It is important for all members of minority groups to realize for themselves and teach others that the victims of hate-filled scapegoaters are completely innocent of all responsibility for the problems that the scapegoater has. Do not ever let children fall for the hate virus that claims the victims somehow brought this hatred upon themselves.
It is important for all members of minority groups to realize for themselves and teach others that the victims of hate-filled scapegoaters are completely innocent of all responsibility for the problems that the scapegoater has. Do not ever let children fall for the hate virus that claims the victims somehow brought this hatred upon themselves.
The 2.5 million COVID-19 American cases within the last week of 2021 outpaced the previous record of 1.7 million cases from the first week of 2021, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins data.
Over 800,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus, the highest recorded national death toll from the global pandemic; with unvaccinated Americans making up the great majority of deaths over the past few months.
In addition, the US life expectancy dropped by 1.8 years in 2020, the steepest drop in more than 75 years driven in large part by the COVID-19 pandemic. Life expectancy at birth was 77.0 years for the total US population in 2020, down from 78.8 years in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
One in five Americans (19%) also say disagreements over COVID-19 vaccinations have caused “major conflict” in their families. And earlier this fall, PRRI found that 22% of Americans reported their extended family relationships have been “strained to the breaking point” over the issue of getting a COVID-19 vaccination.
Similarly, earlier this fall, PRRI found that 22% of Americans reported their extended family relationships have been “strained to the breaking point” over the issue of getting a COVID-19 vaccination.
Research for British estrangement charity Stand Alone suggests estrangement affects one in five UK families, and a recent UK study found that one in 10 people had a hot falling out with a relative over Brexit.
Covid-19 and no compromise politics has caused widespread doubt about the future in America, Great Britain, Europe, and the Muslim World; and has led to “scapegoating” politics and worldwide extremist political/religious sects. Anxiety has split Americans in half — 49 percent to 49 percent — on whether “America’s best days are ahead of us or behind us.”
This anxiety had produced three major scapegoats: immigrants, Jews, and the religion of Islam, as can be seen in a major rise in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the United States and Great Britain.
Has the UK Government Protected Black and Asian British Muslims During the COVID Pandemic?
The anti-fascist group, Hope Not Hate, produced their annual “The State of Hate” report, based on a survey of 10,383 Brits and conducted in July 2018; it found that anti-Muslim prejudice has hardened in the past eight years and, among far-right groups, supplanted fears of increasing immigration. Things have not gotten better in the last two years of Covid-19 anxiety.
The British report said that 13% of the British population agreed that Jewish people have an unhealthy control over the world’s banking system. Almost half of the people surveyed said this was a false statement, and about 41 percent said they did not know.
It is very important that parents and grandparents teach children that slandering minorities is a standard form of scapegoating. Scapegoating refers to the human tendency to blame someone else for one’s own economic, social or personal problems, a process that traditionally resulted in men blaming women who are rapped for wearing seductive clothing.
Scapegoating serves as an opportunity to publicly vent one’s own frustrations, rage, and hate, while ignoring one’s own failures or misdeeds and maintaining one’s positive self-image.
It is important for all members of minority groups to realize for themselves and teach others that the victims of hate-filled scapegoaters are completely innocent of all responsibility for the problems that the scapegoater has. Do not ever let children fall for the hate virus that claims the victims somehow brought this hatred upon themselves.
All this teaches us that everyone should be constantly reminded that religious political extremism is ultimately self-destructive to both its self and its supporters. In the words of the poet W. B. Yeats: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
The time has come for all the best of religious convictions, to denounce and denigrate the activities and beliefs of those who are filled with the worst of religious convictions, before they desecrate and diminish all believers in the one God of Abraham.
Our religious and political leaders could help improve interfaith relations by constantly repeating the important lesson taught by the German Protestant theologian Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis’ rise to power; and the subsequent purging of their chosen targets, one group after another:
“First they arrested Socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Socialist.
Then they arrested Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they arrested Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Our religious and political leaders could also help improve interfaith relations by constantly repeating the important lesson taught by an eleventh-century Spanish Muslim theologian:
“Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see – Egoism, Arrogance, Conceit, Selfishness, Greed, Lust, Intolerance, Anger, Lying, Cheating, Gossiping and Slandering [scapegoating]. If you can master and destroy them, then will you be ready to fight the enemy you can see” – Imam Al-Ghazali.
