Summary
Between February 7-9 2015, terrorist attacks took place in Paris where extremists killed seventeen people. The article basically describes the effects of those attacks which led to Muslims not being treated the same anymore in Europe despite the fact that there are over 200 million of them there. Others are afraid of Muslims now because of their terrorist attacks in the past decade or so, like 9/11 and now this.
Community leaders are trying to get rid of the fear that others have for Muslims. Also, thousands of Muslims now want to fight with the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) and other extremist groups in Syria and Iraq. Muslims have done so much for Europe in the past century and this is how they are being treated now. The French Prime Minister has called for an "apartheid" which will separate Muslims from the rest of the population in French cities. Others are just saying that unity is the only answer to stop terrorism and that idea has gotten many supporters. Now many politicians are making sure that youngsters in deprived areas with little education and no job prospects don't become extremists and get brainwashed online. Some Europeans even went to Syria and Iraq to fight for IS and this just shows what people are doing to stop extremists. Now, Muslims are just trying to defend their faith and their status as members of European communities.
Connection
Muslims have been in this situation before where they are being feared based on someone's terrorist attacks. The connection that can be made to this article is text to world because of the similarities between these Paris attacks and 9/11. As 9/11 was for the U.S, the attacks in Paris were al Qaeda's and the Islamic State group’s first declaration of war against Europe. In both attacks, Muslims were the ones who were blamed and afterwards dealt with a lot of discrimination. Also, they had to defend their culture and religion because all the blame was put on them. Should an entire culture, religion, and an entire group of people be judged and be discriminated against just based on the actions of a few? The answer is that racist and anti-Islam groups take the opportunity to smear Islam and to increase racism. The results and aftermath of 9/11 were really bad for Muslims and we cannot let that repeat. Everyone must put up a fight against terror because this conflict between Europeans and Muslims may lead to a war.
