Mohamed Hussein, a self-identified conservative and training Muslim, went to the Texas Republican conference this yr searching for widespread floor.
As an alternative, throughout a panel dialogue about Judeo-Christian values, he was advised to transform to Christianity — or depart the nation.
The encounter left Hussein disillusioned with the present Texas Republican Social gathering, he mentioned throughout a panel dialogue on the Texas Tribune Competition Thursday, and questioning, although he identifies as a conservative, whether or not he nonetheless has a spot within the get together.
“I can’t acknowledge conservatism once I see the Texas Republican Social gathering or this language,” Hussein mentioned. “How do you demonize a faith and be a conservative? It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Hussein’s remarks got here throughout a panel dialogue on what it means to be Muslim in Texas at present, moderated by the Tribune’s e-newsletter author Yasmeen Khalifa. Anti-Muslim rhetoric has surged throughout the previous two years as Texas Republicans have more and more made a litany of strikes to focus on the state’s Muslim inhabitants.
A few of these actions embrace:
Gov. Greg Abbott and Lawyer Basic Ken Paxton focused the builders of a master-planned North Texas group marketed to Muslims, who initiated a number of investigations on the grounds the event was discriminatory on spiritual grounds.
Final yr, Abbott declared the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the most important Muslim civil rights group in the US, a terrorist group.
Abbott additionally threatened to withhold funding from main airports in Dallas and Houston as a result of washing stations utilized by Muslims earlier than prayer on the airfields are unlawful.
The Texas State Board of Training in August greenlit a rewrite of the state’s social research curriculum that paints Islam in a unfavorable gentle.
In adverts and on the marketing campaign path, Texas Republicans have more and more deployed anti-Muslim rhetoric to mobilize conservatives in a tricky election cycle.
Republicans, together with Abbott, have mentioned they’re making an attempt to cease Islam from being given particular remedy in contrast with different religions and stop the unfold of sharia regulation, a time period for Muslims’ spiritual lifestyle. Conservatives have insisted sharia is a competing authorized framework incompatible with state and nationwide legal guidelines, a view Muslim leaders and students reject as a willful misreading of sharia.
Residing in Texas as a Muslim has largely been a great expertise, the panelists agreed, however hostility towards Muslims is clearly on the rise. Zeeshan Hafeez, a tech govt who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for a Dallas-area congressional seat, recounted an occasion wherein he and his household needed to depart an Austin pizza restaurant to flee a racist encounter with a person who was bodily threatening them.
Since his run-in on the Texas GOP conference, Hussein mentioned he “skilled a number of months the place I felt like a stranger.”
“I don’t understand how many individuals are carrying this perception or sentiment that Muslims ought to convert or depart and are simply not telling me,” Hussein mentioned. “However, I consider that that is an aberration. I do know that my Texan neighbors do probably not want this, and I do know that we’re higher than that.”
Abdullah Antepli, president of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, painted the rise in seen Islamophobia — as effectively in anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia — as a menace to democracy and all People.
“When you make hating one group kosher permissible, when you mainstream dehumanization for any minority, that doesn’t stick with that minority,” Antepli mentioned. “It impacts your complete society.”
Republicans, particularly, have left Muslim Texans out to dry, panelists mentioned. Antepli and 4 different Muslim students circulated an op-ed they wrote pushing again towards Republican rhetoric concerning Sharia regulation amongst Texas lawmakers and pushing legislators to satisfy with them, Antepli mentioned. Not a single Republican welcomed a dialog with them, Antepli mentioned.
There are vibrant spots, panelists mentioned. Hafeez name-checked Frisco Mayor Mark Hill, a Republican who took workplace this yr, as a Republican who “has stood on the fitting aspect of historical past and spoken up towards the hatred and vitriol.”
Combating Islamophobia will take a multi-pronged effort to teach folks about Islam and have critical and troublesome interfaith conversations. If Muslims push again towards racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism inside their group, Antepli mentioned, they’ll achieve credibility in pushing towards anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Hafeez steered taking buddies and kin who worry Islam to a mosque, or a Yemeni chai store.
“The common Muslim is your physician,” Hafeez mentioned. “The common Muslim is your trainer. The common Muslim is your neighbor who’s simply making an attempt to be part of the American cloth.”
This text first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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