{"id":4250,"date":"2017-08-23T18:25:45","date_gmt":"2017-08-23T16:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/twistislamophobia.org\/en\/?p=4250"},"modified":"2017-11-13T12:12:56","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T10:12:56","slug":"the-importance-of-the-reactions-to-the-barcelona-and-cambrils-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twistislamophobia.org\/en\/2017\/08\/23\/the-importance-of-the-reactions-to-the-barcelona-and-cambrils-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"The importance of the reactions to the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Thursday, August 17th<\/sup>, two tragic terrorist attacks took place in Barcelona and Cambrils, Spain, which ended with the lives of 15 people and resulted in more than 120 injured. These attacks deserve our strongest condemnation and reject, they must be qualified as barbaric and we must work together and at all levels to be sure that they do not happen again. However, as it happens every time that an attack is qualified as \u201cjihadist\u201d, we must also insist in the need of distinguishing between these kind of acts and the values\u00a0represented by Islam, in the independence between the terrorists and the Muslim population, and in the impossibility of terrorism being in any way representative of the Islamic religion or the Muslim community as a whole (which is composed, let\u2019s not forget, of 1,6 billion people).<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is necessary to insist upon these aspects because terrorism holds\u00a0always the same objectives, to produce fear, but also to polarize society. It intends to alienate the Muslim community, to differentiate it from the Spanish or Western population and to exacerbate the tensions between them. The tragedy that took place last week has led to very noble acts of help and solidarity, but also to the first reactions of racism and islamophobia, acts of violence and xenophobia involving different groups that are just waiting for a reason to attack the Muslim or foreign population.<\/p>\n

Outbreaks of islamophobia<\/h3>\n

In the last six days we have witnessed different reactions that tried to attack or blame the Muslim population, from attacks to mosques and demonstrations against Islam, to the demand of\u00a0a specific condemnation of these attacks<\/a>\u00a0by the country\u2019s Muslims or a generalization and homogenization of this group\u2019s features.<\/p>\n

One of the main dangers of this kind of reactions is the attempt by right-wing groups of taking over the fight against terrorism. We find one example on the promotion of \u201cfuck ISIS\u201d t-shirts by the Spanish fascist group \u201cHogar social\u201d, or in the holding of a demonstration by right-wing groups in Barcelona (last Saturday, August 19th<\/sup>) under the slogan \u201cterrorists aren\u2019t welcome\u201d, but also under the more classic and xenophobic slogan \u201cStop islamization of Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"reacciones_Barcelona-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition to this demonstration, different graffiti have appeared in mosques all over the country, such as in the mosque of\u00a0Montblanc<\/a>\u00a0(Barcelona) or in\u00a0the Consulate of Morocco in Tarragona, with\u00a0messages that read \u201cYou are going to die fucking Moors\u201d; in the headquarters of the\u00a0Seville Mosque Foundation<\/a>(with messages such as \u201cThe moor that prays must be beheaded\u201d), a mosque in Logro\u00f1o (\u201cterrorists\u201d, \u201cleave Europe\u201d) o Fuenlabrada\u2019s mosque, where, in addition to the graffiti, a pig head was thrown against the building. Likewise, the nazi group \u201cHogar social\u201d attacked the\u00a0mosque of Albaic\u00edn<\/a>, in Granada, throwing smoke canisters against it while carrying a banner against Islam.<\/p>\n

A different type of indirect attack is the demand of a specific condemnation of the attacks by the Muslim population, which, implicitly, aims at transferring the responsibility of the crimes committed to the average Muslim, or even the disregard of the condemnations already issued by them. For instance, the national newspaper\u00a0La Raz\u00f3n<\/em>\u00a0stated last Saturday, August 20th<\/sup>: \u201cThis morning I wrote a tweet in which I asked why didn\u2019t the thousands of Muslims living in Spain demonstrate and said \u201cStop\u201d to this meaningless trail of blood\u201d.<\/p>\n

These thoughts rely on stereotypes that understand the Muslim population as a monolithic and homogeneous body and that tend to ignore the historic and current contributions made by the Islamic civilization. We can refer, in this sense, to the very criticized tweets of the Spanish journalist Isabel San Sebasti\u00e1n, which read:<\/p>\n

\u201cDamn you, Islamists, sons of\u2026 We kicked you out once and we will do it again. Spain will be a Western country, free and democratic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Malditos se\u00e1is, islamistas hijos de… Ya os echamos de aqu\u00ed una vez y volveremos a hacerlo. Espa\u00f1a ser\u00e1 occidental, libre y democr\u00e1tica.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Isabel San Sebasti\u00e1n (@isanseba) 17 de agosto de 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n