Dear readers, put on your thinking caps, we need your inventiveness and intelligence!
The problem with "Islamophobia" as a term is that it refers to the 'fear of Islam' - which has been spun by various racist groups who declare themselves to be 'proud' Islamophobes, on the assumption that there is indeed reason to be afraid of the Big Bad Muslims and that they're merely reacting.
As such, we need to find a stronger term, one that refers to 'hatred' rather than 'fear', one that would be strong, insulting, unequivocally shaming, and absolutely inexcusable.
Think "anti-semitism": There is no acceptable way in which one can be 'proud' of being an anti-semite, which is an inexcusable offense.
So far, discussions with friends over at Facebook have given those proposition:
Anti-Islamism: Most obvious, but too much in the realm of the political.
Anti-Muslimism: too "cutesy", says Dani.
Misislamy: Dani's uber-erudite construct, built like 'misogyny' (hatred of women) but, let's face it, no one will get it.
Islamamentia, suggests Semil, because he views it as 'confusion, not hatred'.
Muslim-hatred? Yeah, that's the meaning, but it isn't agile enough as a catchword.
What do you think, dear reader? Any suggestions? Which one would you select, what do you suggest?
Join to the discussion, leave a comment!!
The problem with "Islamophobia" as a term is that it refers to the 'fear of Islam' - which has been spun by various racist groups who declare themselves to be 'proud' Islamophobes, on the assumption that there is indeed reason to be afraid of the Big Bad Muslims and that they're merely reacting.As such, we need to find a stronger term, one that refers to 'hatred' rather than 'fear', one that would be strong, insulting, unequivocally shaming, and absolutely inexcusable.
Think "anti-semitism": There is no acceptable way in which one can be 'proud' of being an anti-semite, which is an inexcusable offense.
So far, discussions with friends over at Facebook have given those proposition:
Anti-Islamism: Most obvious, but too much in the realm of the political.
Anti-Muslimism: too "cutesy", says Dani.
Misislamy: Dani's uber-erudite construct, built like 'misogyny' (hatred of women) but, let's face it, no one will get it.
Islamamentia, suggests Semil, because he views it as 'confusion, not hatred'.
Muslim-hatred? Yeah, that's the meaning, but it isn't agile enough as a catchword.
What do you think, dear reader? Any suggestions? Which one would you select, what do you suggest?
Join to the discussion, leave a comment!!
41 comments:
Call them "Islam-haters", who are guilty of "Islam-hatred".
I would go for "Islam-haters" but "anti-muslims" is probaly easier to translate.
Ceci étant, je ne vois pas bien comment on peut se féliciter du désordre psychique qu'est la phobie. Après tout, il s'agit d'une peur irrationnelle et infondée et qui traduit un manque de contrôle évident. Comment ça, je fais de la psychologie de comptoir ?
the term anti-semitism wasn't not "born" insulting ... it became so when a strong jewish lobby gave it this bad connotation... the difference between hitler time and now indicates clearly this mutation..
seeking to change the term is easier but wouldn't make any difference... giving an ugly connotation to the already existing term (notamment en clarifiant et de manìère assez médiatisée que rien ne justifie cette phobie) est un travail de longue haleine mais dont les résultats seront bcp mieux que de changer le concept...
Muslimphobia?
I like "Islamamentia" though:)
Helen
variants of "Islamacide", "Islamacidal"...
How 'bout Islamoloathing, an Islamoloather?
Islamophobia is the correct word for it. If Islamophobia does not have the expected effect, then the problem may be elsewhere.
:D :D
PS
Try to think about more than 1,000 Iraqis blown up a few days ago in Baghdad in a span of exactly three minutes. Under certain circumstances even some of them may call them Islamophobic
:D :D
call them=call themselves
I suppose "bigots" is just too broad an application?
Muslimloathers?
It really should reflect THEIR bigotry and ignorance, but I can't find a way to work that into a single word. At least the word I propose goes well in English with the adjectives: malevolent, malicious, maligning, as they easily roll off the tongue combined with the noun.
BTW, "anti-Semitism" was always insulting--it was coined in the 19th century by Germans to describe the superiority of the European Aryan race over the Jews. It's always been a hate word.
From wiki: "The term Semite means a member of any of various ancient and modern people originating in southwestern Asia, including Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Arabs, and Ethiopian Semites."
Why not be inclusive, and include Islamophobia as a form of anti-Semitism?? :-)
"
Why not be inclusive, and include Islamophobia as a form of anti-Semitism?? :-)"
Because when you'r trying to solve a problem by giving it a different name, you're not trying to solve the problem, you're masturbating.
Kind of like when the EU forbade reference to Islamic terrorism in official communiques, hoping it'll do away with Islamic terrorism.
I think the problem with antiSemitism is that its not broad enough---the hatred is directed at Moslems, which is a far larger group than people who are Semitic language speakers--Pashtuns, Malays, Indonesians, Turks, Bosnians, Chechens et al are Moslems, but not Semites...apart from the word's identification with traditional, endemic European Jew-hatred....
aliyah06 said...
I think the problem with antiSemitism is that its not broad enough---the hatred is directed at Moslems
This is why the correct word for this is Islamophobia.
Abu Sa'ar said...
Kind of like when the EU forbade reference to Islamic terrorism in official communiques, hoping it'll do away with Islamic terrorism.
Another thing is how you differentiate between Islamophobia and Islamohatred? Or being Islamophobic is automatically a racist crime? I suppose that many people militating against Islamophobia have no problem at the same time to be phobic of Christian right and such stuff. Should we now decide what phobias people can have proudly and what they can't?
A couple of years ago I remember one report by IWPR from Suleymania where young Kurds stopped observing Ramadan. One of the interviewed there put it blatantly. Islam is not popular these days among Kurdish youth, he said, because people associate it with suicide attacks. And these people are Sunni Muslims! This is what? Islamophobia or Islamohatred?
Incidentally, two weeks ago two truck bombers leveled with the ground yet another Kurdish settlement, although this time these were Yezidi Kurds. And just a few days ago Sunni radicals have staged such a spectacular attack in Baghdad, mauling everybody around from Sunnis to Shias, that it's worthy of a Holywood movie. But I would not say that the Arab blogsphere was drowning in soul searching or just mentioning of this event.
It's very ironic that the only thing you can actually find is this kind of posts demanding from the West to reform its political vocabulary yet another time to accommodate Muslims. People who proudly call themselves Islamophobic would say: This is another reason to be Islamophobic ... and to be proud of it.
Hmmmm.....first, Islamophobia cannot be "racist" because Islam has nothing to do with race, even under the broadest conception of that word.
Second, I fail to see how searching for a word to describe a hatred (as opposed to a fear, which is what phobia is) of a particular faith is somehow an exercise in politically correct "reforming" the West's political vocabulary to accomodate Muslims. Your argument, in fact, demonstrates that the political nuances of Islamophobia push this hatred into the nationalistic sphere and contribute to what has been called the Clash of Civilizations. This isn't the place to recap all that. My point is that I think you're missing the point--this is not an exercise in accomodating Moslem sensibilities through politically correct word formulation but rather addressing an unreasoning hatred on the basis of another person's religion (which usually encompasses customs and dress).
Bigotry, broadly stated, is a hatred of another group which is perceived as "Other" by your own group. There is too much of this kind of bigotry in the world today---however, I don't think that acts of mass murder through suicide bombings justify the condemnation of an entire religion and its adherents. Somehow, intelligent people need to make a distinction between Believers of any faith who do their utmost to live good lives and people who hijack religion to advance their political agendas.
While I loathe terrorism and the racist incitement that leads to it, I am not prepared to condemn Islam for the acts of terrorists who have hijacked Islam to justify their hideous crimes.
If each of us is made in G-d's image and each of us is given a task to fulfill in this life, then each life has a potential to do good. It's too easy to allow fear and loathing to reduce the complexities of the Middle East conflict into "us" and "them" and engage in wholesale condemnation of the "Other." You seem to suggest (unless I misunderstood) that the Arab world has brought Islamophobia upon itself through acts like those you recite. I disagree. Condemning an entire faith for the acts of some is wrong. Would I like to see more in the way of criticism and outrage in the Islamic blogosphere--sure, I'd love to see them all agree with me, but its no more realistic for me to expect that than for them to expect a Zionist like myself to agree with their outlook.
I think it is more appropriate to address the hatred spawned by fear of such attacks, and how to address it, person-to-person, rather than through "us" versus "them" recitals of outrage. Discussion is generally preferable to conflict, and as here, discussion starts by defining the problem.
Aliyah
You make many points that I can't address in one comment. It requires a whole post so if I respond to your comment selectively this is not because I agree with the rest, in fact I agree with nothing.
First of all, when you refer to God, God's image and the stuff in your comments, make sure that people you talk to are religious. Even people who are not atheist don't necessarily think in these terms.
you say: You seem to suggest (unless I misunderstood) that the Arab world has brought Islamophobia upon itself through acts like those you recite. I disagree.
Of course not. It happened because they have planted so many flowers around that we no longer know where to put out feet on.
Condemning an entire faith for the acts of some is wrong.
It's perfectly right. I reject communist ideology as a whole both because of its theory and because of its practice. You can call me a proud Commiphobe. This does not mean that I think that every single Communist is a murderer. Some people may reject religions or a particular religion. In fact there are many people like this. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. If one disagrees, one can always argue against it instead of attaching labels to his opponents.
Would I like to see more in the way of criticism and outrage in the Islamic blogosphere--sure, I'd love to see them all agree with me, but its no more realistic for me to expect that than for them to expect a Zionist like myself to agree with their outlook.
It's not about what realistic and what's not. Never mind that to say "Would I like to see more in the way of criticism and outrage in the Islamic blogsphere" is a wild understatement of the situation, where do you see this outrage and criticism? It barely exists at all. Anyway, your whole argument here is self defeating. If you admit that it's not realistic to expect such a thing from these people, then you have just finished making the same point people, who define themselves as Islamophobes, do.
Nobody--I think you're missing the point again. Or maybe I'm simply not making it clearly. There is a difference between "rejecting" an ideology or belief system, as per your example of Communism, and hatred of the practitioners of that ideology or belief-system, which is what I think this post is about.
Islamophobia literally means a fear of Islam. It does not mean a person who "rejects" Islam. In the post-9/11 world, it is a word that conveys both fear and hatred, since many who self-identify as "Islamophobic" also express hatred towards the religion collectively and its practitioners individually.
And when you get right down to it, most people who "hate" something inchoate (a religion, a political system, a group of people) are afraid of it....so fear and hatred are not so far apart in this context.
I have a question on the blogosphere issue: do you read Arabic? How do you know what is in the Arab blogosphere, except that which is in English (or French/Hebrew etc.)?
Aliah
I am not missing any point, I was replying to your comment selectively. But your persistence will now force me into going through your comment and debunking it point by point which is quite a work to do since all of it is wrong.
First of all, regarding this differentiation between Islamophobia and Islamohatred.Come on, man. I was not born yesterday, I know very well that you are not going to differentiate between anybody. You are just searching for a technical term that will allow you to accuse anybody critical of Islam and Muslims of hatred of Muslims. You don't think that I am that naive to believe that you will now start reclassifying people into Muslim haters and just Isolamophobes, do you?
Second. I once noticed to Mo after he spent a few hours raining stuff like racism and fascism on one of Nizo's threads that Arabs fascination with the Western political vocabulary is only matched by their complete misunderstanding of these notions. However, I can excuse Arabs/Muslims for this because this vocabulary is not native to their culture. But I can't excuse their Western cheerleaders for doing the same.
The word phobia in political contexts means exactly this: extreme morbidly negative attitudes towards a particular group of people and this includes hatred, like in the word xenophobe. You can check any online dictionary or Wikipedia, they are very clear about it. Skip the section that deals with phobia as a medical condition and read its non medical applications. If the word anti Semite would not have existed, we would have been using today the word Judophobe. This word has no positive or neutral connotations of fear or whatever. If it came to the point that people call themselves proud Islamophobes, then this is end of it. It can't get any worse.
Your question regarding blogsphere and my Arabic makes me start wondering how intellectually dishonest people can really get. But to put it short, my knowledge of Arabic has never moved beyond the most rudimentary stage. However, let me assure you that on these matters I am informed, to put it mildly, slightly better than you. Anyway, it's plain obvious to anybody, and this can be confirmed to you by any Arab blogger, than Arabic blogsphere in English is run by people who tend to be way more Westernized, liberal and better educated than their counterparts in the Arabic speaking one. The language barrier keeps hordes of morons that constitute the bulk of the Arabic speaking blogsphere from ever reaching us.
Just to add to my previous comment. You say: I think you're missing the point again. Or maybe I'm simply not making it clearly. There is a difference between "rejecting" an ideology or belief system, as per your example of Communism, and hatred of the practitioners of that ideology or belief-system, which is what I think this post is about.
This is not exactly what this post is about. Quoting from the post itself: As such, we need to find a stronger term, one that refers to 'hatred' rather than 'fear', one that would be strong, insulting, unequivocally shaming, and absolutely inexcusable.
However, I would also comment on this point of yours. Islamophobia refers to the extreme negative attitude towards Islam, which means Islam as philosophy, religion and a way of life which is quite a lot given how much Muslim culture and lifestyle are permeated by their religion. Geert Wilders belongs to this group. He wants to ban the Koran. I bet he does not mind people calling him a proud Islamophobe. Now what? You are going to invent a new term to suggest that not only this man wants to ban the Koran and dismantle mosques across Europe, he also does not like Muslim as persons and this is in order to make GW feel embarrassed. You want people to start laughing at you or what?
Nobody--you just contradicted yourself; my point was this post is about hatred, and you said, no its not, its about finding "a stronger term, one that refers to 'hatred' rather than 'fear'..."
Maybe you missed the post's point?
"I know very well that you are not going to differentiate between anybody. You are just searching for a technical term that will allow you to accuse anybody critical of Islam and Muslims of hatred of Muslims."
I'm glad you're so clairvoyant and can read my thoughts without ever having met me--amazing!
I, personally, am not looking for anything--I simply thought to advance Mohamed's discussion with my own contribution from the English vocabulary. You seem to be the one with a problem differentiating between people who fear Islam in the mistaken belief that it is comprised solely of suicide bombers, and those who are simply bigots and hate Muslims en toto because, well, they're Muslims and not-like-us, the "Other."
I think fear is susceptible to education and knowledge; I think hate is a sociopathic response which may not be curable.
I took your suggestion about online dictionary checking and found you're incorrect about "phobia" -- it is defined as "1.A persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid it, despite the awareness and reassurance that it is not dangerous, or 2. A strong fear, dislike, or aversion." and in the cultural context, as "An extreme and often unreasonable fear of some object, concept, situation, or person."
You wondered "how intellectually dishonest people can really get" because of my question regarding your command of Arabic. Given your blanket statement earlier about the Arab blogosphere, its a fair question and not intellectually dishonest at all.
Your answer, however: "But to put it short, my knowledge of Arabic has never moved beyond the most rudimentary stage. However, let me assure you that on these matters I am informed, to put it mildly, slightly better than you."
How would you know? You have no idea what, if any, command of Arabic I have, what I read, or what I know. A bit of snide intellectual arrogance is what you've engaged in here, which doesn't advance your arguments and makes you sound less than credible. Ad-hominem attacks are seldom a good substitute for reasoned discussion.
So let's have your view of people-who-hate-Moslems: is Islamophobia a sufficiently accurate word in your opinion, and if so, why? And if not, why and what would you use in its place? What is your personal view of Islam and Moslems?
I took your suggestion about online dictionary checking and found you're incorrect about "phobia" -- it is defined as "1.A persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid it, despite the awareness and reassurance that it is not dangerous, or 2. A strong fear, dislike, or aversion." and in the cultural context, as "An extreme and often unreasonable fear of some object, concept, situation, or person."
Aliyah
You know, unlike you, English is not my first language. However, to know what words suffixed with phobe mean is not something that requires any googling. There is no point to argue about something so obvious. However, if you insist again, then....
In the same Free Dictionary from which you quote, a search run for the suffix phobe yields the following:
Prejudices
One can readily use the suffix -phobia to coin a term that denotes a particular anti-ethnic sentiment, such as Francophobia. Often a synonym with the prefix "anti-" already exists: Polonophobia vs. anti-Polonism. See "List of anti-ethnic terms" for more examples. Anti-religious sentiments are expressed in terms such as Christianophobia and Islamophobia.
From the Wikipedia:
Terms indicating prejudice or class discrimination
See also: List of anti-ethnic and anti-national terms
A number of terms with the suffix -phobia are primarily understood as negative attitudes towards certain categories of people or other things, used in an analogy with the medical usage of the term. Usually these kinds of "phobias" are described as fear, dislike, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, discrimination, or hostility towards the object of the "phobia". Often this attitude is based on prejudices and is a particular case of general xenophobia.
The list of of anti ethnic and anti national terms contains:
Islamophobia— fear, dislike and hatred of Islam, Muslims and things Islamic.
So let's have your view of people-who-hate-Moslems: is Islamophobia a sufficiently accurate word in your opinion, and if so, why? And if not, why and what would you use in its place? What is your personal view of Islam and Moslems?
You can define me as from mildly to moderately Islamophobic. Or temporarily Islamophobic if you wish.
Nobody--so why are you reading and posting on an Egyptian blog written by a Moslem writer, if you are Islamophobic? Do you dislike, fear and hate Mohamed or other Moslem writers who post here? Do you know anyone personally who is Moslem? By "know" I mean socially, as in work colleagues, college friends, neighbors, etc. I'm wondering if being mildly Islamophobic is merely a reaction to current events in the absence of any personal acquaintance with Moslems or Islam, or despite any acquaintance with Moslems?
I usually post and comment on Muslim blogs. What's your point? I said that I am from mildly to moderately Islamophobic, I am not GW. Personally, I drink alcohol almost every day with Muslims near my home, those these are not observant Muslims. My best friend is a Muslim Arab. I used to have more when I lived in Jerusalem. I lived for about a year with Israeli Bedouins guarding some stuff in the West Bank. This is enough?
You know, Aliyah
When a Muslim asks another Muslim why this another Muslim keeps reading Jewish blogs, I can understand it. But when a Jew asks a Jew why he is reading Muslim blogs, I can't. Of course you know why I am doing this. Because it's interesting. And if by any chance these people are also our enemies, then it's even more interesting
:D :D
Just wondered if you phobia was in a vacuum or if you actually had Muslim friends.....I find it even stranger that you can have a Muslim best friend and still describe yourself as Islamophobic...seems to be a contradiction in terms, no?
Ok. Call it Islamoskeptic. This is better?
There is no contradiction actually. I used to be very leftie until I get a sufficient exposure to this culture. Before this I did not know that things can be so bad
:D :D
LOL....scepticism is okay....one of my favorite bumperstickers used to be "Question Authority" which covers a lot of authorities....like you, I used to be extremely liberal but time and experience tends to give one less ideology and more scepticism. I think it was Churchill who famously said, "A man who is a conservative at 20 has no heart; a man who is a liberal at 50 has no brain." I think this also explains why the majority of voters in the US have abandoned both political parties for "Independent" status because they can't find common ground with either Left or Right.
But I'm glad you're not Islamophobic.....[grin]...and glad you escaped the Bubble...informed scepticism is far better for all of us, I suspect.
Ya hala! Am back... :)
Aliyah
I think the words are confusing. When I say that I am Islamophobic or -skeptic it means that I don't spend my days lavishing praise on Islam and Muslims. I am skeptical about prospects of co-existing with these people, I see a lot of threats and dangers emanating from their part of the world. When I say I am mildly so, it means that nevertheless I think that the whole thing was blown out of proportion - they are not going to take over the world. However, the best way to co-exist with these people is to not co-exist with them at all. The West should completely stop Muslim immigration and avoid venturing into their part of the world whether it's for the sake of exporting democracy or for the sake of saving somebody from hunger or slaughter in Darfur or Somalia. And Israel would be wise to trade territories with the future Palestinian state to reduce the Palestinian minority in Israel to the minimum. And obviously I am pretty much convinced that most of their problems - backwardness, stagnation, their propensity for extreme fratricidal violence and other stuff - are directly or indirectly connected to their religion.
Well, we'd probably agree on a lot of points. I'm not an apologist for Islam, although I am aware of its finer points (having had a Muslima roommate) and its historical contribution to human civilization, while not being blind to its more fanatic and unreasonable interpretations.
I would find it hard to justify prohibiting immigration of Muslims into non-Muslim countries on the basis of religion, only because it sounds so much like Jewish history, with various rulers telling us where we can live, why we must move, and why we can't move to a particular location.
That's not to say countries shouldn't have reasonable immigration rules---Indians form a huge subcommunity in California because of the hi-tech market. That doesn't mean the US should open the door to everyone in India "just because" -- a nation has a right to control its immigration. [Interestingly, I once visited Canada, and the Immigration folks wouldn't let me enter until I proved I had enough cash to last for the three weeks of camping I was doing--they didn't want 'welfare cheats' sliding into their land.]
If a person has no job skills, lives on welfare or has a criminal record, those are good reasons to deny entry -- being a Moslem isn't a reason to deny entry.
I don't say this is the only answer, but I've noticed over the decades that "backwardness, stagnation, violence and other stuff" usually stems from a lack of education--real education, not getting a stipend to recite in a madrassa (or yeshiva) all day long. I mean skills that increase your earning power and your contact with the rest of the world. This is, by the way, not confined to Moslems or Arabs, as I have been to many places in North America where you can find similar levels of backwardness, stagnation and violence. Poverty and no way out of poverty tends to make people feel hopeless and from there they are easily manipulated into violence.
The root cause isn't Islam--the root cause is poverty, and no opportunity either through work or education to move yourself or your children out of it.
The Islamic world needs a bigger educated middle class and working class, and fewer poor people and oppressive dictatorships with an interest in keeping them uneducated and manipulated.
I don't say this is the only answer, but I've noticed over the decades that "backwardness, stagnation, violence and other stuff" usually stems from a lack of education--real education, not getting a stipend to recite in a madrassa (or yeshiva) all day long. I mean skills that increase your earning power and your contact with the rest of the world. This is, by the way, not confined to Moslems or Arabs, as I have been to many places in North America where you can find similar levels of backwardness, stagnation and violence. Poverty and no way out of poverty tends to make people feel hopeless and from there they are easily manipulated into violence.
Muslims perform no better in immigration where the playing ground is leveled for them. You see it all over Europe and Australia. You can have on one street Vietnamese boat people becoming the middle class in one, maximum two, generations, and on the street Muslims languishing in a degenerated ghettoized slum. In those countries where Muslims co-exist with Christians or Chinese they are always lagging behind their neighbors. In Malaysia it's since decades ago that they are running their bhumiputra programs and while the gap has shrunk thanks to what some would consider an outright discrimination of a Chinese minority, it's still massive.
As to Madrassas they are part of the Muslim culture so it's basically my point. And you can't compare Yeshiva with Madrassa, Yeshiva is an entirely different story. I used to work in hi-tech with ultra orthodox in Jerusalem. Some of them never had any secular studies. They just went straight from their schools to hi-tech. Traditional Jewish education turns people into learning machines. The ultras have a certain knack for hi-tech and basically everything that relates to logic, memory and calculations. In fact there is evidence that Talmudic studies also turn people into excellent snipers. Check this for example.
This is not to say that education is not the answer. It's probably THE ANSWER and personally I think that under present conditions we in Israel should establish a special fund for developing education in the Arab sector to create an overwhelming positive discrimination in favor of the Arab education. However, if we are talking about Islam, Islamophobia or Islamoskepticism and the stuff, then it's plain obvious that there is a massive failure at the level of society here that crosses ethnic and other boundaries with the religion as the only common denominator.
Education leading to opportunity would fix a lot of problems.....I just don't know how to deliver it so it isn't seen as neocolonialism or the money for it disappears into some bureaucrat's Swiss bank account....I checked out the sniper story--I can understand Orthodox guys crediting Talmud study, and maybe they're right, but in the interests of full disclosure, my husband is an excellent sniper also, and he didn't open a Talmud until he was 50....
I think we drove everyone else away...we're the only two left on this comment thread....
aliyah06 said...
Education leading to opportunity would fix a lot of problems.....I just don't know how to deliver it so it isn't seen as neocolonialism or the money for it disappears into some bureaucrat's Swiss bank account...
We don't need to worry for this. We should just do it. Another thing is that many NGOs that usually cry about neocolonialism, at least those of them based in Israel like Adalla and the stuff, are also packed with feminists. So they may actually ignore or even cooperate if we get serious about keeping the Arabs in schools by clamping down on polygamy, forced marriages and the stuff. Basically it's in Negev where the bulk of our problems is concentrated. It's the Bedouins. In the rest of the country the Arabs are doing much better.
Another thing is that Muslim fertility is collapsing in the Middle East and elsewhere. The attitudes are changing. The next generation of Muslims will grow in small families.There will be more focus on education. Muslim culture is globalized these days, our Muslim Arabs are part of it.
I think we drove everyone else away...we're the only two left on this comment thread....
I am used to be the last commenter on a thread. And anyway, nobody can add anything intelligent to the issue at hand as it's closed. I am closing it now.
Mo says: The problem with "Islamophobia" as a term is that it refers to the 'fear of Islam' - which has been spun by various racist groups who declare themselves to be 'proud' Islamophobes, on the assumption that there is indeed reason to be afraid of the Big Bad Muslims and that they're merely reacting.
As such, we need to find a stronger term, one that refers to 'hatred' rather than 'fear', one that would be strong, insulting, unequivocally shaming, and absolutely inexcusable.
Basically, and it's very obvious from my quotes from Wikipedia and elsewhere, the word Islamophobia does not refers to fear, but to hatred and the word phobia in political and ethnic contexts is not used to imply fear but irrationality. Phobias are irrationaland so the word phobia is used to indicate irrationality, not fear.
All sources converge on that this term is used to indicate anti ethnic and anti religious sentiments that are driven by prejudice and not necessarily by fear. These terms don't apply to a person who spent 20 years researching Islam and then published a highly critical book. Such a person would be called anti Islamist or Islamoskeptic. To call him Islamophobe would be considered an insult and dismissive of his work since Islamophobia refers to exactly this: hatred or hostility to Islam and things Islamic based on prejudice, without any reason. There is no stronger word. And if it came to this that people call themselves proudly Islamophobic, then the Muslims should better first check if everything is alright with themselves.
ANTISEMITISM.
Regards from the stockholm archepelago.
Rami
what about araBBashing
I like to call them what they are...racists.
How about Islamorealists?
Post a Comment