Targeted hate, Islamophobia requires the active engagement of all citizens, not just the state and governments to overcome. India has seen a spate of brute public lynchings of mainly Muslims while a paralysed (or complicit) citizenry looks on. So grave is the situation that 65 IAS and IPS officers have written an Open Letter against this Rule of the Mob.
This Monday, July 17, Boston city has launched a poster campaign to fight Islamophobia by encouraging bystanders to intervene, in a nonconfrontational way, if they witness anti-Muslim harassment. Starting Monday, the city began installing 50 posters around the city with advice on what to do if you see Islamophobic behavior. The posters recommend sitting by a victim of harassment and talking with them about a neutral subject while ignoring the harasser.
POSTER
Designed to break the silence of the ordinary bystander, “The technique is called ‘non-complementary behavior,’ and is intended to disempower an aggressive person by countering their expectations,” The Associated Press reports.
The cartoon how-to guide was conceived of by Paris-based artist named Maeril and translated into English for The Middle Eastern Feminist group on Facebook.
“These posters are one tool we have to send the message that all are welcome in Boston,” Mayor Marty Walsh said, according to the AP. “Education is key to fighting intolerance, and these posters share a simple strategy for engaging with those around you.”
A similar campaign is underway in San Francisco, the news agency service reports. The posters will be in place for 6 months to raise awareness and encourage a climate of citizen’s interventions. The initiative has been welcomed by Yusuf Vali, executive director of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Centre.
India has seen a spate of lynchings, brutal and gruesome, especially since the Modi government took power (May 2014). In many cases, be it Haryana, Rajasthan, Jharkand or Maharashtra, law enforcement authorities have been reported to have stood by and watched. In the case of Mohd Akhlaq, Dadri or Maharashtra, the victim (killed in the first instance) and beaten in the second have thereafter ‘been charged with carrying beef.’
The June 2017 killing of 15 year old Junaid (preceded by the murder of Zafar Hussain in Rajasthan as a senior official of the city council encouraged the crowd to violence) and that of cattle trader Pehlu Khan have drawn nationwide outrage and #Not in My Name protests. Will Indian cities (leave alone the vast rural hinterland) go that extra mile and design a Poster Campaign like Boston and San Francisco have done?
Yesterday the Upper House of the Rajya Sabha had an impassioned discussion on India’s spate of lynchings where we have slipped into a medieval public mindset from the modern.
Or will the fear of such Posters being pulled off by authorities or the Mob itself, limit our interventions, yet again?
Related Articles:
1.High Powered CPM Delegation Meets HM Rajnath Singh on Mob Lynching but Serious Questions Unanswered
2.As Indians Rise in Protest Against the Mob, Time to assert: Mob Terror is as Vicious & as Dangerous as Bomb Terror