Do you remember when a few fans of a Premier League club were filmed chanting “Salah is a bomber” (meaning Liverpool’s Mohammed Salah)?

Why would they choose this specific insult? Simply, because he is a practicing Muslim. If you want to make someone angry, you must call them the worst stereotyped insults.

Muslims are terrorists.

I hate debating this absolute non-issue about Muslims being violent. It’s not even close to being worthy of paying any attention to. Muslims have always been one of the most peaceful people around the world, it would be difficult to find a Muslim country that dropped two nuclear bombs on its neighboring country or created concentration camps for people from other religions, and by difficult, I mean impossible.

This whole hullabaloo about Islam being violent and Muslims being terrorists, is a nothing burger created by the western media to make you, dear westerner, afraid and submissive at all times. Your government is your only resort from the big bad Muslim (or as fearmongers like to pronounce it Moozlim)

My personal theory is that people don’t really believe that, they just pretend to go along with whatever narrative the media feeds them because they find pushing back tiresome and why even bother?

In a famous debate at the University of Cambridge between Mahdi Hassan (a British Muslim journalist) and a bunch of Muslim haters: Mahdi asked them a simple question, if you truly believe that Muslims are violent were you really afraid to come here tonight? Were you worried that I might open up my jacket and blow the whole place up?

The answer was obviously no.

No one truly thinks that Muslims are dangerous, including the most extreme haters of Islam, you know how I know that? Because the real indicator of your beliefs isn’t your words, it’s your actions.

We all know that these people who made the chant would sprint like Usain Bolt toward Salah to take a picture with him.

Even the worst Islamophobia in the world would pay money to have dinner with Zidane, Benzema, Ozil, Pogba, Mané, Kanté, or Dembélé (if he wasn’t injured at the time), or Mahrez,  or Adebayor.

Who else? Or Ribery, or Anelka, or Abidal, or Sterling.

If all these people follow a violent and evil religion, then I think it’s time for us to reconsider this idea.