How Islam Uses Technology to Make Political Statements

       A wonderful advantage of our access to social media platforms is that we can voice our opinions much easier and find comfort knowing they will most likely be heard. This can be seen in many social movements such as the #BlackLivesMatter movement and support for the LGBTQ community. When a negative event happens in connection with these movements, there will most likely be an influx of posts on social media concerning details of the events, advice in hindsight or just moral support for their community.

      Unfortunately we have seen a horrible tragedy take place last Friday. A tragedy that lead to the influx of posts mentioned earlier. Of course I am referring to the terrorist attacks that took place in Paris. A horrific tragedy of this magnitude comes with a lot of emotion and, in effect, plenty of confusion.

     Many people are making political statements about this event but some are ill-informed. Placing the blame of these terrorist acts on the religion of Islam is not rare, and is generally due to ignorance, xenophobia or Islamophobia. Fortunately, many members of the Muslim community are willing and able to utilize their social media platforms to clear any air.

     We can see a variety of tweets and facebook posts from Muslims all over the world, discussing how being Muslim does not indicate being a terrorist. The picture below is an appropriate answer to those who tend to confuse Muslims with terrorists.

This shows the ability of the Muslim community to participate on the Internet and use it to make a political stance. In a way, this relates to Elizabeth Elcessor's article discussing the ability for disabled citizens to utilize the internet for their own benefits. We can be thankful that there are not as many obstacles for Muslims to get past when displaying their messages on the internet. If there were some type of restriction that didn't allow Muslims to use the internet effectively, it could be a lot worse in terms of their representation. Some disabled people cannot participate on the internet at all due to physical or mental limitations, thus silencing their voice from the web. If this happened to be the case for the Muslim community, there would be a lot less people defending them. With less people defending the image of Islam, the more common these dangerous misconceptions become.