Planting Seeds That Never Existed

Earlier this week, Boris Johnson was criticised for saying Muslim women wearing burkas (an outer garment worn by women in some Islamic tradition) "look like letter-boxes" and for comparing them to bank-robbers. Unsurprisingly, he has aggravated a number of people and has been criticised for his rather negligent comments. 

Not soon after, however, the chair of Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB), Imam Qari Asim MBE, stated that "Boris Johnson has legitimised hatred towards Muslim women by his burka remarks."

Rather counter-productively, making statements like this, could have even more negative consequences to society than the initial remarks themselves. It is completely understandable how Johnson's comments have caused offence to the Islam community, but to then state that they "legitimise hatred", is potentially even more inflammatory, and, unhelpfully plants that into the minds of the accused, and those that support the accused, when it was never there in the first place; thus, creating more scope for conflict than there was initially.

Exaggerating or hypothesising the consequences of people's actions in an accusatory manner, or deciding someone's intentions to be destructive, when it never was in the first place, will always cause more division and polarisation between the parties involved. We must always act with as much open-mindedness, integrity, and objectivity as possible when it comes to conflict, and refrain from 'adding fuel to the fire' as much as possible.