Asghar Bukhari: Muslim in a white man’s world
The Uppity Negro
I would be as bold as to say virtually every attack against Muslims, every image of the Muslim as a violent savage or backward, every anti-Muslim law, every so called ‘liberal’ speech about ‘women’s rights’ or ‘freedom of speech’ comes from a white man who deep down thinks he is better than you
In Europe’s history, the cancer of Supremacist Ideology has not always manifested itself by appeal to color or religion, at times it has taken refuge in science. Today it finds its roots both in both Liberalism and Conservatism.
Whatever the justification, it’s unremitting journey always led to bloodshed of those less powerful.
You see this Supremacist Ideological lens colours everything for the European, it dominates their narrative and their understanding of their place in the world. It gives them a sense of pride and a sense of self-worth, but always at the expense of others.
For the Supremacist there exists only two states—servitude or supremacy.
So powerful was this cultural psychopathy that it would push rational right minded Europeans to kill, rape and ethnically cleanse an entire Muslim population of over a million Muslims in Spain, enslave blacks, destroy Native populations wherever they found them, seek to destroy Islam itself, going so far as allowing the systematic genocide of Muslims in Europe (Bosnia), destroy civilisations from Palestine to Pakistan and beyond —all because they were perceived as inferior.
When Christianity came to Europe it was incorporated and used as a pillar in European supremacist ideology. Christianity would give a moral endorsement to their immoral beliefs. The colour of European skin further gave a visual indicator to the supremacist ideology.
Whites were different to the rest of the darker world. Even god was transformed into a white man (see the images of Jesus on Google today) and those born in the image of God’s likeness must de facto be better than those who are not.
In Europe even science, did not make all men equal, it instead gave a scientific kudos to the supremacist ideology. Darwin’s Theory of evolution was used to prove that the Europeans were more evolved then those they ruled. The black and brown people of the world were nearer to apes and monkeys, than the god-like white men who were fully fledged humans.
Like most ideologies which are based on an untruth there is a constant need to reinforce the principal, otherwise the ideology begins to weaken. Hence White Supremacy was constantly seeking to be reinforced and justified, within the prevailing ideology of the time. It was one of the few constants in the changing European landscape.
Liberal values are today's Raison d’être for supremacists. Liberalism would replace overt racism, and allow supremacists to justify not only their sense of superiority, but their savagery towards the other.
I would be as bold as to say virtually every attack against Muslims, every image of the Muslim as a violent savage or backward, every anti-Muslim law, every so called ‘liberal’ speech about ‘women’s rights’ or ‘freedom of speech’ comes from a white man who deep down thinks he is better than you.
So deep is it ingrained in the European psyche that even good white people subconsciously hold these views too. It is understandable of course. Culture is not chosen, it is part of who you are, ingrained into the very fabric of ones identity and not easily separated.
I remember reading in the Autobiography of Malcolm X, that whilst he was in school he was called a ‘nigger’. It had never bothered him before, but it did on that day.
Something had changed. He no longer wanted to live under the heel of other men. The ‘whites’ around him instantly recognised the awakening and saw it as an act of aggression. From then on, things went downhill for him, he was called an ‘Uppity Nigger’ one who ‘doesn’t know his place’ and ‘thought he was better than the rest of the niggers.
You see, for supremacists, equality is a challenge to the very belief they hold about themselves, there can be no equality, without a loss to self-worth—since they look at us, as akin to an animal or some sort of grotesque creature, it is the ultimate insult to claim they are equal to us. To slap them in the face would be less painful a blow.
In truth, for them it is an act of open aggression…. war even—and just like blacks before us—Muslims know it.
That is why we give signals when around white power, in very subtle ways that we are not a threat, that we do not see ourselves as equal. Smile a lot, constantly joke around, or conversely silent and invisible. We know very well that equality has its repercussions.
The Muslim, like the black slave or the colonized native lives a half-life, it is of course, subconscious, over generations, it has become the norm. It is not always apparent or obvious, for example, if you only talk, to white Europeans about the weather, you would never notice it.
But spend some time with them, their prejudices begin to show itself. Or if you want to test it, to get to the same conclusion, in a more speedy fashion, talk to them about any of the painful Muslim political issues of today, and take an unapologetic stand and watch the change.
Most Muslims steer well clear of these conversations, especially if they have something to lose — like a job.
It is, in my humble opinion, one of the reasons why so many Muslims in the UK do not integrate—they keep in their ghettos, even to the extent they remain without a job, because in that ghetto, at least, amongst themselves they feel normal. They don’t feel inferior. They are poor, but they are still men, equal to the other poor men. I think it is the same for black people.
When I was young, I saw this supremacist thinking first hand, violence, intimidation and hate because I was a ‘Paki’. I forget how many times I was beaten till blood literally covered my face and clothes by white boys who hated me, just for existing. Not just me, every single one of my family, none of us were spared — not even my elderly mother. On one occasion they walked behind her stoning her.
Nothing has changed. In the past, I was inferior because I was a ‘Paki’ now I am inferior because I am a ‘Muslim, Islamist, Jihadist, Extremist, Terrorist etc’ - either way I am inferior!
I can see it in most of the conversations I have on social media (where they are usually more willing to be honest) and in every interview I have on television or radio, that this cancer has not gone anywhere. I am not their equal.
I am the spokesperson of the savage. If I apologise for the savages and am harsh on my own people, then things will go well, but if I defend the faith, or culture, or actions of that savage, if I understand the savages motives—then the rest of the interview will be hard and difficult.
The one thing that reading Malcolm X, Fredrick Douglass and others taught me that you cannot appease a man who has this disease. To do so only re-enforces their belief they are better, confirmed in their minds by your own subservience to their superiority.
Do servants answer back? Of course not. They are always polite. You seeing being polite, only reinforced what they already believed. We were meant to serve.
Only by standing up, as an equal and demanding without fear to be treated like a human being will this Government and the people of this land be forced to accept, however reluctantly, to see you as a human being, and one day to see you as an equal.
Even the good people of this land cannot have any respect for a man who has none for himself.
As long as we are too afraid to throw off the racist identities the supremacist gives us of ‘moderate, extremist, Islamist or radical, and are willing to allow them to label us like children or cattle, who have no sense to name themselves what can we expect but derision and sneers.
As long as they champion their new supremacist wars of terror with liberal values and we remain mute like cowards, about our own rightful cause for the self-determination of the Muslim world, and fail to challenge their attacks as a denial of our freedom, as an abhorrent stain on the history of mankind, the world will have no cause to join with us in protesting our treatment. Neither will our cause for freedom ever be realised nor will we see respect or peace for our people anywhere.
Frantz Fernon, the black philosopher, said that for men to be truly free from the identity their coloniser had forged for them, they had to fight their oppressor.
For as long as they lived in fear of standing up against those who denied them their equality, they would never truly be men. It was the very act of revolution and rebellion that freed the mind. The act proved to the slave he was no longer scared, the slave master could no longer control him through fear or loss. This broke all the mental chains he had constrained him all his life — fighting proved he was free.
I hate the thought of living in a state of constant battle, but if one is to fight, to live like a man, to be free, to be equal under God—what greater cause is there?
I leave you with the words of Fredrick Douglass:
The general sentiment of mankind is that a man who does not fight for himself when he has the means of doing so, is not worthy of being fought for by others. And this sentiment is Just. For a man who does not value freedom for himself, will never value it for others…such a man the world says, may lay down until he has sense to stand up.”
