By: Ahmed Alharbi | Op-Ed Contributor
“I have a dream.”
When Martin Luther King Jr. said these words, he never thought that there would be a day when his dream would be undermined. Although the United States has been fighting to end discrimination for about 60 years, there is a person who wants to take this country 60 years back.
The United States is the country of freedom, cultural and ethnic diversity and the inclusion of many religions and nationalities. The United States has fought for securing human rights that respect any person. It gives him or her all rights, regardless of his or her skin color, ethnicity or religion. This country has fought even beyond that for animal rights and so on.
The United States has been a dream for anyone, but today it faces a serious problem. The problem is Donald Trump, a man who wants to make America a nightmare and not a dream.
Trump wants to stop Muslims from entering the United States, and he attacked and labeled Mexicans with inappropriate descriptions. This means that, with his words, he attacks more than one billion Muslims in the world, and he attacks Mexicans who are neighbors to this country.
Moreover, he wants to build a long wall between the U.S. and Mexico. The reason for building this wall between the U.S. and Mexico is because Trump views Mexicans who cross into the U.S. illegally as “killers” and “rapists,” according to CNN.
Trump said in a campaign press release from December 2015 that the reason for stopping Muslims from entering the U.S. is due to “great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population” and will be until “our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
All these hopes are his ambition if he becomes the president of the United States. He puts Americans in an embarrassing situation.
Dear Trump and his supporters: Terrorism has no religion, color or specific ethnicity, as opposed to what you may think. We know, as you should know, that the religions condemn murder in Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
In the Quran, the book of the Islam, there is a statement in Chapter of Al-maidah 32 that says “if anyone slays a human being – unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for spreading corruption on earth – it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind.”
In contrast, a bad person, a “terrorist,” may kill regardless of what his belief or faith is. He may claim that he is from the Muslim, Christian or Jewish religion. Unfortunately, there is no one who is excluded from it.
I promise, Mr. Trump, that I will move from my American university to Canada, Australia or any country that does not have this kind of deliberate, institutional discrimination and racism like it would if you become the president of the United States. I want to live with my family with dignity.
Perhaps, “I have a dream” might just be a dream.
