對美國知名穆斯林的批判
Last
week, Muslims of the World (MOTW) - a platform describing itself as
"designed to give a voice to Muslims around the world" - launched an
Instagram contest offering a free trip to New Zealand. It claimed the
winner would meet families of Christchurch shooting victims and visit the
mosques with the platform's founder, Sajjad Shah, Imam Suhaib Webb, and author
Khaled Beydoun - all US-based.
The announcement swiftly provoked a
backlash, including from
Maha Elmadani, the daughter of one of the victims, who wrote, "I don't
know who you think you are but you and your idiot friends are not welcome to
come here and look at us like animals in a zoo."
The contest has since been cancelled and Muslims of the World issued
an apology, and so did Beydoun - who deleted his Twitter after the
controversy - and Webb. It is tempting to see all this as a
one-time, isolated occurrence - an individual mistake - but it is not. This type of social media-related opportunism has many
manifestations and is very much rooted in Muslim celebrity culture and trauma tourism inspired by Orientalist attitudes.
The trend of Muslim
figures rising to almost untouchable celebrity status has been
noted in closed circles for some time, but many have been reluctant to speak
out about it on a public platform.
