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2017: The Year Islamophobia Went Mainstream
Islamophobia is no longer extreme; the year 2017 saw it go mainstream in Europe, India, the United States and several other parts of the world.
Openly Islamophobic Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States in 2017. India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh elected rabidly anti-Muslim chief minister Yogi Adiyanath who was hand-picked by Muslim-hating Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2017. Neo-Nazis made significant electoral gains with their anti-Islam rhetoric in several European nations while Burma and Israel continued to get away with the murder of innocent Muslim civilians in 2017.
These alarming trends are reminiscent of the rise of Nazi Party led by Germany's Adolf Hitler who brought disaster to Europe and the rest of the world less than a century ago.
Trump's Muslim Ban:
The year of Islamophobia began in earnest on January 20, 2017 with the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump who called for "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the United States during his successful electoral campaign. Among the first executive orders he signed was a "Muslim Ban" from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
Then came an avalanche of a large number of Islamophobic tweets and retweets from Trump's twitter account. Some recent Trump retweets were of tweets from Britain First's Jayda Fransen. These tweets and retweets were swiftly denounced by top British and Dutch officials. Trump did not apologize.
Trump developed a pattern of using terror attacks to tweet against Muslims while ignoring similar or worse terror attacks by others.
Trump closed the year with recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a recognition that prior US administrations had withheld pending negotiations and final settlement of the issues between Israelis and Palestinians.
Hindu Nazis in India:
Yogi Adiyanath, known for his highly inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric, was hand-picked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to head India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh.
Yogi wants to "install statues of Goddess Gauri, Ganesh and Nandi in every mosque”. Before his election, he said, “If one Hindu is killed, we won’t go to the police, we’ll kill 10 Muslims”. He endorsed the beef lynching of Indian Muslim Mohammad Akhlaque and demanded that the victim's family be charged with cow slaughter.
In an op ed titled "Hitler's Hindus: The Rise and Rise of India's Nazi-Loving Nationalists" published by leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz, author Shrenik Rao has raised alarm bells about "large and growing community of Indian Hindu Nazis, who are digitally connected to neo-Nazi counterparts across the world".
Rao talks about Nagpur, a town he describes as the "epicenter of Hindu Nationalism", where he found ‘Hitler’s Den’ pool parlor "that shocked me on a round-India trip 10 years ago was no outlier. Admiration for Nazism – often reframed with a genocidal hatred for Muslims – is rampant in the Hindu nationalist camp, which has never been as mainstream as it is now".
Hindu nationalists in India have a long history of admiration for the Nazi leader, including his "Final Solution". In his book "We" (1939), Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the leader of the Hindu Nationalist RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) wrote, "To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by."
Golwalkar, considered the founder of the Hindu Nationalist movement in India, saw Islam and Muslims as enemies. He said: “Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindusthan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting to shake off the despoilers".
Islamophobia in Europe:
Dutch expert Cas Mudde, an associate professor at the University of Georgia summed up the rise of Islamophobes in Europe well when he said: "The far right in Europe is more popular today than it was at any time in postwar history".
Alternative für Deutschland (AFD), a modern re-incarnation of Hitler's Nazi Party, stunned the world by becoming the third largest party in German Bundestag in 2017.
Last year, AFD's anti-Islam policies replaced its anti-EU focus with the slogan “Islam is not a part of Germany” emerging from the party’s spring 2017 conference.
In Austria, far-right Freedom Party candidate Sebastian Kurz was recently elected chancellor on the party's anti-Islam platform.
Earlier in 2017, the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom Party of Geert Wilders became the second largest force in parliament.
The French National Front (FN) of Marine Le Pen received nearly 34 percent of votes in the May 2017 presidential run-off that was won by Emmanuel Macron.
Neo-Nazis and Hindu Nazis on Social Media:
The advent and growth of online social media have enabled a large and growing community of Indian Hindu Nazis connected to neo-Nazi counterparts in Europe and America. This came to light a few years ago when the Norwegian white supremacist terrorist Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto against the "Islamization of Western Europe" was heavily influenced by the kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric which is typical of the Nazi-loving Hindu Nationalists like late Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906-1973), and his present-day Sangh Parivar followers and sympathizers in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who currently rule several Indian states. This Hindutva rhetoric which infected Breivik has been spreading like a virus on the Internet, particularly on many of the well-known Islamophobic hate sites that have sprouted up in Europe and America in recent years. In fact, much of the Breivik manifesto is cut-and-pastes of anti-Muslim blog posts and columns that validated his worldview.
"It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible. Our goals are more or less identical," Breivick wrote in his manifesto. The Christian Science Monitor has reported that "in the case of India, there is significant overlap between Breivik’s rhetoric and strains of Hindu nationalism – or Hindutva – on the question of coexistence with Muslims. Human rights monitors have long decried such rhetoric in India for creating a milieu for communal violence, and the Norway incidents are prompting calls here to confront the issue."
Indian Textbooks Praise Nazis:
Adulation for for Hitler has found its way into Indian textbooks to influence young impressionable minds. Here's how Rao describes it:
In 2004, when now-Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, school textbooks published by the Gujarat State Board portrayed Hitler as a hero, and glorified fascism.
The tenth-grade social studies textbook had chapters entitled "Hitler, the Supremo," and "Internal Achievements of Nazism." The section on the "Ideology of Nazism" reads: "Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government. He adopted the policy of opposition towards the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of the German race." The tenth-grade social studies textbook, published by the state of Tamil Nadu in 2011 (with multiple revised editions until 2017) includes chapters glorifying Hitler, praising his "inspiring leadership," "achievements" and how the Nazis "glorified the German state" so, "to maintain a German race with Nordic elements, [Hitler] ordered the Jews to be persecuted."
Mein Kampf has also gone mainstream, becoming a "must-read" management strategy book for India’s business school students. Professors teaching strategy lecture about how a short, depressed man in prison made a goal of taking over the world and built a strategy to achieve it.
Modi and Trump:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has built his entire political career on the intense hatred of Muslims. US President Donald Trump built his successful presidential campaign on Islamophobia and xenophobia. That's what the two men have in common.
Just as white racists form the core of Trump's support base in America, the Modi phenomenon in India has been fueled by Hindu Nationalists whose leaders have praised Adolph Hitler for his hatred of Jews.
M.S. Golwalkar, a Hindu Nationalist who Mr. Modi has described as "worthy of worship" wrote the following about Muslims in his book "We":
"Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening.”
"To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by."
Summary:
The simultaneous rise of Neo Nazis in the West and the Hindu Nazis in India represents a very serious and growing threat to world peace. Their combined menace can lead to a devastating third world war with nuclear weapons if these trends are not halted and reversed soon. I hope good sense prevails among the voters in these countries to pull the world back from the brink of human catastrophe.
Related Links:
A Conversation With White Nationalist Jared Taylor on Race in America
Lynchistan: India is the Lynching Capital of the World
Anders Breivik: Islamophobia in Europe and India
Hindutva: The Legacy of the British Raj
Views: 1152
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Comment by Riaz Haq on May 7, 2020 at 11:05am
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#Islamophobia is undoing years of #NewDelhi’s diplomatic gains in the #MiddleEast. The blatant abuse of #India’s #Muslim communities now places at risk New Delhi’s carefully tailored diplomatic approach to the Middle East. #Modi #Hindutva #BJP https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/05/gulf-states-backtracking-india/
Official reports suggest that the coronavirus outbreak has only had a limited impact on India’s population—at least so far. But despite the relatively low reported numbers of infections and deaths, India’s Muslim community has faced online and physical assaults during the coronavirus crisis—incidents in which members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are also implicated. The attacks came in the wake of news that an Islamic sect, the Tablighi Jamaat, held a large annual meeting in New Delhi’s Nizamuddin district in early March, right as countries were beginning to restrict public gatherings to prevent the virus’s spread. With nearly 3,000 pilgrims from over a dozen countries packed in cramped quarters, the coronavirus spread rapidly; the assembly has now been identified as a major source of infections in India. There is little question that holding this meeting—despite widespread knowledge of the virus—was reckless. But the blatant abuse of India’s Muslim communities now places at risk New Delhi’s carefully tailored diplomatic approach to the Middle East, and especially toward the Gulf states.
In a rare public move, Princess Hend al-Qassimi of the UAE has been expressing her dissatisfaction with a rising Islamophobia among Indians. “I miss the peaceful India,” she tweeted on May 4. And that came after she directly highlighted a tweet from an Indian living in the UAE as “openly racist and discriminatory,” reminding her followers that the punishment for hate speech could be a fine and even expulsion. These statements have followed other expressions of concern over the BJP’s treatment of Indian Muslims from across the Islamic world, including from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which urged India to take urgent steps to protect the rights of its Muslim minority. This last criticism is particularly damning, as India had actively worked to repair its historically problematic ties with the group and had managed to be invited as guest of honor at the annual Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in March 2019.
This turn of events must be of concern to the Modi government. Through its so-called Think West policy, India had built robust bonds with the UAE and Saudi Arabia while maintaining its long-standing relationship with Iran and elevating ties with Israel. In August 2015, Modi became the first Indian prime minister in 34 years to travel to the UAE and visited the Emirates again in 2018 and 2019. During his last visit, he received the Order of Zayed, the UAE’s highest civil decoration, in recognition of his role in improving ties between the two countries. Modi also traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and Iran in a calibrated outreach to the Gulf region’s powers. All these trips were reciprocated by visits of Gulf dignitaries to New Delhi during the same time period.
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Islamophobia Goes Global
Hindu nationalism has helped spread a distinct brand of anti-Islam around the world, and famously multicultural Canada may have a problem on its hands.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/01/india-islamophobia-global-bjp-...
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has long been criticized for discriminating against India’s estimated 200 million Muslims. Tensions between this large minority and the Hindu nationalists who support Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been mounting in recent years, resulting in worrying laws, dangerous harassment, and deadly mob violence in India. Now, the hostility has moved outside of India’s borders. Thanks to social media and a dedicated diaspora, antagonism toward Muslims by supporters of India’s right-wing, Hindu nationalist government has gone global. And the international spread of domestic prejudices is causing diplomatic ripple effects for India’s allies.
This has been particularly apparent in the Persian Gulf region, home to millions of Indian expatriates. Modi’s carefully cultivated ties to the Gulf regimes are now threatened by instances of ultra-nationalist Indian expats spewing Islamophobic rhetoric online. While much of the vitriol has been aimed at the Muslim population back home in India, it has also taken the form of social media posts that denigrated Islam more generally, as well as the Prophet Mohammed. The situation has led to rare criticism of Modi by Gulf elites. In April, the government of Kuwait, along with a member of the Sharjah royal family in the United Arab Emirates, criticized widespread Islamophobic social media posts in India accusing the country’s Muslims of deliberately spreading the coronavirus and engaging in a “corona jihad.” Modi eventually responded by tweeting that the virus “does not see race [or] religion,” although his government’s rhetoric says otherwise. A month later, the UAE Federal Public Prosecution issued a public warning against discrimination after scores of Indian expats were fired from their jobs for anti-Muslim social media posts. This and similar incidents led the Dubai-based Gulf News to run an editorial in May calling for India to stop “exporting hate” to the Gulf.
Some members of Canada’s Indian diaspora echoed such sentiments, tweeting comments about how the prayer call broadcasts are part of an Islamist “strategical campaign through out the world” or that “blaring loudspeakers” can never be “peaceful.” Several of the tweeters have quietly lost their jobs since then, amid pressure from anti-hate groups.
But few cases have garnered much attention. The exception is that of Ravi Hooda, who sat on a regional school board in the Toronto area and tweeted that allowing the prayer calls to be broadcast opens the door for “Separate lanes for camel & goat riders” or laws “requiring all women to cover themselves from head to toe in tents.” When Hooda’s tweet was called out by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a Twitter war ensued. Dozens of pro-Indian accounts, often with usernames containing an eight-digit string of numbers—a common indicator of a bot account—came to Hooda’s defense. A local controversy instantly took on an international character.
Hooda, for his part, is a volunteer for the local branch of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, which represents the overseas interests of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing Hindu nationalist organization that promotes the Hindutva (literally, “Hindu-ness”) ideology that India is a purely Hindu nation at its core. Modi himself is a lifelong RSS member, and a majority of his ministers have a background in the organization. The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh opened its first chapter in 1947, in Kenya, and today has more than 500 branches in 39 countries. The group’s chapters are called shakhas (branches) and, in addition to offering community services, help organize the diaspora through lectures, camps, and other organizational sessions that are aligned with the RSS’s ideological outlook.
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Before #India’s elections in 2019, #Facebook took down inauthentic pages tied to #Pakistan’s military & #Indian Opposition Congress party, but it didn't remove #BJP accounts spewing anti-#Muslim #hate & #fakenews. Why? FB executive Ankhi Das intervened. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-hate-speech-india-politics-mu...
In 2017, Ms. Das wrote an essay, illustrated with Facebook’s thumbs-up logo, praising Mr. Modi. It was posted to his website and featured in his mobile app.
On her own Facebook page, Ms. Das shared a post from a former police official, who said he is Muslim, in which he called India’s Muslims traditionally a “degenerate community” for whom “Nothing except purity of religion and implementation of Shariah matter.”
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In Facebook posts and public appearances, Indian politician T. Raja Singh has said Rohingya Muslim immigrants should be shot, called Muslims traitors and threatened to raze mosques.
Facebook Inc. employees charged with policing the platform were watching. By March of this year, they concluded Mr. Singh not only had violated the company’s hate-speech rules but qualified as dangerous, a designation that takes into account a person’s off-platform activities, according to current and former Facebook employees familiar with the matter.
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Yet Mr. Singh, a member of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, is still active on Facebook and Instagram, where he has hundreds of thousands of followers. The company’s top public-policy executive in the country, Ankhi Das, opposed applying the hate-speech rules to Mr. Singh and at least three other Hindu nationalist individuals and groups flagged internally for promoting or participating in violence, said the current and former employees.
Ms. Das, whose job also includes lobbying India’s government on Facebook’s behalf, told staff members that punishing violations by politicians from Mr. Modi’s party would damage the company’s business prospects in the country, Facebook’s biggest global market by number of users, the current and former employees said.
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India is a vital market for Facebook, which isn’t allowed to operate in China, the only other nation with more than one billion people. India has more Facebook and WhatsApp users than any other country, and Facebook has chosen it as the market in which to introduce payments, encryption and initiatives to tie its products together in new ways that Mr. Zuckerberg has said will occupy Facebook for the next decade. In April, Facebook said it would spend $5.7 billion on a new partnership with an Indian telecom operator to expand operations in the country—its biggest foreign investment.
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Another BJP legislator, a member of Parliament named Anantkumar Hegde, has posted essays and cartoons to his Facebook page alleging that Muslims are spreading Covid-19 in the country in a conspiracy to wage “Corona Jihad.” Human-rights groups say such unfounded allegations, which violate Facebook’s hate speech rules barring direct attacks on people based on “protected characteristics” such as religion, are linked to attacks on Muslims in India, and have been designated as hate speech by Twitter Inc.
While Twitter has suspended Mr. Hegde’s account as a result of such posts, prompting him to call for an investigation of the company, Facebook took no action until the Journal sought comment from the company about his “Corona Jihad” posts. Facebook removed some of them on Thursday. Mr. Hegde didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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Within hours of the videotaped message, which Mr. Mishra uploaded to Facebook, rioting broke out that left dozens of people dead. Most of the victims were Muslims, and some of their killings were organized via Facebook’s WhatsApp
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Face masks are mandatory but "Muslim" face covering is banned in #France. #coronavirus #Islamophobia #MacronGoneMad #CharlieHebdo #BoycottFrenchBrands https://www.milligazette.com/news/Opinions/33733-replacement-democr... Outwardly seen as a country of equality, liberty and fraternity, upholding the epitome of cultural unity, many marginalised minorities within France would beg to differ. From the racial injustice and economic inequalities that disproportionately affect the subordinated within society, France has been one of the realms of precisely this. Amongst the global pandemic, France’s democracy, the equitable inclusion of all citizens within the State has been replaced by hypocrisy. An absurd ruling that although facial masks are mandatory in public spaces, the full-face veils will remain persistent in criminalising disproportionately Muslim women.
An incomparable injustice, purely ruthless oppression through the State, is the restriction of a Muslim women’s liberty. Perpetrated through the antagonistic relationship between France and Islam, between acculturation and religious tradition, the garment that covers a Muslim woman’s face to preserve her modesty, the burqa has been suppressed in France through the law. It had been in the forefront scrutiny, until, in 2011, France’s assimilationist beliefs turned into State-mandated Islamophobia, thereby outlawing the full-face veils to be worn in public. Unfortunately, this verdict was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights merely on the basis that it infringed the French principle of ‘living together. In unprecedented times with the Coronavirus, France, has seen almost 33,200 deaths from it. Consequently, the country has mandated face masks in public areas. Materials of fabric that cover citizens’ faces by government order for health reasons showcases explicitly that the argument of the French principle of ‘living together’ should not suffice in maintaining the face-veil ban. It is hypocrisy in its prime.
‘Living together’ has proved in these unusual times to be undisturbed and if anything, as stated by the the French Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs, there has been incredible European solidarity in the face of the pandemic and France has played a crucial role in creating this supposed unity. Therefore, penalising women for covering their faces or not covering their faces to fulfil religious faithfulness or for health precautions, is France’s attempt to criminalise and assimilate minorities by force. It is the essence of hypocrisy because it is clear that it is an attack on religious freedoms. It manifests the irrefutable truth that whilst both facial coverings shield one’s face yet allows society to ‘live together,’ France is unambiguously unwilling to include easily observable Muslims into the country’s identity. The Coronavirus demonstrates how unease caused through the fear of lack of social integration through wearing a ‘facial-covering’ has miraculously proved wrong. However, within society, surgeons, dentists, and individuals wearing scarves to cover their faces from the cold have always been observed and accepted. Nevertheless, these were never criminalised nor seen as a barrier to liberal democratic citizens’ living together in harmony. Instead, facial coverings for those purposes have been indisputably upheld. The French ban on facial coverings has shown that this restriction on liberty has always been targeted towards Muslim women who wear the burqa. With innumerable French citizens at present protecting their faces from the public guise, it is permissible so long as the justification is health as opposed to religiosity -- so long as it is for France and not for Islam. This is reinforced through US philosophy Professor Martha Nussbaum who states, “Many beloved, trusted professionals cover their faces all year. What inspires fear and mistrust in Europe is not covering per se, but Muslim covering” (Nussbaum, 2010).
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#France ramps up protective mask enforcement but retains its ban on #Muslim face covering. #Islamophobia #MacronGoneMad #boycottfrenchproducts | The Daily Social Distancing... https://youtu.be/OUhvV-NdXQs via @YouTube
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#Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel: Freedom of expression has its limits. Those limits begin where hatred is spread. They begin where the dignity of other people is violated. #FreeSpeech #Macron #France #CharlieHebdo #cartoons #Islamophobia https://youtu.be/RZhVq1M3bhs via @YouTube
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Free speech has limits, Canada's Trudeau says
https://www.dawn.com/news/1587848/free-speech-has-limits-canadas-tr...
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended free speech on Friday, but added that it was “not without limits” and should not “arbitrarily and needlessly hurt” certain communities.
“We will always defend freedom of expression,” Trudeau said in response to a question about the right to show caricatures deemed blasphemous, as France's Charlie Hebdo magazine did.
“But freedom of expression is not without limits,” he added. “We owe it to ourselves to act with respect for others and to seek not to arbitrarily or unnecessarily injure those with whom we are sharing a society and a planet.”
“We do not have the right for example to shout fire in a movie theatre crowded with people, there are always limits,” he argued.
Distancing himself from the position of French President Emmanuel Macron, Trudeau pleaded for a careful use of free speech.
“In a pluralist, diverse and respectful society like ours, we owe it to ourselves to be aware of the impact of our words, of our actions on others, particularly these communities and populations who still experience a great deal of discrimination,” he said.
At the same time, he said society is ready for a public debate on these issues, “to have these complex conversations in a responsible way”.
As he had done the day before with the leaders of the European Union, Trudeau insisted on condemning the recent “awful and appalling” extremist attacks in France.
“It is unjustifiable and Canada wholeheartedly condemns these acts while standing with our French friends who are going through extremely difficult times,” he said.
Canada's parliament observed a moment of silence on Thursday for the three people stabbed to death earlier in a church in Nice, in southern France, by a Tunisian man who was apprehended.
Anger erupted in the Middle East in response to Macron defending the right to publish the blasphemous cartoons of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in France.
Macron made the comments during a tribute last week to Samuel Paty, a teacher beheaded in the street for showing caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in class in a course on freedom of expression.
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Pfizer has announced today that its COVID19 vaccine has been found to be more than 90% effective in its recently concluded large-scale trial. The two key scientists who developed this vaccine are Turkish-born Muslims named Dr. Ugur Sahin and his wife Dr. Ozlem Tureci, according to media reports. The couple started BioNTech, a technology startup based in Germany, to develop treatments using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. A Morocco-born Muslim scientist Dr. Moncef Mohamad Slaoui is leading Operation WARP Speed announced by President Donald Trump to rapidly develop and distribute a coronavirus vaccine in the United States. Covid19 pandemic is the biggest challenge the world faces today. Muslim scientists are in the forefront of dealing with this challenge. This is particularly notable in a world where Islamophobia has gone mainstream in recent years.
https://www.southasiainvestor.com/2020/11/turkish-born-muslim-scien...
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Even before the pandemic, BioNTech was gaining momentum. The company raised hundreds of millions of dollars and now has more than 1,800 people on staff, with offices in Berlin, other German cities and Cambridge, Mass. In 2018, it began its partnership with Pfizer. Last year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $55 million to fund its work treating H.I.V. and tuberculosis. Also in 2019, Dr. Sahin was awarded the Mustafa Prize, a biennial Iranian prize for Muslims in science and technology.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/business/biontech-covid-vaccine....
Dr. Sahin and Dr. Türeci sold Ganymed for $1.4 billion in 2016. Last year, BioNTech sold shares to the public; in recent months, its market value has soared past $21 billion, making the couple among the richest in Germany.
The two billionaires live with their teenage daughter in a modest apartment near their office. They ride bicycles to work. They do not own a car.
“Ugur is a very, very unique individual,” Mr. Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, said in the interview last month. “He cares only about science. Discussing business is not his cup of tea. He doesn’t like it at all. He’s a scientist and a man of principles. I trust him 100 percent.”
In Germany, where immigration continues to be a fractious issue, the success of two scientists of Turkish descent was cause for celebration.
“With this couple, Germany has a shining example of successful integration,” wrote the conservative-business site Focus.
A member of Parliament, Johannes Vogel, wrote on Twitter that if it was up to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, “there would be no #BioNTech of Germany with Özlem Türeci & Ugur Sahin at the top.”
“If it were up to critics of capitalism and globalization,” he added, “there would be no cooperation with Pfizer. But that makes us strong: immigration country, market economy & open society!”
Dr. Sahin has had little time for politics this year. BioNTech has been so busy developing a vaccine that the company has not finalized the financial details of its partnership agreement with Pfizer.
“Trust and personal relationship is so important in such business, because everything is going so fast,” Dr. Sahin said. “We still have a term sheet and not yet a final contract on many things.”
Dr. Sahin said he and Dr. Türeci learned about efficacy data on Sunday night and marked the moment by brewing Turkish tea at home. “We celebrated, of course,” he said. “It was a relief.”
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#Muslims Not Only Survived, We Thrived in #Trump’s 4 years in Office. #American have grown increasingly accepting of #Islam , and Muslim civic participation has skyrocketed. #Islamophobia - Tablet Magazine
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/muslims-survived-a...
in the four years that marked Trump’s first term of office, Muslim Americans have not only survived—in many ways, we’ve thrived. Americans have grown increasingly accepting of Islam, and Muslim civic participation has skyrocketed. Therein lies a larger story that explains at least some of the poll results showing considerable increases in support for Donald Trump among supposedly victimized minority groups. Most Muslim Americans remained firmly in the Biden camp, with an estimated 69% voting for the Democratic candidate, according to a preliminary exit poll. But so far it also looks like Trump’s support grew by 4 percentage points among Muslims. That is part of the larger trend that is also observable among Latinos, Blacks, and gays, and which has been causing shock and disbelief within progressive and media circles where members of “marginalized groups” are expected to be radicals who view themselves primarily in terms of their victimhood. The flipside of the media skew is not that all of a sudden Muslims, or any other group, are throwing in their lot with Trump or the GOP—rather, it’s that they are assimilating ever more fully into an American culture in which they feel freer to define themselves.
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