Discriminating Democrocies

Hello again,

Some serious business, not media-related. I had to write an article about "discrimination" for English. After some research I wrote the article below. Interesting what we do not know about our own government...

Discriminating Democracies

Discrimination is all around us. Maybe we do not see it every single day, but wherever you are, wherever you work, wherever you will go, it’s there. Martin Luther King described a dream in 1963, but now in 2010, that dream is still far from realisation. Today, this article does not only refer to the racial part of discrimination, but also the discrimination of religion.

According to an article by Steven Greenhouse that has been published last week in The New York Times, the effects of 9/11 are still very negative for Muslims working in the United States. This article is interesting if you know what happened in the Netherlands. A few weeks ago there was a rumour about the Dutch government donating 1 million dollar to the US for the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York. Of course, the attacks of 9/11 are in the past and you have to look forward, but building an Islamic centre near Ground Zero has its side effects and is perhaps a bit provocative.

Since the news of the construction became public, several complaints of discrimination were reported to the E.E.O.C (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). For example: An 18-year old Muslim girl was refused a job at Abercrombie & Fitch because she wears a headscarf. Another example is the fact that lots of Muslim workers are called “Osama” or “terrorist” by their co-workers, who started the name-calling even before the news of the Islamic centre came out. (The New York Times, 2010) Though, the complaints of employment discrimination are increasing every day now the mosque will be constructed. Another interesting anecdote is about the 1 million dollar donation. In The Netherlands this fact wasn’t made public. You can ask yourself why the government remained silent. A suggestion: The Dutch people will not be pleased hearing about their tax money is going to a mosque in New York City while the country itself needs to save money.

It is possible that many people unintentionally generalize people from another religion and discriminate the whole group with those same beliefs. If you reflect this statement to the US, it means that many of the Muslim people living in the US are blamed for the attack of 9/11 of which they personally had nothing to do with.
There are two sides to this story. The Dutch government chose to not mention the fact they are giving money to the mosque because they want to prevent the Dutch people for blaming the Muslims in Holland for “stealing their tax money”. This is a way of the government to keep the peace. On the other hand the government of the US made it very public they are going to build a mosque near Ground Zero. So in the US the Muslims pay that price now, because they are being discriminated. In The Netherlands the non-Muslim people pay the price literally, even though they are totally unaware of the fact where their money is going, because the government excluded the media from this donation process.

Democracy stands for freedom; freedom of religion, culture, freedom to express your opinion, and being a part of the decisions a country makes. If you reflect those aspects of democracy, what kind of democracies are The Netherlands and the United States of America actually?