In 2001, on the now infamous 9/11 al-Qaeda revealed the severe threat of Islamist fundamentalism to the world.
Within three years, Islamic extremists with links to al-Qaeda had coordinated a series of bombings on Madrid’s commuter trains, killing 193 people and wounding some 2,000.
In 2005, four suicide bombers, Islamist extremists who were British citizens, attacked the London Underground and a double-decker bus, killing 52 and wounding over 700.
The Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. The Charlie Hebdo attack in France, in 2015. The list goes on.
Those are just some of the crimes being committed in the name of Islam. According to the French think tank Fondapol, from 1979 to May 2021, at least 48,035 Islamist terrorist attacks took place worldwide, causing the deaths of approximately 210,138 people.
In 2000, Islamic fundamentalists initiated the Second Intifada, a series of suicide bombings that plagued Israel for five years.
But October 7 was like nothing else. The massacre engineered and carried out by Hamas was one long, drawn-out act of barbarism that unmasked the true face of evil. Islamic fundamentalism knew no humanity on that dark and dreadful Saturday.
I naively thought that the world must finally wake up, but history should have taught me that our memories are short and that the West is still not fully aware of the dangers of Islamist extremism.
Persecution of Hindus
In Bangladesh, the Hindu minority is being brutally targeted. In just one week, 45 out of 64 districts have seen attacks on Hindu temples, businesses, and even homes, perpetrated by radical Islamists, according to the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council. Hindus make up about 8% of Bangladesh’s 170 million people and are frequently the target of Islamic religious hatred.
Traditionally, the Hindus in Bangladesh had supported former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League secular party against the opposition bloc, which includes a hardline Islamist party. The violence against the Hindus erupted as Hasina stepped down and fled the country.
For some reason, the world is utterly silent about what is happening to the Hindus. All the activists, student groups, celebrities, and social justice warriors who are so quick to comment on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are saying nothing while Hindus are the target of Islamic terrorism.
Are we going to have to wait for an Islamic fundamentalist terror plot to succeed at a Taylor Swift concert for the world to wake up and finally understand?
But let it be clear: Calling out Islamist terror does not give anyone a free pass to engage in Islamophobia. Muslims are the majority victims of Islamist terror. Calling out religious fundamentalism means having honest conversations without demonizing an entire community or making life more challenging for them.
We have been seeing an alarming trend in the West of encampment activists aligning themselves with Islamist terrorists, often under the guise of social justice. We know that the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and many enemies of the West are assisting and organizing protests in the United States to promote anti-American values, and it seems to be slowly working. Student organizations are grouping under the extremist banner of “resistance.”
Islamist terror happens all the time and it is not limited to Israel and Bangladesh. We have seen it creep its way into the West, which it wants to destroy.
The world must wake up before there is another vicious terror attack. It must acknowledge that Islamist terrorism and religious extremism are major global problems currently influencing young minds and whole communities far beyond the Middle East and Asia.
The writer is a social media activist with over 10 years of experience working for Israeli and Jewish causes and cause-based NGOs. She is the co-founder and COO of Social Lite Creative, a digital marketing firm specializing in geopolitics.