Imagine an anti-Islam demonstrator switching affiliation! That's just what happened in Michigan, USA, on October 10.
That was the day several armed protests were scheduled to take place at mosques across the country. At the Noor Mosque in Detroit, a solitary woman protestor showed up with placards reading, among other things, “No Sharia Law”. During her demonstration, women in headscarves went up to her to explain about Islam being a non-violent religion.
Later, a Caucasian joined them to talk to her, but she refused and said, "Get thee away from me Satan and get to your side of the block please.” She told him to back off as her friends were supposed to join her at the protest to which he replied,” We can be friends.”
Another woman in a headscarf came up and said, "The Nazis who committed mass genocide were also Christian, and ISIS, like the Nazis were 'not Christian', are 'not really' Muslim and they are a result of socio-political conflict.” The mosque authorities told her that breakfast was waiting for her inside.
After a few minutes, the hostility turned into a heartwarming scene as the protestor embraced the Muslims present and agreed to join a discussion featuring an interfaith group in the mosque.
This came at a time when, according to a recent poll by HuffPost/YouGov poll, 55 percent of Americans had either a somewhat unfavourable or very unfavourable view of Islam, while one in four said they were not sure how they viewed the faith. Just 7 percent said they had a very favourable view of the religion, and 14 percent said they saw it somewhat favourably.
In last year's findings from the Pew Research Center's survey, Muslims received the most negative views from Americans. When asked to rate each group on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100 – 0 being the coldest and most negative, Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons received neutral ratings, ranging from 48 for Mormons to 53 for Buddhists, whereas Muslims received an average rating of 40, the lowest in the findings.
Now wonder Republican Party Presidential candidate Donald Trump could say during a recent town hall meeting in New Hampshire, “We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one – you know he’s not even an American. But anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question, when can we get rid of them?”
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