Islamophobia
OP - May 16, 2018, 01:59 PM
First of all, before I discuss “Iraslamophobia” I would like to say that racialised hatred and bigotry towards those who look “muslim” are very real occurrences and what you won’t get here is a denial of that. The term "Islamophobia" is ridiculous and makes as much sense as the terms 'fascistophobia' or 'fluophobia' would make if those terms were created. There are rational reasons to be fearful and wary of how Islamic texts can and are destructively put into real life action by Islamic radicals where ever they have power. Is a person irrational and “Islamaphobic” when they point out how a homosexual or an apostate in one of the many Muslim majority countries will face the death penalty or imprisonment if they are discovered to be an homosexual or an apostate, where the authorities justify those punishments on an Islamic basis? It is even more rational to have concerns about literal Islam when you look through the Quran and Hadith and read the many verses which have instructions to kill / smite / slay / strike / subjugate the non-believers. Moderates and many non-fundamentalists will contextualise/historicise violent parts of the Quran in Western societies in a mental gymnastics exercise despite no part of the Quran saying any of it is within a context or only for a particular historical period. The likes of ISIS and many others do not however perform this pick and choose exercise,si so to be worried at some level about Islamic texts is fully vindicated as the correct response to the danger or Islamic texts. Followers of all the fundamentals of Islam don’t believe some Islamic texts should now be thrown in the bin and for them all Islamic texts are relevant to life in the twenty first century. A point which others have made before is that a distinction should be made between the many harmful aspects of radical Islam as an ideology not being conflated with Muslims as people, who should not face hatred on the basis of their Muslim identity or looking Muslim because they are brown. Many exmuslims and even sikhs have faced antimuslim hate from racists and bigots because they are brown skinned. “Islam” and “Muslims” are not the same thing and anti-muslim hate is a very real thing as previously stated at the beginning. Muslims are very diverse range of people and from all the variety of muslims what’s clear is that the only thing in common every person who give themselves the "Muslim" label has is that they call themselves a Muslim. They are many self-identifying Muslims who just like Jews and Christian give themselves that identity label but are not very serious about belief in Islam or the religious rituals if at all in some instances. The nominal Muslims, many who don’t practise Islamic rituals at all and don’t spread hateful rhetoric towards non-Muslims should be distinguished from the fundamental followers of Islam and not lumped in together. The hatred towards Muslims is opportunely used by some Islamic fundamentalists who then scream “Islamaphobia” in their attempts to detract attention away from valid criticisms of radical Islam as an ideology. It is done to misleadingly portray the criticism of radical Islam as demonisation of all Muslims and to silence criticism of radical Islam that effect Islamic fundamentalists who do not want to be hindered in their words and actions. Islamophobia itself was a term invented by the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic fundamentalist organisation and that very fact itself tells you which types of organisation and individuals seek to benefit from the term "Islamophobia" being in wide use. To sum it up for Islamophobia to be a term which makes sense linguistically it would require the user of the term to show how not a single version or interpretation of Islam presently or historically has presented any danger to anyone or presents any danger to anyone at this instant in time. You would have to think the many issues faced by non-believers, homosexuals, women and apostates with Islamic scriptural validations since Islam's beginning has all been one complete fiction. This of course is intellectually impossible to do and would require the user to engage in an unparalleled level of denialism.
Topic: Islamophobia