A trap called Islamophobia

Introduction

‘Islamophobia’ is a trap. ‘Islamophobia’ is misleading terminology used to silence anyone criticizing or simply questioning Islam, its believers, institutions and religious practises. The net result is the immunization of an entire belief system.

(1) TWO PROBLEMS

A close look at the terminology - ‘islamophobia’ and ‘islamphobes’- reveals two problems.

(a) Phobia

The first problem is the word ‘phobia’.

‘Phobia’ means an excessive, unnatural and unreasonable fear, dislike or aversion. A typical example is ‘claustrophobia’: a phobia of tight, confined or crowded places, such as lifts or tunnels. The terms ‘islamophobia’ and ‘islamophobes’ imply, therefore, an irrational, unreasonable, excessive attitude. Just like there is no point in discussing safe lifts with your claustrophobic partner, it is suggested there is no point in reasoning with ‘islamophobes’. Something is wrong with them, full stop.

Now, it is one thing to give up discussing safe / unsafe lifts in warehouses, because the facts will simply prove your partner wrong. It is, however, something else altogether to dismiss a differing view on things as a ‘phobia’. Unlike tunnels, crowded rooms and lifts, a religion is not about facts and figures. It is about belief, conviction, choice. There is no reason to call my point of view on your point of view a phobia. Quite the opposite is true: a variety of opinions regarding religion is normal, as is the case with ethics, morality, ideology, political views, etcetera.
This is a very serious matter, as the ‘phobia’ is used to accuse ‘islamophobes’ of racism and discrimination, which is punishable by law in our countries. Even blasphemy is forbidden by law in more countries than you may think.

To define a different point of view as a ‘phobia’ is to choose medical, i.e. scientific terminology to discuss difference, variety or choice. Disagreement is here spoken of as a disease, a psychiatric category, a sign of abnormality. To label opponents as mentally ill deviants, is a sure sign of authoritarian thinking. We know what happens next: on the basis of a ‘scientific’ report, these ‘deviants’ are put away in asylums and re-education camps. This medical terminology serves a purpose: just like medicine distinguishes between health and disease, opinions or convictions can now be classified as either ’good = right = healthy’ or ‘bad = wrong = sick’, rendering all debate superfluous.

(b) Islam

There is a second problem: the word ‘islam’.

‘Islamopbobia’ indeed suggest there is but one Islam, a unified, monolithic belief system. This simply is not true. With Islamic factions accusing each other of apostasy and even waging war to prove their point, the conclusion is simple: there is no such thing as one Islam and there is, therefore, no such thing as ‘islamophobia’. That muslims who want Islam to operate within our democratic system and the constitutional state are threatened themselves by other muslims, is more proof that there is no such thing as ‘Islam’.

Result

As campaigns against ‘islamophobia’ and ‘islamophobes’ meet with success, the net outcome is not less discrimination or less racism, but something much more frightening: silence, censorship and self-censorship leading to the immunization of a religion, its believers, institutions and practises.
To declare oneself beyond criticism and comment, is simply discrimination in reverse.
It is to claim diversity in others, while refusing to apply it to oneself.
To accept comment and criticism as ‘offensive’ and therefore intolerable, is to exceptionalize one particular belief system and all its believers, institutions and practices. It is to create and normalize ghettos.

(2) A DOUBLE AMALGAMATION

The entire strategy is based on a double amalgamation.

Amalgamation 1: belief and the believer

The first amalgamation consists of mixing up ‘Islam’ and ‘muslim’, that’s to say Belief and Believer. If you criticize Islam (e.g. by writing book or drawing a caricature), you criticize each and every muslim all over the world. If you criticize a muslim, you slander Islam. In both cases, the ‘islamophobe’ will be accused of racism and discrimination.

By exchanging the religion (Islam) for its believers (muslims) and an ethical judgment (discrimination, racism) for a mental condition (phobia), ‘islamophobia’ has come to replace the clear and legal term ‘discrimination’. As a result of this amalgamation, anyone speaking out against Islam finds himself criticizing the muslims and vice versa... A trap, indeed.

By using this specific terminology, discrimination and racism regarding muslims, is disconnected from discrimination and racism in general. It is put ‘hors catégorie’, in a class of its own instead. Muslims, therefore, do not fight racism with other groups that say to suffer from it.

By suggesting that discrimination and racism with regard to muslims are primarily or even exclusively related to religion, a second disconnection is introduced: discrimination and racism are no longer linked to social or gender issues for instance. One’s identity is drawn entirely and uniquelyfrom religion.

Strangely, linguists see no problem in mingling ‘islam’ and ‘muslim’. According to the Oxford online dictionary, ‘islamophobia’ is ‘dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims’. Collins goes even further by forgetting about Islam altogether: islamophobia is ‘hatred or fear of Muslims or of their politics or culture’.

In these instances, ‘human rights’ are often called upon, e.g. non-discrimination or freedom of religion. It should be reminded that the basic concept of rights is that they pertain to people, not to organizations or structures. One simply cannot be accused of racism or discrimination of Islam.

Amalgamation 2: Racism and Discrimination

‘Islamophobia’ comprises a second amalgamation through mixing up ‘racism’ and ‘discrimination’.

Racism

‘Racism’ is derived from ‘race’, a category which stresses a few striking features of a physical kind, such as the colour of the skin or the shape of the nose. ‘Racism’ then refers to a limited range of physical features which are instantly recognizable. ‘Racism’ is to deny someone access to a restaurant because he ‘looks like’ a Jew or a gypsy. Apart from being limited, ‘racism’ isn’t a very useful category because the existence of ‘races’ is questioned scientifically. One thing is sure though: ‘racism’ is about people and cannot be used for structures or systems like a religion. I cannot be called a ‘racist’ because I question Islam. I cannot be called a racist because I oppose someone’s belief in a superhuman principle. ‘Racism’ is used in any given situation to express anger, frustration, dislike, etc., and has become utterly irrelevant as a category.

Discrimination

The correct terminology would be discrimination. Discrimination simply means that I treat a person unequally because of one or a few characteristics that I do not like. Contrary to racism, discrimination may refer to any aspect of a person: not just the colour of one’s skin, but also social status, gender, a handicap, world views, ideology, etcetera. Any characteristic to be found ‘strange’ or ‘abnormal’ can be used – that’s to say abused – to discriminate a person.

Discrimination is reprehensible for one simple reason: it reduces a person to one or a few characteristics. These particularities are, by definition, irrelevant compared to the entire person. A man with a black skin has many other characteristics: he can be a father, a lover, a neighbour and a colleague – or maybe a junk and a thief, just like any other man, regardless of the colour of his skin. To be lesbian is just one characteristic of a person who can also be a mother, an artist, an active member of the local community, or maybe a cheat and a fraud – like any other woman, regardless of her sexuality.

Non-discrimination starts from the simple assumption that we are all human beings and equal as such. It values the common features of all human beings.

As explained, ‘racism’ and ‘Islam’ do not match. The above makes it clear, however, that ‘discrimination’ and ‘muslim’ do match. Of course, discrimination against muslims exists, just like discrimination against catholics or atheists. In fact, religions, belief systems and convictions of life are among the most widespread targets of discrimination. Witches were burned, catholics decapitated protestants, protestants chased catholics, American communists got blacklisted as un-American, dissidents of communist regimes found themselves in camps, in Germany members of the extreme lost their jobs … The list is endless.
Discrimination against muslims surely exists but isn’t any different from other typers of discrimination: it is Ahmed being refused a flat because he is of Arabian origin, Mrs. Jones because she is on the dole, Sue because she lives with Jane.

Discrimination is opposed to equal treatment and knows no hierarchy or privileges.

In many cases though, what appears to be discrimination against muslims is, in fact, discrimination triggered by their social status and their ‘strangeness’ in general: poverty, living conditions, illiteracy, dress codes, religious practices …

(3) THE REAL PURPOSE OF ‘ISLAMOPHOBIA’

Amalgamating racism, discrimination, Islam and the muslim, the terms ‘islamophobia’ and ‘islamophobes’ mainly serve to treat a religion differently and to ask for privileges. As such, it is self-inflicted discrimination.
The real purpose is to libel, prevent and eventually to prohibit any criticism regarding Islam, that’s to say the supreme being and the prophets; the belief system with its holy book, leaders, prayers, and mosques; a world view, e.g. regarding science (creationism) and last but not least a wide range of regulations and practises regarding food, dress, sexuality, the relation between men and women, the law, and so on. The terminology of ‘islamophobia’ and ‘islamophobes’ mainly serves to immunize an entire conviction of life.

This is where we need to start worrying:
* If I accept a religion to be so special as to be beyond comment and criticism, I must remain silent and close the debate – which is contrary to basic democracy.
* If I accept criticism of a religion as ‘offensive’, I must accept laws on blasphemy and its consequences, such as prosecuting in the name of divine instead of human criteria.
* If to question muslims and their practises is discrimination, I must not only refrain from doing so but also accept these attitudes, acts and practises, including the sharia which is contrary to the equality inherent to the rule of law for all as based on the equality of all citizens before the law. I must refrain from cartoons, songs, poems, pictures, paintings, sculptures, novels etc. whenever these are ‘offensive’ or, just to make sure, potentially ‘offensive’.

Now, why is every possible school of thought and every conceivable conviction of life subject to criticism, but not religion or a particular religion? Communists have been prosecuted, sacked, jailed and tortured for decades, but no-one ever blamed ‘communismophobes’. At the time, hippies were frequently ridiculed (‘Is it a boy or a girl’?), denied jobs, harassed by the police for just being somewhere, called filth and degenerates - still, a movement against ‘hippiephobia’ never saw the light of day. Fortunately. The same is true for feminism, atheism, pacifism, or freemasonry – to name just a few examples that come to mind.

There is no reason to think or act otherwise in the case of a religion. On the contrary, there are a few very good reasons why a religion like Islam should be put to the test more often and even more thoroughly.
One such reason is the belief in unquestionable Revelation rather than free thinking and free enquiry. Another reason is that a religion like Islam holds the Truth, the ensuing problem being that several religions pretend to do so, even factions within one and the same belief. The one and only Truth renders any exchange of views superfluous. How could one oppose the Truth? A different view becomes dissention. To question those who believe in the omniscient god and his prophets is offensive in se, etcetera. But this does not only concern Islam, as you will have understood.

Such premises are not useful in a heterogeneous society, which can only endure and thrive on condition the variety of views co-exists to everyone’s benefit. Such is the nature of democracy. History – and most surely even recent history – teaches us what becomes of a society built on The Truth and a ‘pensée unique’, whether of a religious or profane nature.

(4) BELIEF and BELIEVERS - revisited

One more problem remains: if ‘islamophobia’ so easily cross-references with religion and its followers, it is because Islam and the Muslim overlap to the extent that no clear line can be drawn between them. Religion steers and thus covers everything: not just prayers and rituals, but also dress, food and drink codes, relation between the sexes (marriage, children, the status of sex and the position of woman), knowledge and education, art, the law (sharia) - and so forth. Islam is the community and vice-versa. What should be regarded as one characteristic of a person – to be a Muslim – is the entire person and nothing but that person.
This cross-reference prevents the believers from looking for common factors in other people. Instead, they stress their peculiarities. Their identity is Islam and nothing but Islam, hence the use of ‘Islam culture’.

To see the part as the whole is the essence of the fanatic:

It is the Black Panther ready to exterminate all whiteys, including those who support his cause. It is the freedom fighter who shoots his own ‘deviant’ brother who dared question the sacrosanct strategy to beat the enemy (as in ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley’). It is the British colonizer who cannot see any humanity other than his own and lists Australian aboriginals as animals. It is the Serb or the Israeli who limits a person to a static view of ‘blood and soil’ (‘Blut und Boden’) reserved for superior people, thereby dismissing history, evolution, mobility and the very existence of other humans - except as inferior stock.

To advocate the part as the whole is to self-inflict discrimination (unequal treatment) through privileges.

It is to refuse medical assistance or to claim customized assistance because a muslim woman can only be examined by a female doctor. The wife is a muslim first and a person in need of treatment next.
It is to demand exceptions that are of the same nature as privileges, e.g. to allow a muslim schoolboy not to wipe the blackboard when a female teacher requests him so, thus discriminating between teachers (male and female), pupils (boys and girls), male boys (muslim and non-muslim) and eventually between pure and impure, that’s to say good and bad.

This one-dimensional community explains why Muslims do not fight discrimination alongside other discriminated groups, thus actually weakening the fight against discrimination. They are concerned with ‘islamophobia’ only. By constantly placing themselves in the picture without making allies, muslims simply call down even more discrimination on themselves.

(5) General conclusion

For all these reasons, the term ‘islamophobia’ should be dumped immediately: it is a trap.

It is a trap because of a double amalgamation and a demagogic terminology, allowing to accuse anyone with a differing opinion of racism, discrimination and blasphemy, thus triggering silence and censorship.

It is a trap because if you don’t want to be called an ‘islamophobe’, you are left with no choice but to accept a religion that puts itself above and beyond society, brushing aside basic rules of democracy and equality.

It is a trap as the only party profiting from the ‘islamophobe’ strategy is a most reactionary ideology.

It is a trap because this ideology is mainly concerned with itself; it does not and will not further the cause it pretends to serve: to fight discrimination, that’s to say all types of discrimination.