Guest post: People and ideas
Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Idolatry.
So, once again: Muslims are people, and as such they can be the targets of bigotry and racism. Islam itself is a set of abstract, philosophical ideas about theology, metaphysics, ethics etc. to which concepts like bigotry and racism don’t apply. It’s perfectly possible to be critical* of the ideas and practices of Islam (not to mention the political ideology of Islamism) for reasons that have nothing to do with what people look like, where they’re from, or who their ancestors were. It’s even possible to oppose Islamists and white racists at the same time.
Whatever’s legitimate about the term “Islamophobia” can be expressed better – because more precisely – by terms such as “anti-Muslim bigotry” or, even better, “racism against people of Middle-Eastern / North-African / South-Asian descent” (It’s not in fact “bigotry” to say that all Muslims are proponents of Islam, nor is it necessarily bigotry to see that as a problem in itself. Specifics matter). Failing to make such basic distinctions only devalues the concepts of bigotry and racism, and nobody should be more pissed off by this than anti-racists.
As I have said many times, the battle against Islamism is not a battle between whites and non-whites. What we have are some non-whites against other non-whites, with white, Western apologists on both sides. So the question that white, Western liberals and progressives need to be asking themselves is “Which non-whites do I support? Those who share my values (feminists, gay rights activists, secularists etc.), or a far-right movement that I would be the first to condemn if it were dominated by white people?” You cannot have it both ways.
Which is not to say that racists are not going to grab onto whatever legitimate criticisms they can find to bolster their cause. Of course they will! If you single out the ideas of certain ethnic groups for special criticism, that’s clearly racism, but it’s still ultimately targeted at people and not the ideas themselves. The obvious example being movement atheists who spend every free moment bullying women online and defending every sleazebag, sexual harasser, and rapist out there only to suddenly turn so concerned for the treatment of “Dear Muslima” as soon as the conversation turns to Islam. It still doesn’t mean that the treatment of women in Islamist societies is not a problem, though, let alone that we have to shut up about it. Everything that can be exploited, politicized and weaponized for ideological purposes will be, e.g.:
(a) There are legitimate criticisms to be made of specific ideas and practices associated with the religion of Islam (not to mention the political ideology of Islamism).
(b) The fact that (a) is cynically and opportunistically seized upon by hardcore racists and bigots to portray all Muslims (or even just people from majority “Muslim” countries, whether they are in fact practicing Muslims or not) as dangerous fanatics and extremists.
(c) The fact that (b) is seized upon by Islamists and their apologists on the far Left to portray any criticism of Islam (or even Islamism) as “Islamophobia”, racism, bigotry and hatespeech.
(d) The fact that (c) is seized upon by the far right to portray any talk of racism and bigotry as “witch-hunts”, “thought police” and “political correctness gone insane”.
(e) The fact that (d) is seized upon by the far left to portray any criticism of leftist cancel-culture, no-platforming etc. as a defense of bigotry.
(f) Etc…. etc…
If we have to self-sensor about everything that can be exploited for nefarious ends, we might as well have our lips stitched together right now.
* In full disclosure, I really am quite “phobic” of ideas such as these:
Allah has clearly confounded Bjarte’s brain. Two and Three in his list are to the same url. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/inj/long.html
Muslims come in all the colours of the rainbow; well at least, in ‘black, white and brindle’. But not Arabs, (who dominate in Islamist organisations) and particularly not those living around Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, the holiest city of Islam. On the old basic caucusoid-negroid-mongoloid-australoid spectrum, they are definitlely caucusoids, along with Europeans, and while often sporting enviable suntans, are definitely ‘white’ in skin colour.
NB: To point this out cannot be construed as ‘racism’, since there have to be separate ‘races’ of humanity, however defined, in order for the word ‘racism’ to have any meaning or validity at all. And Islam is not a ‘race’, though the confectors of the term ‘Islamophobia’ did their best to blur the distinction between the religion of Islam on the one hand and its followers and believers on the other.
Muslims, like most religious people, are mostly born into their religion. They have not arrived at it as if by choice off a supermarket shelf.
Not Bjarte’s fault, I must have done it. Wait a second…
No they aren’t. If you’d opened them you would have seen they aren’t. Wasted a few minutes of my time.
Omar, there is a lot of overlap since many of the quotes fit equally well under “Cruelty”, “Intolerance”, and “Injustice”.
I’m not sure I agree that there has to be such a thing as races for racism to be real, just like there doesn’t have to be such a thing as witches for witch-hunts to be real. People hate each other over fictitious categories and divisions all the time (“gender” comes to mind…). Yes, there are white Muslims, but whether it’s right or wrong, and regardless of “the old basic caucusoid-negroid-mongoloid-australoid spectrum”, I strongly suspect that most people of European decent tend to think of Muslims, or Arabs for that matter, as non-white (as in “don’t look like the people in the village where my grandparents grew up”) which is both why racism does indeed factor into a lot of far right rhetoric against Islam, and why it’s so convenient for Islamists and their defenders on the far left to dismiss any criticism of Islam (or even Islamism) as racism.
OB:
My apologies, but you assume that I did not open them. I did. Several times each. Buggered if I know what happened. Must be losing it, big time. Ah well.
Huh. My turn to apologize. There’s a difference of only one letter in the url and I assumed that was what you were looking at.