Islamophobia

Islám v České republice nechceme (We don't want Islam in the Czech Republic) protest in 2015.

Inventing "The Other" Islamophobia

Fear And Loathing

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“”Islam’s tenets are frequently distorted and taken out of context, with particular acts or practices being taken to represent or to symbolize a rich and complex faith. Some claim that Islam is incompatible with democracy, or irrevocably hostile to modernity and the rights of women. And in too many circles, disparaging remarks about Muslims are allowed to pass without censure, with the result that prejudice acquires a veneer of acceptability.

—Kofi Annan[1]

Islamophobia is a term used to refer to discrimination or prejudice against the religion of Islam and the Muslim people (the people who believe in Islam), especially as a political force.^[2] Nearly all Islamophobes are also xenophobes, who have a generalised dislike of foreigners. Sometimes, however, the term "Islamophobia" is used as a snarl word to dismiss valid criticisms of Islamic doctrines and ideologies.^[3]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the term occurred in the 1920s,^[4] though it has come into more frequent use since the 1997 publication of Islamophobia: A Challenge For Us All by the Runnymede Trust,^[5][6] and even more so to describe the backlash against Muslims following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.^[7][8]

Racism[edit]

On the outside, one can distinguish Islamophobia and racism — Islam is a religion, not a race, and is commonly practiced among many ethnicities.^{[note 1]} However, racism may fuel Islamophobia, as the narrow Western perception of Islam often associates the religion almost exclusively with the Arab ethnicity and with Middle Eastern culture ("brown people in turbans").^[9] Islam is a collection of ideas and beliefs, and, like all religions, should be criticized by rational people. When dislike of Islam takes the form of mindless irrational hatred based on cultural stereotypes, however, it becomes Islamophobia and has many parallels with racism. For instance, Islamophobes often target Sikhs because Sikhs resemble common notions of what Muslims "look like", despite the tension that has existed for many years between Sikhs and Muslims,^[10] and despite Sikhism and Islam being separate religions. It's additionally worth noting that the modern concept of racism has its origins closely tied to religious discrimination, with the Spanish concept of limpieza de sangre, or "purity of blood", originally only applying to Jews and Muslims but later, with the Spanish colonization of the Americas, also applying to black and indigenous people.

Some who protest that they cannot be racist because they are only ranting and obsessing about a religion do so too loudly: "I did not have racist relations with that religion", as Nesrine Malik puts it.

In 2016, the European Islamophobia Report (EIR) presented the "European Islamophobia Report 2015"^[12] at the European Parliament. That report analyzed the "trends in the spread of Islamophobia" in 25 European states in 2015.^[13] The EIR defines Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism. While not every criticism of Muslims or Islam is necessarily Islamophobic, anti-Muslim sentiments expressed through the dominant group scapegoating and excluding Muslims for the sake of power is.^{[citation needed]}

With the rise of Donald Trump, the importance of calling out Islamophobia is becoming even more important. Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-born activist who works with the American Friends Service Committee, says:^[14]

Characteristics of Islamophobia[edit]

A "Bomb Mecca"-themed kookmobile.

In 1996, the Runnymede Trust established the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, chaired by Gordon Conway, the vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex. The Commission's report, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, was published in November 1997 by the Home Secretary, Jack Straw. In the Runnymede report, Islamophobia was defined in general as "an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, which results in practices of exclusion and discrimination." This is not the common English meaning of "Islamophobia"^[15] in Britain which is, "dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force."

In detail, The Runnymede Trust defines Islamophobia as having the following characteristics:

1. Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.
2. Islamic culture 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. Islamic ideology is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist.^{[note 2]}
4. Muslims are seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, and engaged in a Clash of Civilizations.
5. Islam is seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage.
6. Criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of hand.^{[note 3]}
7. Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.
8. Anti-Muslim bigotry is seen as natural and normal.

The largest project monitoring Islamophobia was undertaken following 9/11 by the EU watchdog, European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). Their May 2002 report "Summary report on Islamophobia in the EU after 11 September 2001", written by Chris Allen and Jorgen S. Nielsen of the University of Birmingham, was based on 75 reports — 15 from each EU member nation.^[16] The report highlighted the regularity with which ordinary Muslims became targets for abusive and sometimes violent retaliatory attacks after 9/11. Despite localized differences within each member nation, the recurrence of attacks on recognizable and visible traits of Islam and Muslims was the report's most significant finding. Incidents consisted of verbal abuse, blaming all Muslims for terrorism, forcibly removing women's hijabs, spitting on Muslims, calling children "Osama", and random assaults. A number of Muslims were hospitalized and in one instance paralyzed. The report also discussed the portrayal of Muslims in the media. Inherent negativity, stereotypical images, fantastical representations, and exaggerated caricatures were all identified. The report concluded that "a greater receptivity towards anti-Muslim and other xenophobic ideas and sentiments has, and may well continue, to become more tolerated."

The EUMC has since released a number of publications related to Islamophobia, including The Fight against Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Bringing Communities together (European Round Tables Meetings) (2003) and Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia (2006).^[17]

Islamaphobia can also appear in the following forms (not from Runnymede Trust):

Islamophobia as xenophobia or nativism[edit]

• Muslim immigrants to "Christian countries" in the West are seen as part of a much greater plot by the "Muslim world" to conquer the rest of the world, or at least the West.
• Muslim immigrants as a whole are seen as unwilling to become part of their host country's culture and society.
• Opposing such immigration for the above reasons, aka denying people the right to immigrate on account of their political views.
• Deporting them on account of the above reasons.

Pseudo-historical Islamophobia[edit]

• Fabricating past crimes against humanity that Muslims, in the fabrication, perpetrated against non-Muslims, as in Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto, when he claims that there were attacks Muslim Albanians made on Christian countries.
• Claiming that it was the Bosniaks who attempted genocide and conquest against the Serbs and Croats (it was the other way around), as Breivik also does.
• Denying or minimizing the extent of the Srebrenica massacre.
• Claims that Jefferson despised Muslims during the Barbary Wars or some other appeal to authority that isn't even true.

Other[edit]

• Grossly exaggerating the number of Muslims who are terrorists or who hate the West.
• Opposing religious freedom for Muslims.
• Actual attacks of violence against people for being Muslims or looking like they might be Muslims.
• Endorsing ethnic profiling of Muslims on grounds that they're easily prone to radicalization and/or violence.
• Justifying Islamophobia by portraying Muslim women as voiceless and victimized, something that actual Muslim women dislike.^[18]

Examples of Islamophobia[edit]

• The Spanish Inquisition, which had its roots in expelling Muslims and Jews from Spain after the Reconquista, and also led to discrimination against converts from those faiths and their descendants, as it was assumed that they hadn't really converted and were still secretly practicing their old religion.
• On September 15, 2001, a Sikh man (Sikhs being known for wearing distinctive beards and turbans, and also for not being Muslims) was murdered at a gas station in Mesa, Arizona, "in revenge for the 11 September attacks." His murderer, Frank Silva Roque, was convicted and initially sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole by the Arizona Supreme Court.^[19]
• In a February 2002 interview with the LA Times, John Ashcroft stated "Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for Him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends His son to die for you." Unless your name is Abraham (just kidding!) or Jephthah (for realz^{[note 4]}).
• In November 2006, Jerry Klein, a Washington DC-area radio talk show host suggested, in parody of Islamophobic views, that "identifying markers ... I'm thinking either it should be an armband, a crescent moon armband, or it should be a crescent moon tattoo ... If it means that we have to round them up and do a tattoo in a place where everybody knows where to find it, then that's what we'll have to do."^[20] Although some callers believed that Klein was "off his rocker" for suggesting such a thing, other callers believed Klein had not gone far enough, and suggested that Muslims should be placed in concentration camps, or deported en-masse. Klein exposed the parody at the close of his show, and chastised those who had called in to support what amounted to, in essence, a new Holocaust against Muslims. And then, in 2015, it became a part of the platform of one of the biggest Republican candidates, Donald Trump.
• When a Muslim named Keith Ellison was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, his patriotism was questioned based on his religion. There were even calls for legislation to force him to be sworn into office on a Bible,^[21] despite the fact no congressperson takes the actual oath on any book.^[22] Like most Congress members, he later had a private ceremony where he reiterated the oath on a religious text, and took it on a copy of the Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson.
• The 2010 Halal soup controversy erupted when Campbell's introduced a line of canned soups that met with Halal dietary restrictions. The hysteria went as far as "Your kids might be eating halal food without you even realizing it!" As though eating something that passes the halal restrictions would turn you into a Muslim?^{[note 5]}
• After the 2013 Boston bombings in Boston, Massachusetts, frequent Fox News talking head Erik Rush tweeted that Muslims are evil and that the obvious thing to do was kill them all. This was sent out despite the fact that no group — Islamist or otherwise — had taken responsibility for the bombings at the time.^[23]
• In 2012, 2013, and 2014, extremist Buddhists in Burma killed Muslims for being Muslims by the tens and hundreds, and displacing Muslims by the tens of thousands. Some of the violence is connected to the 969 Movement.
• In August of 2015 Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller posted a graphic on Facebook calling for nuclear bombs to be dropped on Muslim countries.^[24]
• By 2014, the UN found that 60 million people were displaced and seeking refugee status, or otherwise fleeing, with the Syrian civil war being the largest driver.^[25] Refugees, many or most of them Muslims, are being refused asylum in other countries at a level unprecedented since Jews were turned away during WWII. A large part of the reason is the anti-Muslim animus pervasive in Europe.^[26]
• Obama is frequently accused of being a Muslim, as if that would somehow make him less fit to be President.
• "Islam is a Satanic cult of murder, not a 'religion,'" tweeted the Travis County, Texas GOP on September 21, 2015. The tweet was deleted after media attention.^[27]
• An Indiana University student was arrested for allegedly slamming a Muslim woman's head into a cafe table and trying to rip off her headscarf while shouting "white power" and "kill them all."^[28]
• An angry Minnesota woman smashed a beer mug across the face of a Minnesota Muslim woman who was wearing a hijab and speaking Swahili in an Applebee’s restaurant.^[29]
• In November of 2015 in the wake of the DAESH terror attacks in Paris, the United States Congress passed a bill to limit the ability of Syrian war refugees to be sheltered in the US,^[30] notwithstanding that the refugees are themselves fleeing DAESH. Additionally, 30 state governors declared that they will not accept the refugees in their states.^[31]
• In December of 2015, hate crimes against Muslims like arson, assault, and shooting had tripled in the past month.^[32] A Connecticut man was arrested for shooting at a mosque after endless Facebook posts saying such reasonable things as "Kill all Muslims."^[33]
• In 2015, a man at a town hall meeting shouted: "Every Muslim is a terrorist" at a Muslim man who was showing plans for a new mosque on land he already claimed ownership for. At least three members of the crowd cheered on the anti-Muslim man.^[34]
• Jan Morgan, an NRA advocate who banned Muslims from her gun range, also owns a website called "JanMorganMedia". In an article, she refers to Islam as a terrorist cult that is plotting world denomination and says all Muslims want to destroy America.^[35]
• Anti-Muslim website Bare Naked Islam warns against making friendships with Muslims.^[36]
• A former Laval University/University Laval student Alexandre Bissonnette violently targeted the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City (French: Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec) in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada killing 6 people and injuring 19 more.
• Wales-born Darren Osborne drove his van into Finsbury Park Mosque in Finsbury Park, London, the United Kingdom, resulting in 1 person dead and 9 others getting injured.
• A pseudo-cleric Imam Tawhidi from Australia advocated for banning Muslim immigration, shutting down Islamic schools, and prohibiting religious books.^[37]
• A 28-year old self-described "Ethno-nationalist, Eco-fascist" "Kebab removalist" "racist" Australia-born Brenton Harrison Tarrant committed two consecutive terrorist attacks at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand killing 51 people and injuring 50 more after self-publishing a manifesto titled The Great Replacement named after a far-right theory from France of the same name and live-streamed the shootings for 17 minutes on Facebook in what would eventually become New Zealand's deadliest terrorist attacks/shootings, the deadliest attack against Muslims in the West, the first major mass shooting of 2019, and the most severe white nationalist-supremacist/neo-Nazi shooting in a non-Christian place of worship.

The rise of and fight against ISIS around the 2016 US elections led to a dramatic increase in Islamophobia that deserves its own section. Khaled A Beydoun, an assistant professor of law, writes:

While 60 percent of Republican voters support Trump's Muslim ban, this number is presumptively higher for Trump supporters. Seventy-five percent of South Carolina voters, where Trump won handily, support the ban. Support for the ban was even higher in Alabama and Arkansas at 78 percent, where Trump won by roughly 22 percent and three percent, respectively.^[38]

In 2015 and 2016, Islamophobic attacks against American Muslims have soared to their highest levels since the aftermath of 9/11. Hundreds of attacks such as arsons at mosques, assaults, shootings, and threats of violence have been documented. New data from researchers at California State University, San Bernardino, found that hate crimes against American Muslims were up 78 percent over the course of 2015. Attacks on those perceived as Arab rose even more sharply, proving that Islamophobia continues to have a racist character. In fact, the frequency of anti-Muslim violence, often against victims wearing traditional Muslim garb or seen as Middle Eastern, appeared to have increased immediately after some of Mr. Trump’s most incendiary comments.

The increase in reports of apparent hate crimes has worried Justice Department officials.

"We saw it after 9/11, and we continue to see an uptick in allegations of hate-related incidents today following the tragic events over the past year," said Vanita Gupta, who leads the Justice Department’s civil rights division. "We see criminal threats against mosques; harassment in schools; and reports of violence targeting Muslim-Americans, Sikhs, people of Arab or South-Asian descent and people perceived to be members of these groups," Ms. Gupta said.^[39]

The Justice Department has moved to draw public attention to the problem and marshal resources to combat it as part of a broader effort against religious discrimination. A number of experts in hate crimes said they were concerned that Mr. Trump’s vitriol may have legitimized threatening or even violent conduct by a small fringe of his supporters.

Misuse of the term[edit]

Islamophobia is a controversial term for a number of reasons. Despite the implication of the term, those accused of Islamophobia are not actually afraid of Islam, but instead are highly critical of it (although an argument could be made that many Islamophobic people are irrationally afraid of Muslims bringing terrorism to their neighborhood). Despite the fact that it may not be an actual phobia, it is akin to the concept of homophobia.

Controversial New Atheists, such as Sam Harris^[41] and Bill Maher^[42] have endorsed Andrew Cummins' description of Islamophobia as “a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.”,^[43] which Harris and Maher misattributed to Hitchens.^[44]

About Islamophobia, Harris writes:

Stephane "Charb" Charbonnier, one of the cartoonists murdered by jihadists in the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks, attacked the concept of Islamophobia in a posthumously published article. According to Charb, most right-wing Islamophobes are actually just racists. By calling their racism Islamophobia, these people get an intellectual veneer they don't deserve. "If one day all Muslims in France converted to Catholicism ... these foreigners or French of foreign origin would still be seen as responsible for all ills."^[46]

Stephen Schwartz, an American writer and critic of Wahhabism, has stated that although the charge of Islamophobia is sometimes leveled too quickly against an opponent, that it is still a real phenomenon,^[47] which he defines as:

1. Attacking the entire religion of Islam as a problem for the world;
2. Condemning all of Islam and its history as extremist;
3. Denying the active existence, in the contemporary world, of a moderate Muslim majority;
4. Insisting that Muslims accede to the demands of non-Muslims (based on ignorance and arrogance) for various theological changes in their religion;
5. Treating all conflicts involving Muslims (including, for example, that in Bosnia-Herzegovina two decades ago), as the fault of Muslims themselves;
6. Inciting war against Islam as a whole.

At a 2009 symposium on "Islamophobia and Religious Discrimination", Robin Richardson, a former director of the Runnymede Trust and the editor of Islamophobia: a challenge for us all, said that "the disadvantages of the term Islamophobia are significant". Nonetheless, he argued that the term is here to stay, and that it is important to define it precisely, instead of completely abandoning it.^[48]

Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist blog chimes in with a similar perspective on the importance of definition for the term to function:^[49]

Criticism of Islam vs. Islamophobia[edit]

In a radio discussion on public radio between Reza Aslan and Sam Harris, Harris suggested that Islam is different from many other religions at this moment in its history because of its doctrines and the results of them, and Reza Aslan accused him of being a bigot for treating Islam as a special case.^[51] New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, who are very critical of all religions, are often accused of bigotry and Islamophobia. However, Harris has defended the profiling of Muslims and "anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim" in security contexts,^[52] although he himself has been accused of articulating "dangerous" and "divisive" beliefs by religionists and their defenders. Likewise, Dawkins has a very long and controversial history when it comes to his opinions about Islamic culture. In an interview with Bill Maher, he said:

Dawkins: "Oh, that’s their culture, you have to respect it."

Maher: "That’s right! That’s what they say. It’s just insane."

Dawkins: "Liberal about everything else, but then this one exception, ‘It’s their culture.’ Well, to hell with their culture."

Dawkins also accused Ahmed Mohammed of being comparable to an ISIS child soldier,^[53] all of which lends some credence to the suggestion that their particular quest to prevent people from using the word "Islamophobia" in any context has ulterior motives.

PZ Myers has rather insightfully suggested that Dawkins' and Maher's team-up is "a combination to bring out the worst in both".^[54]

In any case, while there are legitimate cases of bigotry towards Muslims,^{[note 6]} the term "Islamophobia" can be used to disparage valid criticisms of Islam and the culture that arises because of following Islam and Sharia law to its literal phrasing. Stephen Fry has seen it applied against him too reflexively on Twitter.^[55] CAIR activist Imraan Siddiqi has founded a site — Hatehurts^[56] — dedicated to "tracking Islamophobia and the communities affected by it."

Noted Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek has also come out against conflating criticism of Islam with Islamophobia, refusing to accept (quote): "prohibiting any critique of Islam as a case of ‘Islamophobia’".^[57]

Muslim women are uniquely vulnerable to sexism and Islamophobia, and the subsequent denial from Islamophobes that criticism against them is sexist or Islamophobic. Muslim women are visible targets for harassment when they wear headscarves and are also often subjected to negative stereotypes and forced to respond to misconceptions that they are oppressed and silenced by their religion. The Islamophobes pretend that they are "liberating" women by advocating for bans on headscarves or "burkinis".^[58]

Donald Trump amplified those stereotypes when he claimed that Ghazala Khan, the Muslim American mother of a slain U.S. soldier, had not been permitted to speak due to Islamic doctrines. Ghazala clarified that she did not speak because she was "in pain" over the death of her son. Muslim American women denounced Trump’s comment on social media using the hashtag #CanYouHearUsNow.^[59]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

• A Current Affair producer's wet dream
• hatehurts.net "Tracking Islamophobia and the communities affected by it."
• Fear of a Muslim America, Reason
• The Phobia of Being Called Islamophobic article by Ali A. Rizvi in Huffington Post
• 5 Facts Islamophobia Deniers Just Don't Get article by Qasim Rashid in Huffington Post, in respond to previous Huffington Post article by Ali A. Rizvi
• SPLC's Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists
• The Grayzone Project - AlterNet's project covering rising Islamophobia in the West.

Notes[edit]

References[edit]