What’s Islamophobia, and Do I Have It?

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/6729/what_s_islamophobia__and_do_i_have_it/
December 31, 2012
An answer in eight parts
By HAROON MOGHUL


At a rally in New York city in 2011. Image courtesy flickr user asterix611

Haroon Moghul
Associate Editor Haroon Moghul is a Fellow at the New America Foundation and the Center on National Security at Fordham Law. He is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University and the author of a novel, The Order of Light (Penguin 2006). Haroon has been a guest on CNN, BBC, NPR, Russia Today, The History Channel and al-Jazeera.

A closed mind is a terrible thing to behold. But it’s a far worse thing to have to engage. And yet we must. This Saturday, the woman who murdered a complete stranger by shoving him into the path of an arriving subway train was arrested. Her name? Erica Menendez. Her target? Hindus and Muslims. Why? Because of 2001.

More than eleven years after the terrorist attacks, and the alleged murderer not only could not distinguish between a Muslim and a Hindu, but held both collectively responsible for the actions of a few—there are 2.5 billion Muslims and Hindus in the world. This is clear, cut-and-dried bigotry, of the typically ignorant kind.

You’d think recent events only further prove Islamophobia’s dangerousness. But on the night of Erica’s arrest, the usual cohort of anti-Muslim voices persisted in their denial of Islamophobia, considering it a “neologism” used by the left to silence their fair criticisms of Islam. Reality, as always, begs to disagree.

Islamophobia is anything but rational, fair, or grounded. Like climate change denial, it masks real threats and makes it harder for us to deal with them. America deserves a better conversation on Islam. One that has the room to acknowledge real threats and challenges, but also enables us to make smarter choices, and deal with Muslims as we are: Human beings.

more at link

[edhopper]

1. I don't have anything against Islam

that I don't have against any religion.
But I do find at this point in time, some Muslim countries tend to move in the direction of theocracy more than other dominant religions. And there is a small contingent of Muslims that take from their religion a particularly brutal and inhuman way to live and force others to live.
Many parts of the Muslim world are in need of an enlightenment. IMHO

[cbayer]

2. Would you classify yourself as a *religiophobe*?

FWIW, I hate the use of the modifier "phobe" as it refers to fear.

While fear may be the root causes for many kinds of prejudice and bigotry, there are other reasons that people take a position against groups or certain kinds of people.

[edhopper]

3. No

I think I have a very rational dislike for religion.
I think we have a particularly nasty strain of Christian fundamentalism in this country. Fortunately it is a small fringe element which unfortunately has a large amount of clout than it should within the GOP.
But the Muslim world has areas where that element has much more power.

[cbayer]

5. Making the distinction is important, because the tendency of some to generalize

the behavior of the fringes to the majority makes not sense to me.

Fortunately, I think we are experiencing a rebalance in this country. The religious right is losing it's pull, primarily, imo, because they feel they were used by the republican party and are backing out of politics to some extent. But also because the religious left is talking louder and more clearly.

In Islamic countries, the distinction between state and religion is much less defined, making it ripe for using religion to achieve political goals.

I agree, that that is a problem, as it gives extremists a powerful platform.

[2ndAmForComputers]

9. Where do you draw the line between "disliking X" and "being an X-ophobe?"

[cleanhippie]

12. Cbayer, this is where you (intentionally?) confuse the issue.

It is the religious moderates reluctance and refusal to deal with the religious fringes that has led to their empowerment that gets them lumped together; implicit support of their ideology.

[dimbear]

4. Today's news actually has a more important story than pushing the one unfortunate under the train:

we've all heard about the (supposed) militant Muslims in Pakistan who shot 5 teachers because they were women and 2 workers because they were distributing polio vaccine.

I don't consider myself an Islamophobe at all, but I see that Islam incites many terrible events and needs to be reined in hard, just like the worst aspects of any religion. I doubt that many Muslims would disagree.

It's fine to duck and weave and say "but, but, that's militant Islam." Until Islam stands up and says "enough" to this sort of barbarism, expect the opposition of reasonable people.

[cbayer]

6. I agree that most Muslims would also like to see the militant, extremist wings reined in.

I see signs of that happening, but it is a much more difficult in unstable countries with no clear rules about state/religion separation and deeply ingrained religious groups in government.

[dimbear]

7. There's an update to this event today. It turns out one of the women had her son with her

on the bus, and he was let go.

[dimbear]

8. Check out DU poster PanzerFaust on this topic:

Last edited Wed Jan 2, 2013, 10:15 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014354317


Great screen name, btw.


2 hours later--now there's a worse one, unbelievably bad--
http://www.democraticunderground.com/11382154

[MisterScruffles]

10. Justified Dislike

No other religion uses its own children as suicide bombers.



No other religion brags about its ability to kill its own civilians.

[cbayer]

11. There have been extremists associated with most, if not all religions, and

with movements of all kinds.

Does that make it ok to dislike/distrust all members of the group?

[cleanhippie]

13. When the rest of the group empowers the extremists via implicit apathy, yes.

[MisterScruffles]

14. Not exactly

Certainly, not every Muslim is evil. Every single Islamic country, however, has either displayed neutrality or support for Hamas. Suicide is forbidden in the Quaran, so you would think that comitting suicide in the name of Allah would result in complaints of heresy from the Islamic nations. And yet, the majority of Islam political entities support an organization who who intentionally kills their own children. The fact that an awful lot of "moderate" Muslims seemingly show indifference to the victims of Muslim religious violence doesn't suggest great things about the religion. Where were the moderate Muslims calling for the death of Mohammed Bouyeri after he murdered Theo van Gogh in the name of Allah? Where were the moderate Muslims calling for the death of Volkert van der Graaf when he murdered Pim Fortuyn in order to "protect Muslims"? Where are the moderate Muslims calling for the Palestinians to stop shooting rockets at Israeli civilians? Where are the moderate Muslims calling for the protection of the Copts in Egypt? Where are the moderate Muslims calling for the protection of humanitarian workers in Afghanistan?