Stop what, you ask?
Coined in Great Britain a decade
ago, the neologism Islamophobia was launched in 1996 by a self-proclaimed
"Commission
on British Muslims and Islamophobia."
The word literally means "undue fear of Islam" but it is used to mean "prejudice
against Muslims"
and joins over
500 other phobias
spanning virtually every aspect of life.
The term has achieved a degree
of linguistic
and political acceptance, to the point that the secretary-general of the United
Nations
presided over a December 2004 conference titled "Confronting Islamophobia"
and in May a Council
of Europe summit
condemned "Islamophobia."
The term presents several problems,
however. First, what exactly constitutes an "undue fear of Islam" when
Muslims acting in the name of Islam today make up the premier source of
worldwide aggression, both verbal and physical, versus non-Muslims and
Muslims alike? What, one wonders, is the proper amount of fear?
Second, while prejudice against
Muslims certainly exists, "Islamophobia" deceptively conflates two distinct
phenomena: fear of Islam and fear of radical Islam. I personally experience
this problem: Despite writing again
and again
against radical Islam the ideology, not Islam the religion, I have been
made the runner-up
for a mock "Islamophobia Award"
in Great Britain, deemed America's "leading
Islamophobe,"
and even called an "Islamophobe
Incarnate."
(What I really am is an "Islamism-ophobe.")
Third, promoters of the "Islamophobia"
concept habitually exaggerate the problem:
·Law
enforcement: British Muslims
are said to suffer from persistent police discrimination but an actual
review of the statistics by Kenan
Malik makes
mincemeat of this "Islamophobia myth."
·Cultural:
Muslims "are faced with an extreme flow of anti-Islamic literature that
preaches hatred against Islam," claims the president of the Graduate School
of Islamic and Social Sciences in Virginia, Taha
Jabir Al-‘Alwani:
"novels, movies, books and researches. Just among the best selling novels
alone there are almost 1000 novels of this type." One thousand bestsellers
vilify Islam? Hardly. In fact, barely a handful do so (for example, The
Haj,
by Leon Uris).
·Linguistic:
A professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, Seyyed
Hossein Nasr, falsely reported (in his keynote
speech
at a U.N. event, "Confronting Islamophobia," reports
Alexander Joffe)
attempts to hide the Arabic origins of English words such as adobe
– which derives in fact from ancient Egyptian, not from Arabic.
·Historical:
The term anti-Semitism was originally used to describe sentiment
against Arabs living in Spain, Mr. Nasr also stated in his speech, and
was not linked to Jews until after World War II. Nonsense: anti-Semitism
dates back only to 1879, when it was coined by Wilhelm
Marr, and
has always referred specifically to hatred of Jews.
Fourth, Hizb ut-Tahrir's manipulation
of "Stop Islamophobia" betrays the fraudulence of this word. As the Sunday
Times article explains, "Ostensibly the campaign's goal is to fight
anti-Muslim prejudice in the wake of the London bombings," but it quotes
Anthony Glees of London's Brunel University to the effect that the real
agenda is to spread anti-Semitic, anti-Hindu, anti-Sikh, anti-homosexual,
and anti-female attitudes, as well as to foment resentment of Western influence.
Finally, calling moderate Muslims
(such as Irshad
Manji)
Islamophobes betrays this term's aggressiveness. As Charles
Moore writes
in the Daily Telegraph, moderate Muslims, "frightened of what the
Islamists are turning their faith into," are the ones who most fear Islam.
(Think of Algeria, Darfur, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.) "They cannot find
the courage and the words to get to grips with the huge problem that confronts
Islam in the modern world." Accusations of Islamophobia, Mr. Malik adds,
are intended "to silence critics of Islam, or even Muslims fighting for
reform of their communities." Another British Muslim, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown,
discerns an even more ambitious goal: "all too often Islamophobia is used
to blackmail society."
Muslims should dispense with this
discredited term and instead engage in some earnest introspection. Rather
than blame the potential victim for fearing his would-be executioner, they
would do better to ponder how Islamists have transformed their faith into
an ideology celebrating murder (Al-
Qaeda:
"You love life, we love death") and develop strategies to redeem their
religion by combating this morbid totalitarianism.
New York Sun
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October
25, 2005
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3075