What is Islamophobia?
According to this disputed Wiki page, Islamophobia is:
defined as the phenomenon[1] of a prejudice against or demonization of Muslims which manifests itself in general negative attitudes, violence, harassment, discrimination, and stereotyping (and particularly being vilified in the media).As a concept, Islamophobia follows in the hallowed footsteps of concepts like speciesism, womynhood and McCarthyism; consciousness-raising attempts to stifle criticism instead of debating it; political correctness that uses feelings of victimization instead of reason as a weapon in an attempt to force people to stop saying words or phrases that frighten, offend or annoy.
The concept of Islamophobia (and the related issue of Islamophobia watching) hasn't made as much progress here as it has in in Britain and Europe. This is probably due to the protection offered by our constitution. It may also be due to our somewhat uniquely pragmatic, American attitudes. (bullsh*t is a word that is difficult to translate into many European languages). Most of us instinctively shy away from participating in efforts to blacklist Americans for Un-Muslim activities.
However, recent right-wing efforts to rewrite the history of McCarthyism, to prove that Tailgunner Joe "got a bad rap" may have opened the door to the emergence of right-wing PC.
According to Ann Coulter, McCarthy succeeded because he "made it a disgrace to be a Communist. Domestic Communism could never recover." She echoes the primary goals of political correctness - don't fight your enemies using reason - instead, disgrace them, blacklist them, shout them down.
PC for right wingers conveniently ignores political correctness's Leninst roots, an ideological struggle from Lenin to Mao to McCarthy to Coulter and CAIR.
Johann Hari, a British writer who has suffered from various forms of political correctness and McCarthyism wrote a scathing condemnation of recent right-wing efforts to polish McCarthy's image:
The corpse of Joe McCarthy is being paraded before us. The more extreme wing of the US right believe he offers us a model for how to fight a war against Islamic fundamentalism. They're right - and it's a model that leads straight to liquidated democracy and defeat.Hari also wrote this about Islamophobia watchers:
Do you believe a religious leader who fights to save Section 28 and says gay people spread disease is a fulminating bigot? Do you believe a "leading cleric" who advocates stoning gay people to death should be denounced? Do you believe sharia law – which requires gay people to be lashed or stoned – is always and forever unacceptable? Then, according to an energetic and aggressive group of white straight boys who surreally consider themselves to be on the left, you are an "Islamophobe" and "objectively pro-Nazi"He was refrerring to this British website, Islamophobia Watch:
The real racism comes from Islamophobia Watch itself, and the people who parrot their claims. Where Tatchell [the accused gay Islamophobe] treats Muslims as the equal citizens of a democracy, people with open minds and a free intelligence, they treat Muslims as feeble children who cannot cope with the scorn we routinely (and rightly) pour on Catholics and Protestants. They argue that Muslims are so sensitive and uncurious that their ideas must be ring-fenced from criticism, with the police arresting anybody who vehemently criticises their beliefs.Fortunately, we have a constitution here, so Islamophobia watchers can't summon the police to stifle debate. Despite recent civilian efforts to enforce political correctness, our government hasn't raised any criticism of "Islamophobia". In fact, they enthusiastically welcome Europeans like Hirsi Ali who have been blacklisted as Islamophobes into the USA.
Still, the Islamophobia Watchers have their crusade...umm...jihad or..hmm..which word is more or less of a thoughtcrime?
One of these sites, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, has nominated the bloggers at Harry's Place (a former home for Johann Hari's posts), along with King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Bruce Willis, George Bush, blogger Robert Spencer and the Organisers of Toronto Supports Denmark Rally for their Islamophobe of the Year award.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission defines Islamophobia as "intolerance". Here are photos of a protest they sponsored, including a table full of the usual Hezbollah tchotchkes.
The site that posted these pictures is linked to from "Islamophobic" Harry's Place. Which may be one reason why they're nominated for this 'award'.
The biggest problem with Islamophobia and the related blacklisting (other than the attempts to ignore the constitution and stifle free speech) is what escapes our attention while we're so busy watching each other; if we're fighting a war against terrorism, who is paying attention to the terrorists?
Who is the 'enemy', Republicans, Democrats or the "Community of the Impoverished"? Islamophobia Watch or the "International Quranic Open University Inc". Robert Spencer or Jamaat ul-Fuqra. Any guesses?
Well, it was a trick question. The Community of the Impoverished, Jamaat ul-Fuqra and "International Quranic Open University Inc" are all part of the the same group, a Pakistan-based armed and violent militia that is recognized as a terrorist organization by the US government and that may have bases near your town.
In the USA.
I wouldn't have known about this group if I hadn't been reading a site that is often maligned as being "Islamophobic", Gates of Vienna.
How many readers out there knew about this group? How many people know where Al Furqra's home base is located? How many people know about the Muslim Brotherhood's activities in Minnesota? How many know about al Qaeda's efforts to find recruits in Queens, NY?
Okay, I'm not seeing many hands. Now, how many of us have gone nutpicking in LGFs comment section? How many think that Democrats/Republicans/Islamophobes/appeasers are doing al Qaeda's work for them? How many think that Democrats/Republicans/Islamophobes/appeasers are the 'enemy'? How many people avoid reading or linking to sites that have been blacklisted as Islamophobic, despite the fact that these sites contain hard-to-find information about real, often local terrorist groups?
Maybe we have been looking for hate in all the wrong places.
For one thing, I have Muslim friends -- a few. They don't mingle much here. For another, I don't want to see Islam disappear, though I am afraid it might, and for the most ironic of reasons: the oil is located where the Arabs are.
By way of explanation, I was sent a Venezulean blog today (I'm looking for South American bloggers who can reach the Anglosphere by writing in Englihs). This blog quote a famous Venezulean author who labels oil as "exrement" -- I can't give you the whole quote since Blooger seems to have made Gates of Vienna unavailable. However, his quote made me ponder on that...
...if there were no oil in the ME, if the ME had been left undisturbed and thus the corrupt, demented (and deranged) Saudis had not been able to use petro dollars to spread Wahhibism, would we now be dealing with the phenomenon of transnational terrorism?
Hmmm...maybe we would. There's always perfidious France.
______________
Joe McCarthy was a sad soul. Full of hubris and alcohol.
But those were scary times, when it seemed Communism really was going to steamroll over the whole world. Even the organized, wide-spread tentacles of Jihad are not as fully threatening. Perhaps because they are not a state. Perhaps because the deaths from Lenin and Co. are not so numerous. Remember, there was China in on the deal, too.
That's the only reason McCarthy got as far as he did...and the conservative Catholics were reluctant to put a sock in his mouth because there were so few Catholics visible in public life back then.
But...plus ça change, no?
Boy, I sure do wish we'd been nominated for the Islamophobia Awards...ah, well. IF LGF is on the list, we'd never win. Not to mention Jihad Watch or The Religion of Peace.
If we'd listened to Winston Churchill back in 1921, when he said:
"The Wahabis profess a life of exceeding austerity, and what they practise themselves they rigorously enforce on others. They hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahabi villages for simply appearing in the streets. It is a penal offence to wear a silk garment. Men have been killed for smoking a cigarette, and as for the crime of alcohol, the most energetic supporter of the temperance cause in this country falls far behind them. Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and bloodthirsty, in their own regions the Wahabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account, and they have been, and still are, very dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and to the whole institution of the pilgrimage, in which our Indian fellow-subjects are so deeply concerned."
..we could have avoided a big mess. And, if we had never listened to the advice of Middle East 'experts', like Jack Philby, and if we'd let other tribes take over Mecca, the Sauds would have been what they were always meant to be, a bunch of desert rats who eat sand and camel spiders, shunned by all civilized people.
But those were scary times, when it seemed Communism really was going to steamroll over the whole world. Even the organized, wide-spread tentacles of Jihad are not as fully threatening. Perhaps because they are not a state. Perhaps because the deaths from Lenin and Co. are not so numerous. Remember, there was China in on the deal, too.
You're right, the Jihad isn't as threatening. If it weren't for multiculturalism, the bizarre idea that we must win the hearts and minds of people who are currently waging war against us - and Jack Philby, the jihadis would have been eliminated a long time ago. They're not as tough as the Soviets, they're not as clever as the Chinese and their combined miltary forces are about equal to Grenada's.
Boy, I sure do wish we'd been nominated for the Islamophobia Awards...ah, well. IF LGF is on the list, we'd never win.
It is an honor to be nominated - that's a pretty nice list - kings, statesmen, Bruce Willis. All the cool people are Islamophobes - it's the new black :-)
Islamophobia-watching is bad because its an attempt to use cheesy mulitculti bullying tactics to limit free speech. It's also a waste of time.
But otherwise, I don't really have an opinon about whether people who pray 5 times a day are good or bad as a group. Individually, some are probably be good, bad, or in between. It depends on the person. I think most Americans would like to take an 'I'm ok, you're ok' attitude towards Muslims. We don't bug them, they don't bug us.
In fact, I like to avoid the whole religion issue altogether. Islamist paramilitaries are waging war for the same reason everyone else wages war- they want more land, money, power. For the most part, religion is a recruiting tool.
If someone preaches a violent or take-over-and-convert strategy against the West, that's not a reason to dislike them. They're doing the job they're paid to do. If we're at war and if we want to win that war, it's necessary to kill or imprison violent combatants and their supporters, but, that's war. It's nothing personal.
Those nominations are proof of how nutty that site is. If I could get nominated, I'd love to go to the awards ceremony..
And when a source shows itself to be hateful and nasty and to twist what others say and take them out of context, they lose credibiliity.
We have thousands of Muslims serving in our armed forces, with tens of thousand Muslim-Americans having relatives serving there. You think they don't feel the atred and vitriol being thrown at their entire communities from the likes of Robert Spencer? It's obscene.
These people hurt our allies and hurt our cause. It's ghastly.
This is just ridiculous.
The problem so far has been that some who complain about Islamophobia call everything Islamophobia. That's just as silly.
I don't think any US servicemen want us to restrict our speech for their benefit. I think they'd like more balanced coverage of the war, but I think they're fighting for our right to speak out. At least, that's what most of them say.
But my opinion is just guesswork. What, exactly, has Robert Spencer said that Muslim servicemen have criticized? Do you have any links?
We have thousands of conservative Christians serving in our armed forces. If servicemen are reading these posts, what would they think of what you said here?
By the way, Scott?
You worship an evil and sadistic God. I understand you and your theology: anyone who does not embrace Jesus as Lord is to be pitched into the eternal Lake of Fire. After all, Jesus offered them salvation and they rejected it. So they utterly deserve to be tortured for all eternity for saying "Hmm, I'm not so sure."
If your little daughters aren't so sure that Jesus is Lord? Torture for them for all eternity. They may only live 10 or 20 or 30 years on this Earth, but they weren't sure that Jesus was really God. And so to the lake of fire with them: your eternally loving God will torture them with fire and brimstone for all of eternity. After all, they were not sure.
You worship an evil, wicked, despicable God, Scott. If what you have to say is true then I'll spend the rest of eternity spitting in his face. And maybe some of your children will be alongside me. After all they might have had some doubts and might have questioned.
You worship an evil, twisted, perverse, and sadistic God, Scott. To your shame.
Go on and keep worshipping your sadist-God. I will have nothing to do with him. [spit]
Although you had said that you were using a debating tactic here, Scott responded in kind, and you continued to abuse him to the point where he had to abandon the debate. This "debate", like most similar "Islamophobia" debates on Dean's World, descended into abuse.
And by the way, "blacklisting": so if I criticize a white supremacist nutjob who hates blacks, jews, and catholics, and loves to queer-bash, you would accuse me of "blacklisting" him?
It depends on the tactics used. In this post, you said:
To me it would be akin to, in World War II, declaring ourselves at war with "Germanic People," "Latin People," and "Southeast Asians." Not Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy and Tojo's Japan. No, we would have declared that we were at war with anyone of Germanic or Latin descent, and anyone who happened to be short, yellow, and slant-eyed (to put it rudely and crassly).
There are some on the Right who believe this. But I think they're badly hurting our efforts. I think such people on the Right are hurting the war effort and not helping it.
You then proceeded to call a commenter who disagreed with your post a traitor:
Brian: You lying traitor. I have provided specifics time and time again, and all you have offered in response are vague handwaving generalizations and out-of-context, cherry-picked quotations of the Koran.
Indeed, intellectual coward that you are, you have not answered my specifics, such as why you do not acknowledge Muslims like Hamid Karzai and Nouri al-Maliki as our allies. You do not do that, because you can't: you're such an intellectual lightweight that you say nothing about them—you God-damned Benedict Arnold turncoat traitor.
Oh, but you have some cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes from the Koran, which you use to spit on our Muslim allies, you God-Damned traitor son of a bitch.
I hope you know I only keep you around to help emphasize my point: there are people on the Right who are fucking traitors, which is what you are.
Until you acknowledge and embrace our Muslim allies, that is all you will ever be: a fucking traitor [spit].
That was out of line, Dean. That accusation wasn't just McCarthyesque, it was obscene.
When I first read that statement, I expected you to come to your senses and apologize. You still haven't. In fact, you followed that attack with subsequent [spit] attacks on more commenters.
You can't legally blacklist anyone and you can't legally force anyone to change their opinons. If you weren't a supporter of free speech, you wouldn't have let me post this on your site, and thank you for that.
So, what are you trying to accomplish by setting up a weekly Islamophobe watch? What are you trying to accomplish by accusing people of treason, accusing them of lacking conscience and accusing them of hurting our war efforts? What is your goal?
Is this the best tactic to use to acheive your goal?
Every Islamophobia watch site I've seen descends into similar abuse. This seems to be the nature of the thing.
"Anti-Islamophobia-watching" and hatred of all Muslims are both a form of bias. As such, they're are difficult to defend with traditional tools, like reason. As they say, "Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out." That may be why the debates usually descend quickly.
It is YOUR jihad. It is YOU trying to create a caliphate with your murderous genocidal Israeli "allies".
The moral equivalence is terrifying. Criticism is equivalent to jihad? And the gratuitous anti-semitism at the end is well gratuitous and likely a projection of the Arab attitude unto Americans and Jews.
It's still much too excessive, but I would find greater agreement with:
It is an Arab jihad. It is the Arabs trying to create a caliphate with their murderous genocidal Muslim allies.
I haven't caught onto the full extend of the debate. I'll instead draw from what I have understand of Islamophobia and the people who use the term.
The definition of Islamophobia is loosely the discrimination and prejudice or the incitment of discrimination and prejudice against all Muslims. I'd object to that sort of speech and activity in our society.
But the people who use the term apply it to much more than just that. Criticism and self-criticism is essential to the civil societies and democracies that exist in Europe and America. The Islamophobia label has been applied to many well-supported instances of criticism and occasional self-criticism of specific policies and ideas that specific Muslims have espoused. That is inappropriate.
If someone makes leaping generalizations or makes unfounded accusations, we should call it out for what it is. If Islamophobia would only be used with that sort of disgression, it would be more credible.
bigotry is ugly even our own bigotry..just because you are an American..U.S citizen..does not give you the right to hate others 'non americans' the way you do.
And yes, our foreign policy is wrongful. We do not trust our government when it comes to our domestic policy so, why do think it is out of line when some around the world
say that our gov. foreign policy is wrong?
All this hate towards others..all these wars will do us no good. Just and fair foreign policy will.