Islamophobia

[bindeweede]

I came across this article, link from an email from the NSS. Here is a short quote.

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."

Full article here...

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11961

[Muttley]

This is indicative of the blurring of the distinction between race and religion. You can't do anything about your race, not even by notionally changing your "nationality". Therefore in any reasonable society you should not expect be criticised solely on the basis of your race.

On the other hand, nothing forces you (theoretically) to follow any particular religion, so if you choose to follow one which comes in for criticism, whether justified or not, you should really take it on the chin, and present your best arguments to the contrary, or if you can't cope with that, change your beliefs.

Nations which take a sufficiently aggressive stance against others may ultimately have to face the consequences in terms of diplomatic and military action. Religions doing similar things might feel immune to such actions, but can they remain sure of that? History shows that powerful people will only tolerate being pushed so far.....

M.

[Cuddles]

I think part of the problem is that there is racism as well. It's sad, but even now there are a scarily large number of people who regard all foreigners, immigrants and people who look a bit different as bad. As the residents of South Park would say "They're taking our jobs". This has nothing to do with religion and applies to all immigrants, not just Muslims. However, the fact that Muslims can be connected with terrorists in the eyes of many through their religion, the religion come under attack as well and becomes synonymous with the immigrants. This means that criticism of Islam gets shouted down as racism and criticism of immigrants gets shouted down as attacking someone's religion.

People being people, this all ends up getting both the critics and those being criticised on the defensive. Muslims refuse to agree with their critics about anything because of the racist undertones, and their critics refuse to agree with them because of the perceived condoning of terrorism. Then it all comes down to us vs. them, with no-one particularly caring who exactly "us" or "them" actually are, race, religion or whatever.

Like so much of human conflict, it's basically just a failure to communicate. Rather sad really.

[bindeweede]

I think part of the problem is that there is racism as well. It's sad, but even now there are a scarily large number of people who regard all foreigners, immigrants and people who look a bit different as bad. As the residents of South Park would say "They're taking our jobs". This has nothing to do with religion and applies to all immigrants, not just Muslims. However, the fact that Muslims can be connected with terrorists in the eyes of many through their religion, the religion come under attack as well and becomes synonymous with the immigrants. This means that criticism of Islam gets shouted down as racism and criticism of immigrants gets shouted down as attacking someone's religion.

People being people, this all ends up getting both the critics and those being criticised on the defensive. Muslims refuse to agree with their critics about anything because of the racist undertones, and their critics refuse to agree with them because of the perceived condoning of terrorism. Then it all comes down to us vs. them, with no-one particularly caring who exactly "us" or "them" actually are, race, religion or whatever.

Like so much of human conflict, it's basically just a failure to communicate. Rather sad really.

Right! Sorry, but my post went wrong.

[tkingdoll]

It's difficult because most Muslims have dark skin. So it's an easy leap to equate 'criticising Muslims' with 'criticising the dark-skinned people'. It's also a lazy leap.