British Analyst: Penning Letter to Western Youth Sign of Iranian Leader’s Thorough Grasp of World Events

Hafsa Kara-Mustapha, a London-based journalist and a political analyst, believes that the Iranian Supreme Leader’s letter to the western youth shows that Ayatollah Khamenei has a thorough grasp of the world events, stressing that the message enlightens the world on various campaigns attempting to unjustly label Islam as a violent religion.
“The message itself is one of great wisdom that aims to foster understanding between different groups and build bridges between the Muslim world and the West. It’s a simple appeal to younger generations who are curious and now have the means, thanks in great part to the internet, to access the necessary knowledge to understand what Islam genuinely means and how its core message is about humanity and justice. Hopefully people will learn to look beyond the media headlines and understand why 1.6bn men and women across the world identify as Muslims,” said Hafsa Kara-Mustapha in an exclusive interview with Fars News Agency.

Elsewhere in the interview, she said that western media outlets are lavishing attention to Islam and Muslims in an attempt to portray a black and violent picture of this peaceful religion and also to make sure that no international community would take swipe at their own practice of brutality against innocent people.

Hafsa Kara-Mustapha is a political analyst specializing in the Middle East and Africa. She has worked for Reuters and the FT group. Her works have been published in the Middle East magazine, Jane’s Foreign report and El Watan. She is also a regular commentator on TV discussing international affairs.

What follows is the full text of the interview:

Q: The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, has penned an open letter to the young people of the West, urging them to seek out their own understanding of Islam with the help of primary and original sources and NOT the prejudiced views. The letter encourages the younger generation to read the Holy Quran, warning them about a flood of misinformation about Islam in the West. What’s your perspective on the message?

A: The message itself is one of great wisdom that aims to foster understanding between different groups and build bridges between the Muslim world and the West. It’s a simple appeal to younger generations who are curious and now have the means, thanks in great part to the internet, to access the necessary knowledge to understand what Islam genuinely means and how its core message is about humanity and justice. Hopefully people will learn to look beyond the media headlines and understand why 1.6bn men and women across the world identify as Muslims.

Q: It seems that western governments are making all-out efforts in order to marginalize Islam and Quran and then promote Islamophobia throughout the world. In order to accomplish this, their mainstream media outlets are spreading false narratives on Islam and Muslims all around the clock and, in fact, are putting many obstacles in the way of the youth trying to learn about Islamic teachings. What’s your take on that?

A: I think one of the important things pointed out by Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, is the direct link between certain groups claiming to act in the name of Islam and their connections to Western governments. ‘Don’t allow them to hypocritically introduce their own recruited terrorists as representatives of Islam.’

We know that Hakim Belhadj of Libya or that Aimen Dean from Saudi – to name but a few – worked closely with American agencies. Presidential hopeful and ex-secretary of state Hillary Clinton even admitted that the US played an active role in the creation and training of terrorist groups using Islam as a cover. It is therefore important to remind people who are curious about world events to research what is happening in the world today and what are the motivations of those pushing for a clash between Muslims and the rest of the world. It is abundantly clear that there are many in western governments in particular that are feeding this image of a violent religion in a bid to distract from their own violence that happens on a daily basis. As a man of religion, [Ayatollah] Khamenei had very forgiving words for western governments and their supposed contrition in relation to their past crimes. Black people in America remain victims of discrimination and despite its imperialist past, the West continues to invade and wage wars against weaker nations. Iraq is now host to the ISIL [terrorist group] as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Syria is overrun by terror groups that were funded by French and British governments. Time and time again western governments continue to act in ways that causes death and misery across the world and they don’t appear to want to change their ways.

Their economies are highly reliant on wars which are imperative to always feed their populations with the idea of a permanent enemy. In the recent past it was Soviet Russia, now it’s Islam, soon it will be the Chinese etc…

The West, it seems, revels in the idea of having a constant enemy.

Q: The Iranian Leader’s message was well received by the younger generation who agree only by reading the Holy Quran can one understand the core values of Islam. Also world mainstream media and dozens of high-profile figures have so far highlighted the importance of the letter given the current situation in the West. What do you think?

A: I’m not sure that is the case, the problem is that the Islamophobia industry is so well tuned that anything coming from an Islamic figure will automatically be dismissed. So instead of actually taking the time to read and appreciate what [Ayatollah] Khamenei is saying, people will refuse to even take on board what is being said because it directly contradicts their expectations of what a Muslim scholar should be.

You will note that the Muslims that are often promoted on western mainstream media are those who spew out hateful messages. They’re the ones that are constant features on TV and while they may be a handful, they’re shown round the clock to promote an image of a hateful religion that feeds into this image of what the tabloids are presenting as Islam.

This in fact goes far deeper than the events we are seeing in the Middle East through terror groups such as ISIL. Everyday, western audiences are bombarded with information about Muslims that appears to confirm a stereotypical image of a violent group of people. So while day in day out, children are abused, women are raped by non-Muslims, when one Muslim man commits a crime it becomes somewhat a reflection of the entire Muslim community when a crime committed by a Christian, Jew or Atheist European is accidental even if it happens every day.

The problem is that while [Ayatollah] Khamenei’s message is a very important one, you cannot force people who have closed their ears to listen.

Interview by Javad Arab Shirazi