By Sanskriti Pandey:
We regularly hear about rampant acts of Islamophobia across the globe, but in this recent incident that keeps our hope for a socially just world alive, an Australian woman took it upon herself to defend a Muslim family being bullied by a fellow passenger on a Sydney CityRail train. Stacey Eden decided to intervene when a woman was spewing verbal hate towards another with questions like, “Why do you wear it for a man that marries a 6 year old girl?“. Intervening on the insulting question about the Hijab perfectly, Eden said, “The woman wears it for herself.” But there’s more the harasser had to say. “Your kids behead people,” she continued, as she hurled pointless accusations like how her “kids are beheading people in Syria” and “128 Christians are murdered in Kenya.”
Eden is being called a “legend” across social media for standing up against racist stereotypes and baseless suspicion by responding with the perfect logic: “That’s not her doing it. Don’t sit there and disrespect someone that has got nothing to do with it.” Hers is a refreshing move towards quashing verbal hate on a one-on-one level, but the incident also highlights the need to address a larger problem – that of ignorant xenophobia, racism and a hostile mentality painted against the entire Muslim community. Watch this viral 48-second footage uploaded by Eden, as she unwittingly demonstrated the importance of intervention in such times. Look around, observe, and stand up for someone you think needs your solidarity!
So i sat there for a good 10 minutes before i started recording this, while i listened to this woman bad mouth muslims and call the lady sitting opposite me an ISIS supporter because she wore a scarf, then she told me to go join ISIS because i was sticking up for her. People like this make me sick. People who are so ignorant and disrespectful to other people who were clearly sitting there minding their own business. She was saying some pretty horrible and hurtful things before i spoke up then as soon as i started defending them she stopped. People need to stop judging and putting others down over religion! EVERY RELIGION HAS GOOD AND BAD but if you take it back to the foundations, every religion is also built on LOVE. To LOVE one another.The purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticise others.
Posted by Stacey Eden on Wednesday, 15 April 2015
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