This Facebook post destroys the notion of blaming Muslims for Brussels - in 44 words

The attack on Brussels airport and the city's metro system left at least 31 dead and in its wake panic, and all too often bigotry, seemed to be the dominant reaction.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump advocated the use of waterboarding (a torture method deemed illegal in international law) as a response to captured terror suspects.

People took to Twitter to blame refugees for the attack:

And #StopIslam began trending on Twitter before the attackers had even been identified.

However, the hashtag soon became a tool that was used to point out the ridiculousness of condemning an entire religion, practised by 1.6 billion people peacefully across the world, on the acts of a minute minority whose political aspirations dictate their acts of terror.

And then this Facebook post from Scottish Green Party candidate Gary Dunion happened:

Gentle reminder that the aim of [Isis] terrorism in Europe is specifically to turn European societies against Muslims.

So if you're exploiting the Brussels attacks to push your Islamophobic, anti-immigration agenda you are nothing but a useful idiot in the service of ISIS.

The post has already been shared almost 2,000 times.

Indeed, his statement is backed up by the words of counterterrorism expert Harleen Gambhir, who said this in an article for the Washington Post:

The strategy is explicit. The Islamic State explained after the January attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine that such attacks 'compel the Crusaders to actively destroy the garrison themselves… Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatise… or they [emigrate] to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the Crusader governments and citizens.'

The group calculates that a small number of attackers can profoundly shift the way that European society views its 44 million Muslim members and, as a result, the way European Muslims view themselves.

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