Taroudante - After the successful trust experiment of an unknown blindfolded Muslim man in Paris, another moving trust experiment, where a young Muslim man blindfolded himself with a sign asking for hugs, has found its way to the UK.To fight against racism and Islamophobia in UK, Yusef Pirot, a 16-year-old British Muslim, stood with open arms for two hours in the middle of Nottingham with a sign saying: “I trust you. Do you trust me? Give me a hug.”
Taroudante – After the successful trust experiment of an unknown blindfolded Muslim man in Paris, another moving trust experiment, where a young Muslim man blindfolded himself with a sign asking for hugs, has found its way to the UK.
To fight against racism and Islamophobia in UK, Yusef Pirot, a 16-year-old British Muslim, stood with open arms for two hours in the middle of Nottingham with a sign saying: “I trust you. Do you trust me? Give me a hug.”
The video, showing strangers hugging Yusef, went viral on social media with millions of views.
For Yusef, the aim is to spread a message of peace and trust in Nottingham in the wake of the Paris attacks.
“I was shocked by the Paris attacks. Why would anyone want to hurt another human being and why would they kill innocent people for no reason?” Yusef said.
“The stereotype is not right and these extremists are brainwashed – what they’re doing is not what Islam is about,” he added.
The initiative of the young Muslim attracted divided opinions on social media. Some hail him for trying to distance himself from the heinous acts of ISIS, while others accused him of “attention seeking”.
“Very brave, however he shouldn’t have to justify himself or his religion because of some extremist actions abroad. We are not all mindless thugs who think all people with brown skin are terrorists,” wrote Facebook user Mark Dack.
While Yusef received a lot of hugs from strangers and words of praise and encouragement, he could not escape the insulting words of some racist passersby.
“When I was blindfolded I heard a few people saying negative things – one person said to his friend, what would happen if I punched him in the face?” he said.
