Note: Some on the information given below is paraphrased. Please see the original links for exact phrasing.
1) In 2015, a newspaper in the UK published a story about the owners of a Kabab restaurant in UK being arrested and fined after several people who ate their food became severely sick. The source of the sickness was a strain of E coli bacteria found in human faeces, which wound up in the food due to poor hand washing by the restaurant staff. The names and photographs of the owners were also released. They were Muslim.
Was that last sentence really necessary? As you'll find out, yes.
2) Fast forward five years later. In April 2020, a post on social media began doing the rounds claiming that these Muslim men had intentionally served food that was infected with faeces to Non Muslims. Specifically, it made the following claims:
That faeces was mixed with the food (not the bacteria, but actual faeces)
That the people running the restaurant had two sections in their kitchen - a clean one for Muslims, and an unclean one for Non-Muslims. The food in the unclean section was contaminated with faeces and served to Non-Muslims.
Along with this, there was also a lot more Muslim bashing that I suppose has become commonplace in India today.
For additional context, this post was put up a little after the 'Tablighi Jamaat' incident happened in India.
Why is that relevant? Because a few days later, Zee News ran a story based off that social media post, titled [English translation]: "Kabab was served with bodily waste, the mentality of Jamaatis prevails even abroad."
And for what it's worth, the names and faces of the restaurant owners were part of both the social media post and the Zee news article.
3) Around four months later, or to be precise, this morning, my dad suddenly looked up from his phone and said from the backseat of the car, "Listen to this… Muslim men caught serving food with faeces to Non Muslims." This was followed by what I assume are appropriate disgusted reactions by my parents. The chapter seemingly closed there, but not for me.
4) And that's precisely how I ended up searching for this news to determine its truth, only to find an article calling it out for the fake news that it is. I sent that to my parents the moment I found it. I'll be honest; I felt really vindicated the moment I found that article. But as the day has passed, the feeling of relief and vindication has slowly gotten replaced with....sadness.
I can't forget how easy it was for my parents to think this story was true. We live in an era of fake news. They both know that. And yet, their instinct was to believe it. I can't help but wonder if they would have been as quick to believe it had the headline said 'Hindus' instead of 'Muslims'. I wasn't surprised, but I was definitely disappointed.
And the really scary thing is, if they were so quick to believe this, what about the rest of the country? What about all the people who probably won't look up whether this is true or not? All the people who will read it and add it to their "List off reasons why Muslims are horrible people" and continue to go about their day?
We're in an era where hating Muslims has become the norm. I don't know, maybe this isn't new - maybe the hate was always there. But it's certainly gotten easier to voice that hate and act on it. And it's certainly gotten easier to spread that hate.
