This morning, I was faced with the awkward situation of my favourite taxi driver going all Daily Mail on my ass.
We were minutes into our trip to the station
when the conversation turned to current affairs, including the recent suspected
attempted terrorist attack in France and the destruction of the ancient temple
of Baalshamin in Syria by IS. It was then that the driver (who I always
liken to Tommy Saxondale) stated, "Say what you like, but most
terrorists are Muslim".
It was at this point that I felt I couldn't say what I liked, despite the
fact he'd just told me I could. While I disagreed completely, and knew that he’d
made a massively sweeping statement that presented a hugely blinkered view, I
was also aware of the fact that he was providing me a service - and it's hard to lay
into someone for being narrow-minded and then ask for a receipt.
I hate this assumption of collusion by
default, particularly in a one-on-one situation like a taxi journey.
It's like suddenly being confronted with a dark underbelly of society
that only shows its face behind closed doors and being presumed to be a part of
it. He may as well have said, “Well, we’re all white here”.
How was he to know I wasn’t a Muslim
myself? I didn't have to be to still be offended. When I attempted to diffuse the
atmosphere by saying “It's hard to fight terrorists as they only need to get it right
once”, he responded with “And they all look the same, with their moustaches and that”.
There are 1.57 billion Muslims in the
world, of which a tiny fraction are extremists (a pattern repeated in
almost every religion). A recent Europol survey states that 99.6% of
terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups. The Oklahoma City
bombing in ’95, the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in ’96 and the many assaults
on abortion clinics and shootings in schools and shopping malls in the US are
just a few examples non-Muslim motivated ‘terror’ attacks – and yet the
misconception still persists. I blame constant misinformation from the right-leaning
media; that, and the taxi drivers of Hitchin. Next time, I think I’ll walk.