Best to get this out of the way from the start: Islam is a
religion and a religious ideology, not a
race, therefore the recurrent charge that Islam’s critics
are racist is nothing more than a thin smokescreen.
Yet this truism is repeatedly rejected by Muslim spokesmen.
Visit the Islamophobia Watch website and you will find among the many
attempts at a definition (e.g. “the fear or hatred of Islam”) this
qualification:
[T]he term “Islamophobia” does not adequately express
the full range and depth of antipathy towards Islam and Muslims in
the West today. It is an inadequate term. A more accurate
expression would be “anti-Islamic racism” for it combines the
elements of dislike of a religion and active discrimination against
the people belonging to that religion.
Doubtless”
active discrimination against the people belonging to
[a] religion” is repellant, but it is not racist. You may be
anti-Islamic or anti-Christian or anti-Judaic, or like the
journalist Christopher Hitchens anti-religion
in toto, and
still have a profound respect for all races. Indeed the equation of
religion and race has long been the favorite hobbyhorse of genuine
racists. Were not the Nazis adamant that Jewry was both a religion
and — first and foremost — a race?
It is easy to understand this fixation with race. The race card
is the most effective way to silence critics and undermine
the credibility of one’s opponent. When legitimate debate fails cry
racism. In this way Muslims piggyback on the legitimate animosity
toward racial bigotry.
Definitions of Islamophobia seem likely to multiply until they
encompass every activity short of looking askance at a Muslim. Here
is yet another definition, this time put together by the Commission
on British Muslims and Islamophobia:
1) Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and
unresponsive to change.
2) Islam is seen as separate and ‘other’. It does not have values
in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not
influence them.
3) Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric,
irrational, primitive and sexist.
4) Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of
terrorism and engaged in a ‘clash of civilisations’.
5) Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political
or military advantage.
6) Criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of
hand.
7) Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory
practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream
society.
8) Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.
Clearly none of these accusations are racist — indeed, no
particular races are mentioned — and most are either antithetical
(“Hostility toward Islam is used to justify discriminatory
practices toward Muslims”) or self-evidently true, e.g., the charge
that Islam is a political ideology and is used for political or
military advantage. The commissioners for some reason deny this,
apparently unaware that Islam’s founder was an eminent military and
political leader. Similarly the suggestion that Islam is not a
monolithic bloc was refuted during the Danish cartoon kerfuffle
when Muslims from all nations and sects came together as one to
denounce the publication of editorial cartoons depicting
Le
Prophete Mahomet.
Another of the preceding sub-definitions (e.g., that “Islam is
seen as inferior to the West”) stupidly contrasts a specific
religion with a geopolitical, historical and cultural entity.
Perhaps the commissioners meant to say that the Middle East is seen
as inferior to the West, or Islam is seen as inferior to
Christianity or secularism? Whatever the Commission on British
Muslims and Islamophobia meant it was unable to articulate it,
which is not surprising considering its finished product. As for
Islam being a barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist religion,
what else would one call the traditions of forced marriage, the
stoning of gays, genital mutilation, the murder of apostates, etc.,
etc.?
THE CHARGE OF Islamophobia invariably sends the government and
police into a panic. This summer the Islamic Human Rights
Commission accused British TV network Channel 4 with “Islamophobia”
and stirring up racial hatred after it broadcast a documentary
titled Undercover Mosque. In the film an investigative
journalist secretly recorded the strange goings on at the Green
Lane mosque in Birmingham, England, including fanatical imams
condemning democracy, opposing integration, and praising the
Taliban for killing coalition troops.
In one of history’s great ironies, the local police and the
Crown Prosecution Service first considered charging the radical
imams portrayed in the film with criminal incitement. But after
concluding that no crime had been committed, the government decided
to charge the investigative journalists instead. Real life does not
get any more surreal than this.
Government officials claimed the documentary “distorted” the
truth, employed “selective quoting,” and used words and phrases
“out of context.” It is unclear how the filmmakers misrepresented
Dr. Ijaz Mian’s statement that “You cannot accept the rule of the
kaffir [derogatory term for non-Muslim]. We have to rule ourselves
and we have to rule the other.” Or Abu Usamah’s remark that “We
hate the Kaffir! Whether those kaffir are from the UK or the US!”
But then as Andrew Anthony speculated in the Observer,
perhaps Messrs Mian and Usamah were innocently rehearsing for a
stage play.
Maryam Namazie, spokesperson of the Council of ex-Muslims of
Britain, has argued that the UK media has been too soft in its
coverage of Islam. The political Islamist movement in Britain and
Europe, she says, has engineered a “victim status,” whereby
criticism of Islam is being equated to racism against Muslims.
“Criticizing a belief is not racism, it is not the case that
Muslims are being vilified.” Meanwhile the attitude in Britain,
according to Channel 4’s Kevin Sutcliffe, has degraded into one of
“if you don’t like the message shoot the messenger.”
The upshot is that if you offend the Muslim community, you will
suffer for it — if not via death threats, then by lawsuits, fines
or the loss of a broadcasting license. In this atmosphere it would
seem prudent to simply keep your mouth shut. Happily a few
journalists are still willing to risk threats, criminal prosecution
and their careers to discover the truth.
Christopher Orlet writes the Existential Journalist
blog.
