Sad and really bad…
A Muslim worker in Belgium was forced to quit her job following the latest in a series of death threats from a shadowy extremist group against her employer.
The case has gained notoriety throughout the country since the first threatening letter arrived in November.
Naima Amzil and her boss had been called heroes for refusing to cave in to demands from a group calling itself New Free Flanders, which insisted the woman be fired because she is Muslim.
Amzil gave up on Wednesday when she heard of the latest letter, which contained two bullets and warned that “the execution is being prepared again”.
Source: Al Jazeera
It’s very sad to see such racism still exists in the world.
True sad to see racisim of any type. Unfortunately this type of thing happens in every Moslem country 100 times more than the example you have given. Pick a country in the middle east….its the same even Lebanon once thought the location of freedom. So while I appreciate that 2 wrongs don’t make a right, lets be balanced about this and report all sides of this horrible thing called racism.
Joe
Dear Jo,
I believe you’re not that well informed. Racism exists everywhere that’s true, but in general, Christians live peacefully with their Muslim brothers. No ones threatens an employer to fire his/her employee because they’re Christian or vise versa!
Christians go to churches, they have their rights and no one disturbs them.
Of course in countries where war is present, the story is different. Both Muslims and Christians suffer, and this is normal, coz war has been nothing but destructive.
I’m sorry to tell u this: but this is not true.
I was in Egypt in the summer and I heard about clashes (yes clashes) between copts and muslims.
This is not an isolated thing, our guides (copts) were astonished about the fact that I had a christian (=european) girlfriend.
Even if these things are not said directly, in the midle-east religion and tribal (or familial) belonging is something very important (more than in Tunisia).
Personaly, I think that european social behaviour of individuality has at least the positive aspect of making invisible the religion, the family in front of the Law and the other people.
And that’s why we feel so FREE here!
Try to go out with a girl in Tunisia, and you’ll have the whole family that wants to kill you (even if your intention is good 😉
–> I’m exagerating here but I’m not that far away from the reality
Hopefully the social behaviour in Tunisia is changing, but I hope that we’ll keep the good things and reject the bad one.
It’s true racism still exists in different forms around the world and that’s a really sad thing.
As for the muslim countries thing, I’m not sure whether Jo is referring to racism in general or the kind like in this news article, but either way I have to disagree. It doesn’t happen 100 times more.
I haven’t heard of any cases where someone got death threats at work because of their religion or anything else in a muslim country.
But racism in other forms does exist with different levels of severity just like everywhere else not just muslim countries. Nobody can deny that.
And as for the topic of religion in marriages and relationships, I wouldn’t really classify that as racism. All around the world these sensitivites exist when it comes to two people from different religions (no matter which religions) being together.
How much it matters and how big a problem it is regarded as varies from country to country.
سلام
أعتقد ان المشكل معقد فعلا لقد اجرت التلفزة المغربية الاسبوع الماضي استجوابا مع نعيمة امزيل حيث بدت قوية بفضل مساندة العديد من الجهات لها وعلى رأسها مشغلها لكن يبدو ان الامور اخذت اتجاها لا يمكن الا أن نأسف له
وللأسف فإن هذا الحادث ليس منفردا فالمغاربيين يعانون من صعوبات متزايدة في أوربا وللاسف فان ضلوع بعض المغاربة في اعمال ارهابية في أوروبا زاد من صعوبة موقفهم
وبإطلالة بسيطة علي الإعلام الغربي نفهم جيدا سر هاته المواقف فوسائل الاعلام تظهر العربي في صورة الشخص القادم لهدم الديمقراطية واسس العلمانية فيكون بالتالي رد فعل الانسان الغربي العادي هو الحيطة والحذر
Dear MMM and Eman
Eman firstly sad to say you see the world thru rose coloured glasses. You seem to be living in a dreamland. While some christians i agree are allowed to do what they wish, many christain groups are not.It seems freedom of religion only applies to some, and you say in locations of war???? in Egypt, Tunisia, saudi area, UAE,Iraq(before the war), and any other Arab country…all u have to do is read the newspaper, to know conflict and rascim are flourishing.
MMM
I know you are intelligent so let me just ask you one thing…how many companies do you know that are predominately Moslem that will NOT promote to a high position a person other than like them, not even other moslem types like Dourze (hope i spelt it right). This too my friend is racism. Not only putting a gun to your head litrally, but one done indirectly so one is forced to leave. This my friend is the GENERAL reality of the Arabs. And this fact we can’t deny.
Anyway keep up the good work on this site , I love it.
Joe
Hi Joe,
Yeah I know what you mean. Unfortunately there are a number of companies who do apply a racist policy towards their employees. And not only companies owned by Muslims, but also companies owned by Christians or Jews apply the same policy towards Muslims. I think that is very bad.
And again this doesn’t only exist in Arab countries or Muslim countries.
Things like this tend to flourish more in third world countries including but not limited to Arab and Muslim countries.
The reason why stuff like this exists less in first world countries is because they’ve become mixed over the centuries and have learned to put race and religion aside.
Taking Australia for example. Australia is a melting pot for so many different cultures with people from all over the world: Native Australians, English, Italians, Greeks, Lebanese, Asians, …etc. And for a country like that to move forward people have to learn to live together , accept each other and put any form or racism aside. And that is great.
Still of course, you’ll find here and there, just like everywhere else in the world, a business that was built by Italians and where you’ll most likely get ahead faster if you’re an Italian for example.
As I said before, racism still exists everywhere at different levels of severity, and honestly I think it always will, which is a big shame.
Another big shame is that we’re seeing racism resurface in places like the US and Europe.
Speaking of racism. Yesterday I was in line with my mother at a store and a lady screamed “EXCUSE MEEEE!!!” to my mother in the rudest way. Perhaps it was her second time asking but my mother wears an ear aid and plus, no one else around us heard. Startled, my mother moves aside to let her pass. Of course I had to tell her how rude she was just because my mother (and everyone else around us) didn’t hear her. “Ma’am you need to calm down. Just because my mother didn’t hear you doesn’t mean you need to be rude and scream it.” And you know what the lady mumbled under her breath?! “Well if she could just speak the language.” I swear to f*ing goodness, I was so close to jumping and pummeling her with my fist. I totally went off on her asking who the hell she thought she was and how dare she make the presumption that my mother doesn’t speak English (of which she does, very fluently in fact) and dare to imply that she is any more American than my mother just because of how my mother looks. After I said a few rather nasty words to her, she wasn’t able to look up at me and concentrated on the cashier ringing her up. There were like 5 other people near us that were like, “She must be PMSing”, “I didn’t hear her say anything”, “She is so rude! Must’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed”. She heard us all talking about her, so I hope she knows that her behavior to my mother was absolutely disrespectful and uncalled for. I know that you don’t gotta be white to be racist, but I would expect more from people of minority (she was African-American). Why would you behave like that after you must’ve been a victim of it at least a few times yourself in your life? Anyway, I was very disappointed that the lady didn’t apologize to my mom.
Yeah, stuff like that bugs me a lot too. I wonder how someone who has suffered from the same racist behaviour from others and whose ancestors fought long and hard to stop racism against them, can act like that and make racist comments about others.
It gives less hope in getting rid of racism in this world.