#UShatesMuslims
Imagine that you are at work tied in the ED trying to save sick patients & your baby girl is at home alone with her nanny. Your husband is at work in a different city. You are very busy saving lives. And then someone tries to intrude into your house to harm your child. That person sprays red paint on your porch that says "we will kill you". Your car gets sprayed with raw eggs every now & then & your front yard gets riddled with toilet paper. Why? Because you are a muslim living in USA. That was me 16 years ago doing my residency training in Tucson. I installed an alarm system & my nanny called the cops many times but nothing happened, This was in the after math of 9/11. Then, I filed a complaint with the FBI. After that, the hate attacks finally stopped. But, the mental trauma of leaving my only child who was my first-born alone with a nanny in hostile environment was what I had to go through as a physician in training in US. This is not the only time I personally got exposed to hate crime in USA. I was discriminated against many times at work. One of my attending knew that I did not eat pork. He brought burritos for all the residents & deliberately gave me the one with pork. Luckily, I did not eat it & opened it first. Instead of being embarrassed, he started to laugh at me shamelessly.
Muslims are a marginalised community in USA. They are not given equal opportunities as others. They are discriminated against due to their faith. They cannot freely pray in public. They have very poor representation in the political circles with only a very few politicians willing to stand by them. If they try to contest in elections themselves, they are not received well by the masses. Only now we have seen a couple of muslim politicians make it to the Congress. This hate was always there. Trump just took the lid off it. Now, we have muslim mosques being vandalised, female students being raped on campuses, kids being knocked down with cars. The hate crime index against muslims has exponentially increased. When Trump got elected, quite a few of my very good friends were forced to take their hijabs off at work. The few that chose to leave it on continuously face discrimination at work. The chances of you becoming successful are not high in USA if you are a practising muslim. You are always invited to indulge in religious discussions at work but your viewpoints are never embraced gracefully. I once had an urgent care attending during my residency who didn't let me work & forced me to discuss Islam with him. When I brought Quran for him to read one day due to his curiosity, he got really mad at me. My residency interview was not on my qualifications, hobbies or accomplishments. It was on "what I thought about Musharaf?". When I got an offer to work with one of the best scientists of Harvard medical school during my research rotation, my program director deducted my entire pay-check for that rotation even though I published a paper with Harvard on Cardiovascular research. The same program director gave me a very hard time during my rotation with him, picking on me, harassing me to the point that I had a very complicated child birth. I had to file a complaint against him due to the amount of trauma he inflicted on me during my training just because I was a muslim. This is all while I was getting attacked by haters at my home as well. During my anaesthesia rotation, I was once in the surgical lounge & US had recently invaded Iraq. I saw a white American surgeon scream with excitement looking at the television watching the ongoing destruction in Iraq. He said "Go! Kill them all." Guess what! US government made sure to listen to him killing millions of children & civilians in that war.
I was once traveling on an airline in US with my 2 year old boy when a white American woman behind me commented that "even a puppy is better than this boy". She said this loud & clear & quite a few other Americans heard her. But, no one took the initiative to stand up for my 2 year old boy who was profiled as being even worse than an American puppy because he was a muslim. That is when I got my answer as to why in the world's strongest democracy, invasions into multiple muslim countries leading to catastrophic devastation of mass civilizations & massacre of millions of civilians remain ignored by the American masses. Because muslim kids can be considered less important than their puppies.
Have you ever wondered why does the Hollywood have very few muslim actors? or why does the US media houses have a negligible muslim presence? or why is Fox News always playing the "hate Islam" song over & over again. Because the Americans in their democracy allow them to. So, when Trump started the muslim ban tantrums, he did it out of public demand. Just think about it. CNN petitioned Trump over Acosta for "freedom of speech" & won the case. But, when Mark Lamont got fired by the same CNN, no one even bothered. Why? Because Mark tried to discuss the atrocities committed against the muslim Palestinians. This was labelled as "anti-semitism" even though he never condemned the Jews or the Torah or Moses (PBUH). Fox is always making radical statements about muslims coming in the domain of "hate speech". However, no one in US really bothers to boycott Fox because of its Islamophobia.
I have never been greeted on Eid but I have been always expected to greet others on Christmas & to "enjoy" Christmas. I respect Jesus Christ (PBUH) as part of my muslim faith but I would want to have someone greet me Eid Mubarak on my religious holiday at work if he or she expects me to wish him/her on theirs. Is that too much to ask for?
US just blacklisted Pakistan for religious intolerance. But, USA itself is one of the most religiously-intolerant nations of the world. Pakistan has yet to invade another country based upon its faith. Hate crimes in Pakistan are negligible compared to USA. Reason why Pakistan is being profiled now is because its one or two hate crimes make it to the headlines in all the western mainstream news media houses. On the other hand, hundreds of hate crimes in USA remain covered up by the same media. USA has invaded so many muslim countries, killed children there, bombed schools & hospitals and gotten away with all of these war crimes. Immunity rendered to USA has not just been national but international as well. USA has rising violence against its muslim minorities with an epidemic of constant media-sponsored Islamophobia being fed to its masses. Thus, the media is working as an accomplice in proliferating violence against the muslim minorities in US alongside its corrupt government & the masses who prefer to stay distracted & misinformed.
I have two very simple question? When will the Americans "blacklist" their own government for allowing such hate crimes against their own countrymen to remain unchecked & when will the world "blacklist" USA for its war crimes in all the muslim countries it has invaded in the last decade?
-Dr FAB, MD
Dr Fariya Bukhari, MD aka Dr FAB is a writer/poet/activist/politician/physician/scientist/philanthropist/producer/journalist/defence analyst & a strategist. She is interested in politics, peace, innovation and global justice. She is working for education, liberation & empowerment of the under privileged. She is also involved in politics trying to bring a palpable change at Pakistan's political level that ensures protection of masses against human rights violations, injustice, corruption & terrorism. She is a practising physician as associate professor of internal medicine. She is the Chairperson of Pak Islam Positive League, a political party of Pakistan. She is the founder of free Kissan free Pakistan, a NGO. She is the Dean of PUSH Institute (Pakistan-Peace Universal Strategic Hope Institute). She is the mother of 3 children.
I was once traveling on an airline in US with my 2 year old boy when a white American woman behind me commented that "even a puppy is better than this boy". She said this loud & clear & quite a few other Americans heard her. But, no one took the initiative to stand up for my 2 year old boy who was profiled as being even worse than an American puppy because he was a muslim. That is when I got my answer as to why in the world's strongest democracy, invasions into multiple muslim countries leading to catastrophic devastation of mass civilizations & massacre of millions of civilians remain ignored by the American masses. Because muslim kids can be considered less important than their puppies.
Have you ever wondered why does the Hollywood have very few muslim actors? or why does the US media houses have a negligible muslim presence? or why is Fox News always playing the "hate Islam" song over & over again. Because the Americans in their democracy allow them to. So, when Trump started the muslim ban tantrums, he did it out of public demand. Just think about it. CNN petitioned Trump over Acosta for "freedom of speech" & won the case. But, when Mark Lamont got fired by the same CNN, no one even bothered. Why? Because Mark tried to discuss the atrocities committed against the muslim Palestinians. This was labelled as "anti-semitism" even though he never condemned the Jews or the Torah or Moses (PBUH). Fox is always making radical statements about muslims coming in the domain of "hate speech". However, no one in US really bothers to boycott Fox because of its Islamophobia.
I have never been greeted on Eid but I have been always expected to greet others on Christmas & to "enjoy" Christmas. I respect Jesus Christ (PBUH) as part of my muslim faith but I would want to have someone greet me Eid Mubarak on my religious holiday at work if he or she expects me to wish him/her on theirs. Is that too much to ask for?
US just blacklisted Pakistan for religious intolerance. But, USA itself is one of the most religiously-intolerant nations of the world. Pakistan has yet to invade another country based upon its faith. Hate crimes in Pakistan are negligible compared to USA. Reason why Pakistan is being profiled now is because its one or two hate crimes make it to the headlines in all the western mainstream news media houses. On the other hand, hundreds of hate crimes in USA remain covered up by the same media. USA has invaded so many muslim countries, killed children there, bombed schools & hospitals and gotten away with all of these war crimes. Immunity rendered to USA has not just been national but international as well. USA has rising violence against its muslim minorities with an epidemic of constant media-sponsored Islamophobia being fed to its masses. Thus, the media is working as an accomplice in proliferating violence against the muslim minorities in US alongside its corrupt government & the masses who prefer to stay distracted & misinformed.
I have two very simple question? When will the Americans "blacklist" their own government for allowing such hate crimes against their own countrymen to remain unchecked & when will the world "blacklist" USA for its war crimes in all the muslim countries it has invaded in the last decade?
-Dr FAB, MD
Dr Fariya Bukhari, MD aka Dr FAB is a writer/poet/activist/politician/physician/scientist/philanthropist/producer/journalist/defence analyst & a strategist. She is interested in politics, peace, innovation and global justice. She is working for education, liberation & empowerment of the under privileged. She is also involved in politics trying to bring a palpable change at Pakistan's political level that ensures protection of masses against human rights violations, injustice, corruption & terrorism. She is a practising physician as associate professor of internal medicine. She is the Chairperson of Pak Islam Positive League, a political party of Pakistan. She is the founder of free Kissan free Pakistan, a NGO. She is the Dean of PUSH Institute (Pakistan-Peace Universal Strategic Hope Institute). She is the mother of 3 children.
