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Jaipur: It may come as a surprise to many but Rajasthan police is acting on fake news and communally charged social media messages. In a recent tweet on Dec 18, it busted fake news which was trying to incite communal violence.

The video was apparently from Jharkhand but was shown as an area in Rajasthan where Muslims were entering Rajput homes and attacking people. Rajasthan police stepped up and acted against the twitter handle.
 
Rajasthan police’s asked Twitter user @Ashok6510 to delete his tweet, who had tweeted a video of a brawl with the caption – “Muslim workers entered houses of Rajputs in Utambar, assaulted the daughters and sisters and attacked their homes. If the state is such in 5 hours, what will be the torture in 5 years.” In the last sentence, he hinted at Congress’s victory in the recent Rajasthan elections.
 
It may seem oddly timed and many will question why is Rajasthan Police only now taking action over fake news online, especially since a number of mob lynchings have rocked the state in the recent past, besides organisations like Karni Sena attacking school buses and warning of more violence over a movie release.
 
Rajasthan Police has made fake news an agenda as early as June this year. Some of their first tweets on the issue tagged the twitter handle @SMHoaxSlayer which is known to bust fake news in India.

In a tweet from 25 June, Rajasthan Police announced that they will be starting a series on #FakeNews, and urged people to be wary of “news, stories or hoaxes which mislead you into believing the facts which are not true” and that “often social media become easy carriers for spreading falsehood & distortion.”

 
The tweet also gives users tips on how to spot fake news by urging citizens to check if the source is credible, to read beyond the headline, to check the author, to check the date of the story and finally to consult experts before forming an opinion or taking any decision.
 
It also verified information that was attributed to them but was false. In a tweet, it busted another WhatsApp that claimed that medical students coming to collect blood at the doorstep were from terrorist organisations spreading AIDS virus and that this information was circulated by Rajasthan Police. The official twitter handle of the police denied this.

 
“Results of the recent assembly elections have given rise to misinformation claiming violence in states where Congress came out victorious. Recently, a video from Gujarat was shared as an incident of rioting after the party won in Rajasthan. Many other such false claims (1, 2) suggested Pakistani flags and pro-Pakistan slogans were raised at Congress rallies. While Rajasthan police have been trying to prevent the spread of misinformation, OpIndia came out in support of a handle circulating fake news. The cycle of disinformation gains further momentum when media outlets themselves attempt to discredit the truth,” Altnews reported.
 
Data compiled by the central ministry of home affairs show 45 people have been killed in 40 cases of mob lynchings across nine states between 2014 and March 3, 2018. The figures have gone up since then.
 
It is commendable that the police are being proactive on social media as most mob lynchings in the country in the last few years had a similar pattern of fake social media messages and WhatsApp forwards. Many innocent people were killed by angry mobs who suspected them of being child lifters.
 
Between January 1, 2017, and July 5, 2018, 33 people were killed and at least 99 injured in 69 reported cases. In the first six days of July alone, there have been nine cases of mob violence over child lifting rumours and five deaths, which amounts to more than one attack recorded every day. There was only one such attack in 2012. Most of the people were killed because of fake video forwards on WhatsApp.
 
Maharashtra police said that around 250 Twitter handles were created to spread misinformation about the Bhima-Koregaon violence and to mobilise support for allegedly holding demonstrations abroad to defame the Modi government.
 
WhatsApp has started rolling the five-chat limit for forwards in India. It had announced this move back in July in order to help check the spread of fake news and misinformation on the platform. The Facebook-owned messaging app will restrict the number of forwards to 20 chats across the globe but in India, it is testing a lower limit of 5 chats. According to news agency IANS, WhatsApp confirmed that it has begun rolling out its forward message limit in India, which is its biggest market at 200 million users. The ruling government has also asked WhatsApp to do away with end-to-end encryption to keep tabs on what people are sharing but the app hasn’t complied.
 
The request for traceability came from India’s Ministry of Electronics & IT to trace false information to its source. The Ministry said Facebook-owned WhatsApp would face legal actions if it failed to deliver.
 
Read Also:
Lynch Mobs: What WhatsApp Will Not Do and BJP Won’t Ask
Child-Lifting Rumours: 33 Killed In 69 Mob Attacks Since Jan 2017. Before That Only 1 Attack In 2012
 

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Press Release

In an unprecedented move, artists from across India have come together under the banner of “Artists Unite!” and signed a declaration with the intention of reinforcing public traditions that speak “for democracy, and against hate”. More than 450 signatories from more than twenty locations have cautioned that the ongoing assault on culture is an attack on democracy and asserted that “Democracy is not a majoritarian project to identify enemies and enforce uniformity of language, behaviour and culture. Democracy is the celebration of a collective will for peace, of living together with dignity and equality.”

The signatories include a diverse list of well-known names from the field of arts in India including artists Atul Dodiya, Nalini Malini, Ranbir Kaleka, Sudhir Patwardhan, Venkat Raman Singh Shyam and Vivan Sundaram; art critic and historian Geeta Kapur; dancers Aditi Mangaldas, Astad Deboo, Mallika Sarabhai and Navtej Johar; film-makersAnand Patwardhan, Chitra Palekar, Kabir Khan, Kiran Rao, Nandita Das, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Shonali Bose and; screenwriters Anjum Rajabali, Vinay Shukla and Shama Zaidi; actors Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah; musicians Neela Bhagwat, Rahul Ram, T M Krishna and Vidya Rao; and photographers Dayanita Singh and Sudharak Olwe. Amongst others who have signed the declaration are poets Adil Jussawala, Ashok Vajpayi, K. Satchidanandan and Mangalesh Dabral; pupeteer Dadi Pudumjee; theatre practitioners Mahesh Dattani, Mahesh Eklunchwar and Sunil Shanbag, and writers Arundhati Roy, G N Devy, Githa Hariharan, Jerry Pinto, Meena Kandasamy, Shanta Gokhale, Shashi Deshpande and Vishnu Nagar.

The “Artists Unite!” platform has also announced a national convention in Delhi on 16 & 17 February 2019, to be held simultaneously with similar events nationwide on these dates. The idea behind the convention of artists it said, “is to weigh in with a collective voice, and with a creative energy that asserts arts and literature as a means of resistance to the hate politics that is sweeping the country and to mitigate the challenges to democracy.”

The full text of the declaration and an updated list of signatories may be viewed here.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

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Credit: Fibonacci Blue / Flickr. Some rights reserved.

In November 2015, Asma Jama, a Somali-born woman living in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, was waiting for her pasta alfredo at Applebee’s, chatting in Swahili with her family, when she was confronted by Jodie Burchard-Risch. Burchard-Risch demanded that Jama speak English or go home. Then, she smashed her beer mug in Jama’s face.

The attack was shocking and made national news. This past December, Jama spoke at the sentencing hearing for Burchard-Risch, who pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and will serve six months in jail. Jama recounted the fear she lives with after the attack, saying she no longer goes anywhere alone. Still, she spoke words of kindness to the woman who showed her none. “In front of everybody here,” Jama told the packed courtroom, “I forgive you. And I hope that you choose love over hate.”

Minnesota is home to the nation's largest Somali population. And like so many Muslim communities throughout the United States, Minnesota Somalis are organizing to combat the Islamophobia stoked by Trump. The Minnesota Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) plans to activate 10,000 Minnesotans using a three-part strategy grounded in the belief that people will, when given a chance, choose respect and understanding instead of fear, following Jama’s example of rejecting hate.

CAIR-MN plans to use a combination of traditional organizing tactics and new outreach efforts to communities not historically engaged in this fight.

Successfully engaging thousands of people to fight Islamophobia depends on an understanding that Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-MN, laid out to about 60 Somali and non-Somali activists in late December. “Most Americans agree there is something wrong with how we are treating American Muslims,” Hussein said. “They know something is wrong, even if they cannot identify it.” As Trump’s presidency approached, Hussein told the room, “They know they’ve got to do something about it.”

Muslims expect American Islamophobia to intensify under Trump, and Somali Americans expect to be on the front line.

The Somali-American community had been the target of institutionalized Islamophobia prior to the campaign and subsequent election of Donald Trump. “The Somali community in Minnesota was at the blunt end of Islamophobia before this election,” says Hussein. “But it is a phenomenon that has outgrown all previous levels.”

Somalis in Minnesota are targeted.
The U.S. Census Bureau data estimates there are 40,000 Somali-speaking residents in Minnesota. Underreporting to the U.S. Census Bureau is common, though, and by some accounts, the number of Somalis—including resettled refugees, inter-state migrants, and native U.S.-born residents—could be twice as high. While Somali Americans have planted deep roots in the state, starting thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations, opening schools and mosques around the Twin Cities metro area and beyond, tension between the state’s largest Muslim population and native Minnesotans has risen in recent years.
The uncertainty and tension felt by Somalis result in part from the Somali identity inhabiting multiple American fault lines. Imam Hassan Mohamud put it bluntly: “We are Black. We are immigrants. We are Muslims.”

Mohamud, Imam at the Minnesota Da’Wah Institute, spoke at a recent anti-Islamophobia meeting, where he explained how Somali Americans feel the harsh rhetoric against Muslims, the anti-refugee rhetoric in general, and racism against African Americans. The compounding effect of this racism and Islamophobia has left Somalis feeling specifically targeted.

Last April, a Minnesota man crossed the border to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he burned down a Somali-owned restaurant. The same month, former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman wrote an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune intending to address the number of Twin Cities-based individuals who returned to Somalia to fight in that nation’s civil war. In the piece, Coleman labeled Minnesota “ground zero” for radical Islamic terrorism and called out “a specific population—Somalis.” The letter was titled “The Land of 10,000 Terrorists.”

Perhaps the biggest source of concern in the Somali community—and the one that makes Somalis feel uniquely targeted by the U.S. government—is a Department of Justice program called Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). The program is meant to root out radicalization and extremism on U.S. soil, but it has led to controversy and fear among Somali Muslims. Mohamud and Hussein both agree that CVE’s policy of offering money into a resource-starved population in exchange for information about activities taking place within the community has left the Somali community divided. Muslim support for CVE is rare, Hussein explained, but many are in a position where they need to choose the money over their opposition to the program.

According to Mohamud and Hussein, CVE imbeds Islamophobia into government policy. “The program’s very premise is Islamophobic,” Hussein points out. It targets one community, Somali Americans, and builds suspicion that any individual in that community might be a source of radical extremism. That’s “the playbook of the Islamophobia network,” Hussein says, and it affirms the principle that Somali Americans are a threat to America.

This was the tense landscape in Minnesota even before Donald Trump arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Nov. 6, two days before his election, to address his supporters. Trump said, “A disaster is taking place in Minnesota” as a result of lax vetting in refugee resettlement, “with very large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval.”

Trump didn’t refer specifically to the stabbing at a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, nor to the ISIS trial in which nine men were tried for providing support to the terrorist organization. But the message that he did share was clear: The Somali community as a whole is a threat to Minnesota. “You’ve suffered enough,” he told the crowd.

Building a strategy toward understanding.
CAIR-MN’s overall strategy to fight Islamophobia is rooted in Asma Jama’s story of violence and forgiveness. She “has the literal scars (of Islamophobia) on her face,” and could have retreated after her attack, says Hussein. “But she chose love instead of fear.”

The first part of the strategy is to make conversations about Islam easier for everyone by “training the trainers.” CAIR-MN will provide the preparation for people to accurately combat the misinformation and fear used to perpetuate Islamophobia. Then, the trainers can talk to those who might be susceptible to that fear, those who have little contact with Muslims and are unfamiliar with Islam.

Islamophobia feeds on small pieces of misinformation that build a case for fear, says Hussein. That strategy succeeds because “people make decisions based on what they feel” and not what is true about Islam or Muslims.

The second part is to share success stories of the Somali community with non-Muslim Minnesotans to challenge the ugly narratives about Islam. Much of that sharing will take place on social media, used by many Somali youth. Hussein estimates that 50–60 percent of the Somali population in Minnesota is under the age of 40. They know English, have adapted to the culture, and are one of community’s best advantages in the fight against Islamophobia. The youth, Hussein says, are better able to communicate across the cultural divide—on the internet and off—without losing their own cultural identity.

Finally, CAIR-MN envisions an increase in traditional non-violent organizing tactics that raise public awareness, such as rallies and community education events. Mobilizing public events around Islamophobic incidents or targeted neighborhoods remains a crucial part in the fight against Islamophobia.

The most important element in these parts, Hussein stressed, is reaching beyond the existing participants of a conversation. Most people having conversations about Islamophobia in Minnesota are talking to people who agree with them, he points out. During Trump’s presidency, the only way to progress will be to hold conversations with people who disagree. “You can no longer say these people disagree with me or voted the other way, so I am not going to have a respectful conversation with them.”

Hussein would like to work with evangelical congregations, where pockets of Islamophobia can be found. Muslim outreach to evangelical Christians could “re-engineer how we communicate on this issue,” he says. “Without that outreach, we’re just talking to the same people we have already reached.”

Gaining resilience from experience.
Some Muslims use humor as a way to assuage the fear and uncertainty. Mohamud joked about an anti-Islamophobia sticker produced by a local organization that was translated incorrectly into Somali and Arabic, before moving to a sincere plea to recognize that “not all Republicans” are Islamophobes. He related the story of former Utah Sen. Bob Bennet’s dying remarks to Muslims, in which he apologized for his party’s embrace of Islamophobia.

Hussein opened his meeting at CAIR-MN with similar levity, joking about the election even as the fear created by Trump’s victory animated the room. There are reasons to be positive. From the election of the nation’s first Somali representative, Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis, who was sworn in last week, to the overwhelming interest in fighting Islamophobia that has emerged since Election Day, Somalis are hopeful.
The Somali community in Minnesota is a big target for bigotry, and tensions are expected to get worse. But in their experiences of facing both institutional and societal Islamophobia, their resilience and optimism is evident.

Christopher Zumski Finke wrote this article for YES! Magazine. He blogs about pop culture and is editor of The Stake. Follow him on Twitter at @christopherzf.

This article was first published in YES! Magazine.
 

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