Word of warning for all successful British athletes who want to make their country proud by dominating their sport - No amount of gold medals or world titles is going to prevent ignorant, backwards, Islamophobic fuckwits from hurling abuse at you on social media if you share a picture of yourself peacefully praying in a mosque. Because, y'know, Islam = terrorism, rape and torture and of course Christianity is such a peaceful religion that has never been responsible for any atrocities or wars and the Catholic church has no history of child abuse scandals whatsoever.
For fuck sake.
Anthony Joshua, the undefeated IBF Heavyweight Champion of the world and Olympic gold medalist had the 'audacity' to share a picture of himself enjoying a quiet period of prayer in a mosque in Dubai, yesterday as he takes in a spell of down time before preparation for the biggest bout of his career, against Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium on 29th April, begins.
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Win or lose at Wembley at the end of April, Joshua is still a monster success story, being that he is only the second boxer in history, after Joe Frazier, to win a world heavyweight title whilst still reigning as Olympic champion. Born in Watford to Nigerian parents, Joshua is rightfully championed as a hero and an inspiration, a child of two African immigrants who, in just over three months, in front of 80,000 people, could be celebrating a second world title victory in what is set to be the biggest drawing fight in British boxing history.
For the record, and not that it should matter either way, but Joshua isn't a practicing Muslim, nor is he officially attached to any religion, as he revealed in an interview last year by saying, "I don't have a preferred religion: I'd have to do research. I was born a Christian but as I've grown into my own man I don't attach myself to a religion; 100 per cent I have faith. Then it's locking into what suits me."
The thing is, there's tragically a sizable portion of people in the world who believe that anything related to Islam is evil 'because ISIS and terrorism and all that'. So when Joshua shared the completely inoffensive, tranquil photograph of himself in a Dubai mosque taking in asr (afternoon prayer) , every dredge of society decided the IBF champ was no longer a British hero who should be celebrated for his accomplishments, but rather castigated for joining in with a religion they don't understand or have any wish to understand outside of whatever their preferred bigoted literature peddles them.
Word of warning, as you can imagine, the following tweets contain a vulgar amount of ignorant bullshit and in sharing them we are no way promoting them, but rather pointing out how fucked up modern society is when a young successful British athlete is vilified for daring to set foot inside a mosque:
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You get the idea. Again, just to reiterate, Joshua was raised as a Christian but doesn't officially affiliate himself to any single religion, so, as is so often the case nowadays, facts are being ignored and ignorance and bigotry is spewed forth. Presumably those who are hurling Islamophobic abuse towards Joshua would gladly say the same things to his face, too, as they blatantly feel so strongly about this one photograph.
In fact, rather than continue to get angry at the braindead comments of the aforementioned terrified, insular, narrow minded fuckwits on social media, I'll share a memorable quote from Adam Hill, host of Channel 4's The Last Leg, who ranted so pertinently on Islamophobia in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, in 2015.
"There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world right now. 1.6 billion. As someone pointed out on Twitter this week, if Islam really bred terror, we'd all be dead right now.
"The combined forces in total of Islamic State, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda makes up 0.003% of the global Muslim population.
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"Less than 2% of all terror attacks are carried out in the name of Islam. You've got more chance of being killed by a bee sting, a peanut or the NHS."
Fortunately, there were plenty of Joshua's Twitter followers who defended the champ and thus helping restore a modicum of faith in humanity:
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It'll be interesting to see whether those criticising and unfollowing Joshua have the same deep seated hatred for Christian athletes due to the heinous acts of groups who affiliate themselves with various forms of Christianity including the Ku Klux Klan, the Army of God and Lambs of Christ in the United States, the Anti-Balaka militia in the Central African Republic and several other known terror organisations and guerrilla groups in countries such as India, Lebanon and Uganda.
No one, no matter what they're religion should be persecuted or vilified for peacefully seeking solace in a faith. And the fact, in 2017, that I'm even having to type that sentence is a damning indictment of the current state of the world in general.
Here's hoping Joshua further silences the haters with a historic performance at Wembley Stadium on 29th April.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Anthony Joshua, Boxing
