the job in getting rid of ISIS. While Trump intends to cooperate with Russia (who has actually been successful in the fight against ISIS), Clinton promised only more hostility towards the country, which is threat to every person on the planet.
Besides Hillary's warmongering agenda, it should be noted that, during the Presidential debates, she had the following to say about American Muslims: "We need American Muslims to be part of our eyes and ears on our front lines." and "[The US needs] to work with American Muslim communities who are on the front lines to identify and prevent attacks." This was basically a back-handed compliment, implying that Muslims weren't part of society's eyes and ears and therefore unpatriotic. A justified response to this comment was made by Aisha Sultan, a columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
It's weird how politicians keep telling me I'm on the front line of fighting terrorism when I'm just trying to get through a sugar detox. I'm not being flippant about the role American Muslims should play about reporting anything dangerous they hear whether in a mosque or anywhere else. We all bear that responsibility. But I've never heard anyone talk like that. And, I don't hear candidates telling white Americans to be on the front lines to fight school shootings.
© The New York TimesMany Muslim children suffered as a result of US sanctions on Iraq under the Clintons. One of many forgotten facts by Hillary supporters?
A few people have said, I don't care much for Hillary, but I'm afraid Trump will start WWIII. This is because they haven't listened to the man, or heard only the same soundbite over and over again from the liberal media on the rare occasion he's actually emphasized hawkish rhetoric to appeal to a certain crowd.
This is *THE* non-interventionist candidate. Truth is, Trump wants a strong military, and a responsible and dignified treatment of our military... Right now, the US is in a Cold War with itself. Our foreign policy is in the political interests of banks and multinationals, our own country's geopolitical interests aren't even at the bottom of the priority list people.
Between the two of them, Hillary Clinton is the only candidate who has explicitly threatened nuclear war against Russia in response to Guccifer (a Romanian!!) hacking the DNC. IT IS A ONE DAY CAR TRIP FROM BAGHDAD TO THE RUSSIAN BORDER (Look it up!). That's enough for you to know Russia wants a stable, peaceful, Middle East in its backyard, but Obama and the Clinton Crime Family are warring against Assad, arming terrorists, and antagonizing Russia in order to make billions of dollars off a pipeline for the Qataris.
We're proud of who we are. Let Russians be Russians. Let Iraqis be Iraqis, let Americans be American. But we also have to share a world together. Sorry Crooked Hillary, there's a little thing in the bible called "neighbors." Clinton said, you can't have snakes in your back yard and expect them only to bite your neighbors. We've got a snake trying to get into the white house folks, and she isn't pretty.
Educator and researcher of Islamic sciences, Shaykh Walead Mosaad, shared similar thoughts on his Facebook page:
Donald Trump has won this election and it would be a mistake on our part to attribute it merely to the racism, sexism, and xenophobia of uneducated rural whites. Many people came out to vote for him in unprecedented numbers because they are fed up with a system that continually enriches a ultra-small elite at the expense of the masses who no longer have adequate access to well-paying jobs, healthcare, and education. The neoliberal system that has been in place for much of our history is showing signs of wear and is probably long beyond its expiry date. Yes, Trump may be a false prophet, but when people have to choose between the continuance of a status quo that has impoverished them and between the false promise of a conman, desperation has a way of finding hope in the dimmest of places.Trump might be a "false prophet", but what we know for sure is that Hillary is a corrupt warmonger who cares nothing for anyone but herself, and that Trump, at least, doesn't share the same love for death and domination. On top of that, he hasn't even taken office yet - we should at least keep a level head until we know more. As Mosaad wrote in the link above, Trump has already begun to back off from some of his more controversial positions. Note also that Trump has explicitly told people to stop harassing Muslims, Latinos and other minorities. These are already positive signs that suggest that the image presented of him by the media is highly distorted.
American society cannot be helped if it lives in anxiety and fear, falsely believing that fully half of the US population hate Muslims. Hiding or engaging in violent protests isn't going to help. It would be more fruitful to make an effort in small ways to make life a bit more livable for everyone involved, while keeping a close eye on further political developments.
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