Special Rules
And on a more serious note, on the same David Aaronovitch column – he does make a number of important points.
His argument seems to be that it’s a human right to attend a denominational school and given these may be further away from home than the local school, parents should not be subject to the same penalties as those whose child’s journey results purely from choice. In other words, a religious choice in education is a matter of freedom of conscience, whereas any other kind of choice isn’t. Steam emerges from every orifice at this. Especially when the barrister adds: ‘When I got married we promised to bring up our children in the Catholic faith and so we put them through a Catholic school.’ This is the non sequitur upon which he bases his claim to be accorded superior treatment. Perhaps he would like a little sticker for his car that reads ‘Free parking for monotheist pupils only’.
Well, he probably would like exactly that. Religious believers often seem to take the idea of their ‘special’ status and special rights so for granted that they are unable to see how odd that idea is, no matter how carefully anyone tries to explain. But why? Why should people have special rights because they believe in a deity? It is a pervasive (increasingly so, I think) notion, but one that I have a hard time seeing the logic of. Is it kind of like endangered species legislation? That things that are vulnerable need special protection? And belief in a deity is vulnerable because it depends on ‘faith’ as opposed to evidence and logic? Is that it? That’s the only reason I can think of, really. But if so…surely the reductio is pretty obvious. Should we give special rights to astrologers and people who think there’s a Disneyland on Jupiter, and withold them from people who try not to believe six impossible things before breakfast? That could end up having some unfortunate results, one would think.
What is going on here, I think, is an attempt to protect the young from modernity…One proselytiser for Muslim education who sends out letters to the media captures this very well. When there was a conviction for an ‘honour killing’ in London last autumn, this campaigner argued that the victim, killed by her father, ‘was educated to be a Westernized woman, instead of a Muslim’…This is a social agenda, as much as a religious one. It was argued by a pro-faith school columnist that at least the two great faiths – Catholicism and Islam – permit equality to believers and co-religionists. But they don’t. If they did there would be women priests and women imams. My fear is that this emphasis on faith schooling is an attempt, albeit unconscious – to return us to the days before feminism, an attempt which affects all of us.
But it’s difficult to talk honestly about the subject, in part precisely because of the ‘special rights’ idea – because believers think their beliefs should be protected from discussion or question. And some believers, I have reason to know, seem to think that the very fact that they are believers means that nothing they do can be wrong – pretty much by definition. So they feel perfectly cheerful about launching torrents of sexist, obscene raving at wicked unbelievers like me. I should know, I have the spittle-flecked (virtually speaking) emails to prove it. (I have a feeling I get a double if not triple dose because of being a female. Uppity women just do piss some people off, you know…)
I have recently collected a few examples of this religious special pleading.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1125441,00.html
The refusal of Denbigh High School in Luton to allow Shabina Begum, 15, to attend lessons in a jilbab, a long gown that leaves only the hands and face uncovered, was “a denial of her right to education and right to manifest her religious beliefs”, the court was told.
Ms Spencer argued that the school’s action breached Ms Begum’s right under Article 9 of the European Convention “to manifest her religion or belief”. She also said that it breached a number of other articles in the convention: respect for private and family life, and the rights not to suffer discrimination or be denied education. Ms Begum had the support of a number of Islamic scholars and imans — two of whom had originally backed the school.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3789303.stm
Their Muslims on Education report calls for curriculum changes, such as introducing an Islamic Studies A-Level.
Other recommendations include reversing the trend of mixed sex education, and training staff in religious awareness.
On the subject of religion, do you think that ‘islamophobia’ is to be discouraged, as suggested in this (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1132169,00.html) Times article? Is it irrational for people to fear an ideology which is opposed to many practices they consider as social norms?
“Any God better than none I suppose.”
This seems to be the case, but is counterintuitive to me, at least. Afterall, us athists merely don’t “put out” for any god. Call us frigid if you like. Those of other faiths however, are “cheating” on god.
Nonsense. Everyone pays tax, including people who don’t have children at all. They don’t get to “claw it back” and nor should they – as Holmes pointed out, taxation is the price of civilization.
As for diversity and tolerance – who said that’s what I want? Not I. Do I want tolerance of nonsense being taught in school? No. Do I want diversity in, say, math? No.
“As for diversity and tolerance – who said that’s what I want? Not I. Do I want tolerance of nonsense being taught in school? No. Do I want diversity in, say, math? No.”
Are you in favour of prohibiting religious schools, then? After all, religion is quite literally ‘nonsense’ (thought it may ‘make sense’ from an evolutionary perspective in that religious people are more fecund than secularists). It would seem to follow from your argument. If you don’t want tolerance of “nonsense being taught in school”, presumably you want intolerance.
But perhaps I am misinterpreting you.
Don’t know whether I’m in favour of prohibiting religious schools or not. I’m ambivalent. But if all schools were state schools – if private schools were prohibited – then I would be. But being in favour of prohibiting religious schools doesn’t follow from what I said – I simply said what I want, in response to what you said about wanting ‘diversity’ and tolerance. Wanting something is not the same thing as wanting a law to make it possible; not wanting something is not the same thing as wanting a law to prohibit it. As a matter of fact, there is a huge gap between the two. And yet people do quite often run them together, which seems odd. I mean, crikey, I don’t want a peanut butter sandwich for dinner; that doesn’t mean I want them to be illegal!
I’m for intolerance of nonsense. I’m for intolerance of religious schools. We already interfere with how parents bring up their children in order to prevent physical abuse. Is it not abusive to fail to develop a child’s capacity to make rational informed decisions for itself? Is it not abusive to teach a child to believe in a mythological entity and act on that belief? As is pointed out by Richard Mitchell, there are no Anglican children, only children of Anglican parents. It would, I think, be too intrusive to interfere to prevent this sort of mental abuse by parents; but I think government should seek to minimise the promulgation of religion in all schools. Just my opinion, of course.
I didn’t think Islamophobia was meant simply as disagreement with Islam, as a religion. I thought it was about being afraid of Islam and Muslims in particular, and the dark connotations that the Muslim and Arab worlds, and culture, have to a colonial mindset. I’m thinking Robert Kilroy Silk here, not Richard Dawkins.
Otherwise, I’m Christianophobic, or Judaiophobic and I think you’re in danger of redefining the word to take the sting out of it. This is undesirable when there are clearly people with an irrational hatred of Muslims and Islam – particularly on the right, particularly when wars are framed in terms of ‘crusades’, clashes of civilisation or pious christians versus evil, false god worshipping, muslims.
In fact, it reminds me a bit of peopel on the left arguing that they can’t be anti-semitic because palestinians are semitic – it isn’t relevant, and it distracts attention from the real issue.
Wow, that Vardy foundation thing is a worry. Put in 10% of running costs for a school and Tony Blair lets you peddle creationism as equivalent to evolutionary theory, and the government picks up the tab.
The only consolation is that even the church doesn’t seem too happy at creationism being taught as fact – jesus, the -head- of science is a creationist – teacher recruitment is really going down the pan.
Only one answer, remove the religious affiliations of -all- state schools, then, once we’ve done pissing off the middle classes (and a small fraction of relgious people) with that, we can ban all the private schools too, hah…that’ll teach ’em.
PM, a phobia is a fear and not a hatred, though I accept that the one MAY contribute to the other. I fear tigers but I do not hate them. I am not redefining the word although, as your comment seems to indicate, the media may have done just that.
Mike, regarding the Islamophobia question, the Koran does not anywhere preach to females what to wear – Arabic traditions do that. The assertion that the Luton school’s action “breached Ms Begum’s right under Article 9 of the European Convention to manifest her religion or belief” is misleading.
Thanks Ophelia, I don’t have kids, but I do pay my taxes and I do spend a half an hour longer than necessary getting to work each day, largely because of people exercising ‘choice’ where to school their brats. The government wants more religious schools, and it is claimed that church schools are more successful, but there is no evidence for this if you take different school intakes into account. The idea that religious schools have a distinctive, presumably superior, ethos is at the very least an insult to the dedicated teachers at non-religious schools.
Cathal – at present, UK religious schools may select 100% of pupils from parents who share their faith. They are given taxpayers’ money and allowed to discriminate against other children on the grounds of religion. Yet it would be totally unacceptable to exclude children on the grounds of race or colour.
“In fact, it reminds me a bit of peopel on the left arguing that they can’t be anti-semitic because palestinians are semitic – it isn’t relevant, and it distracts attention from the real issue.”
Islamaphobia is much like anti-semtism. It is hurled as a term of abuse against anyone who makes any critism, however valid. What about those that think that illegally occupying another land (e.g. Gaza, Westbank) AND blowing up civilians is bang out of order. (“A pox on both your houses”). Are such people anti-semtic-islmaphobes? Shouting anitsemitism or islamaphobia anytime someone wants to critise an aspect of either is the grown-up version of sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and going “na na na, can’t hear you”.
On the subject of caving in to ludicrous religious demands, I look forward to the first case brought by a Kali worshipper, who feels that their right to make human sacrifices is interfered with by mere earthly laws that prohibit murder.
I look forward to it because at the moment the main question that seems to be asked in such cases is “is this practice really integral to the religion, or are they just pretending it is integral to the religion?” as if so long as it fulfils that criteria, then it should be allowed to continue. The far more important question that should be asked is “does this practice interfere with the rights of other individuals”.
(Mike, I think you probably meant Richard Dawkins, not Mitchell?)
“I didn’t think Islamophobia was meant simply as disagreement with Islam, as a religion. I thought it was about being afraid of Islam and Muslims in particular, and the dark connotations that the Muslim and Arab worlds, and culture, have to a colonial mindset.”
Well but that’s the trouble with the word – because it’s the wrong word for all those things. It functions to make it a thought-crime to disagree with Islam. The expanded meaning probably is what some (maybe most) people mean by it, but in that case it’s an inherently unclear and misleading word. It’s also, of course, as Chris says, simply a handy pejorative. That’s also the trouble with the word. It’s one of those mindless You Must Not Say That words.
“UK religious schools may select 100% of pupils from parents who share their faith. They are given taxpayers’ money and allowed to discriminate against other children on the grounds of religion.”
Yes – that complicates the issue. Here (in the US) the question of taxpayers’ money is at least still a vexed one, though people are finding more and more ways to get public money to religious schools. But quite a few of us still think the separation of church and state is just a really good idea, and we try to hang onto it.
“I look forward to the first case brought by a Kali worshipper, who feels that their right to make human sacrifices is interfered with by mere earthly laws that prohibit murder.”
Just so. It’s like that Guardian column about a year ago arguing that laws against cruelty to animals should give way to religions’ desires to slaughter them in a ritual manner. As I pointed out in a N&C at the time, Ibn Warraq is strongly and lucidly critical of this notion in his Why I am not a Muslim.
OB, I think, like ‘anti-semitism’, that the problem is that those on the extremes of either side of the argument would like to extend the meaning of ‘Islamaphobia’. So originally it meant (and still means IMHO) fear of Islam/Muslims in general, something I think we all generally take to be a ‘bad thing’. Then some people take to calling anyone that criticises Islam (as a religion) or Muslim people (as people) or even Arab states, Islamophobic. But then others start to take this meaning as the new meaning, thus removing the force of the word, so they can be happy being ‘Islamophobic’ in this new sense, even though they’ve been Islamophobic in the ‘bad thing’ sense.
In other words, just because people will sling ‘anti-semite’ at you for justifiable criticism of Israel, it doesn’t mean that anti-Semitism in the original (and again, IMHO, the only real sense) doesn’t exist, and isn’t a ‘bad thing’.
I take back my earlier comments; I can see a difference between Islmaphobia and antisemitism. Anti semitism descriminates on the basis of who someone is, as opposed to what they do or beleive. People descriminate against others on account of their beleifs all the time. Intellectually at least, it is defensible, whereas antisemitism is not even intellectually defensible.
PM,
“So originally it meant (and still means IMHO) fear of Islam/Muslims in general, something I think we all generally take to be a ‘bad thing’.”
I’m not sure that is what it originally meant, though – that’s my point about its being the wrong word. If that is what whoever first coined it meant, then it’s the wrong word, because Islam doesn’t mean Muslims, it means Islam. There’s a huge difference between hating (or fearing or disliking or disagreeing with) Christianity and hating etc Christians. Same with Islam. It’s the same point Chris makes – there is indeed a difference between antisemitism and ‘Islamophobia’. That’s my point about why it’s a bad idea (I think) to consider Islam a race, which some people think is a good idea. But race has no cognitive content that can be argued with, whereas religion emphaticaly does. To equate the two seems to me to be (among other things) a stealthy way of conferring immunity from criticism on religion. I don’t think religion or religions should be immune from criticism.
OB, I still think what you are doing is co-opting a word to mean something it doesn’t. Islamophobia is an irrational fear of Islam -and- Muslims as far as I’m concerned, it is not a critical rejection of Islam, or its tenets, that is, in at least some respects, atheism.
Obviously there is a distinction between anti-semitism and islamophobia, I’m not claiming any equivalence, I’m using the use of the former to illustrate what I think is going on in the use of the latter. No sneaky rhetorical sleights of hand going on here.
“Islamophobia is an irrational fear of Islam -and- Muslims as far as I’m concerned, it is not a critical rejection of Islam”.
So who decides whether the fear is rational or not? What criteria would you use to discriminate between rational and irrational fear?
The same criteria I use for discriminating between any other rational or irrational beliefs. Are we turning into relativists here all of a sudden?
In the same way, you could have rational or irrational fears of immigration. In the same way I can see that many conservative politicians have perfectly rational, but selfish, motives for their beliefs, I can also see that many working class Tory voters have mistaken beliefs that lead them to vote Tory.
Worrying, like Kilroy-Silk, that Muslims are all suicide bombers is not quite the same as thinking that Islam makes untrue factual claims, is used to oppress women, etc.
“The same criteria I use for discriminating between any other rational or irrational beliefs.”
That doesn’t actually answer the question, unless I already know what criteria you use for those other beleifs. In fact, of course, I do not know how you descriminate between any other rational or irrational beliefs.
“Are we turning into relativists here all of a sudden?”
Hardly. I have no problem with saying that I find many of the practices and beleifs of Islam worthy of phobia. All religions make pretty much equally stupid claims. And going on the texts alone there is not much to separate Islam from any of the other mono-theist religions. However, in terms of their adherents, in the early 21st century, the average “zeal” quotient of Muslim followers seems higher than the average ZQ of any other relgion AS PRACTISED.
Why is it OK for me to oppose the beleifs of the BNP (say), but not Islam?
“Worrying, like Kilroy-Silk, that Muslims are all suicide bombers is not quite the same as thinking that Islam makes untrue factual claims, is used to oppress women, etc.”
Holding the beleif that all Muslims are suicide bombers seems a pretty high bar for defining a person as Islmaphobic. I don’t suppose even Rumsfeld beleives that (or Kilroy-Silk for that matter).
Most people in the free world were afraid of communism, at least until recently. That did not mean they thought each and every communist wanted to nuke America or allies. The very fact that communism squashes the individual and beleives it should eventually prevail across the world was enough to make many people scared of communism. Likewise Islam. I do not have to be scared of every single muslim to be scared of the beleif system, aims, and methods used to carry out those aims. And that would seem to be Islamaphobic. Indeed any system that thinks it is the only way, and acts accordingly deserves phobia.
From ‘We Owe Arabs Nothing” by Robert Kilroy Silk:
“What do they think we feel about them [the Arabs]?…That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors?”
“Moreover, the people who claim we are loathsome [the Arabs] are currently threatening our civilian populations with chemical and biological weapons. They are promising to let suicide bombers loose in Western and American cities. They are trying to terrorise us, disrupt our lives. And then they expect us to be careful of their sensibilities? We have thousands of asylum seekers from Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries living happily in this country on social security. This shows what their own people think of the Arab regimes, doesn’t it? There is not one single British asylum seeker in any Arab country. That says it all about which country deserves the epithet loathsome.”
ChrisM,
don’t get you re: rationality, what is your point? You claim you are not being a relativist because you “have no problem with saying that [you] find many of the practices and beleifs of Islam worthy of phobia.” i.e. you think your beliefs are rational grounds for being afraid of something, yet just before that you are insisting that I define exactly how I distinguish the rational from the irrational, and that seems like something of a pomo move to end an argument.
“Why is it OK for me to oppose the beleifs of the BNP (say), but not Islam?”
Never said it wasn’t. In fact, as I’ve prety clearly spelled out, I don’t like religion at all. We’re talking about the word Islamophobic here. OB thinks its use is a kind of special pleading where we are meant to uncritically accept that criticising Islam is a bad thing because the word Islamophobic is applied to it (hence my analogy with ‘anti-Semitic’) – I think that, like ‘anti-Semitic’, there is a question of correct use at stake – i.e. I think Islamophobic applies to something that is a bad thing but that the word is applied too widely to try and make criticisms of Islam out-of-bounds, OB thinks that the word means exactly what the people using it to make criticism of Islam out-of-bounds are using it for, but that, therefore, Islamophobia is not a bad thing necessarily. I take it you have the same point of view as OB.
“Likewise Islam. I do not have to be scared of every single muslim to be scared of the beleif system, aims, and methods used to carry out those aims. And that would seem to be Islamaphobic. Indeed any system that thinks it is the only way, and acts accordingly deserves phobia.”
Personally I think you have far too stereotyped a view of what Islam is. I’m not scared of Islam as a belief system, I dislike it because it is irrational , relies on authority, suppresses criticism etc. I.e., its liek any other religion. I also don’t like certain extreme versions of it, jihads, the extreme oppression of women etc, and I could even be called phobic of some of the actions and beliefs of the fundamentalists. [I still prefer the implications of irrationality in the word phobia though, probably my medical background]. of course I’m also just as afraid of the wierdo abortion clinic bombing Christians, or the Muslim massacring Hindus – I just don’t point the finger directly at Christianity or Hinduism as being clinic bombing or Muslim massacring.
“You claim you are not being a relativist because you “have no problem with saying that [you] find many of the practices and beleifs of Islam worthy of phobia.”
I was not so much claiming to not be a relativist on those grounds, as disputing your earlier assertion that I was a relativist.
“you are insisting that I define exactly how I distinguish the rational from the irrational, and that seems like something of a pomo move to end an argument.”
Insisting is probably too strong a word for it. I won’t launch a fatwah on you if you fail to answer, But I was curious as to:_
what grounds you used to distinguish between rational fear and irrational fear
what grounds you think I fear Islam on.
Those two bits of information (or definitions I suppose) are needed before we can decide whether I (or anybody else) am Islamaphobic.
“Personally I think you have far too stereotyped a view of what Islam is.” What in my posts do you find unfair on Islam? For that matter what do you think my view on Islam is?
“I’m not scared of Islam as a belief system”
Religions are NOT just beleif systems though, they are made up of followers who often cite their religion as motives for their actions (whether good or bad).
“I’m also just as afraid of the wierdo abortion clinic bombing Christians, or the Muslim massacring Hindus – I just don’t point the finger directly at Christianity or Hinduism as being clinic bombing or Muslim massacring.
“.
Or indeed Muslims massacring Hindus. I take your point though. Clearly most religions have their nastier elements. However, today at least, the muslim religion seems to be much better than others at inciting people to do barbaric things.
I think I do take the same view as OB on this. I see your point about Islmamphobia (as you take the meaning of that term to be) to be a bad thing, and going on that defintion I would agree. However, I agree with OB that the term was probably mis-coined in the first place.
“Moreover, the people who claim we are loathsome [the Arabs] are currently threatening our civilian populations with chemical and biological weapons. They are promising to let suicide bombers loose in Western and American cities.”
I can’t see the word Islam or Muslim anywhere in Kilroy’s diatribe. Arab, yes, Muslim no. His comments are racist rather than anything else. And even then, they are only racist if you take him literally and assume he means all or most arabs. Quite possibly he was just talking lazily, and meaning the arab leaders. E.g. when some people critise aspects of US Foreign policy, they may say “The americans did…”. Clearly in such cases they are referring to the administration, not 300 million americans.
“I also don’t like certain extreme versions of it, jihads, the extreme oppression of women etc,”
So more moderate versions where there is only moderate oppresion of women is OK then ;-).
The more I think about it, the more nonsense the term Islamaphobia actually is. It is like the term homophobia. These clearly are not genuine phobias. Dislike or hatred maybe, but certainly not phobia. No reasonable person would hold a genuine phobia (e.g. spiders, heights, small spaces etc) against someone who suffered from said phobia. Clearly Islamaphobia is not the same kind of thing at all. It is a political term rather than medical.
PM,
“OB, I still think what you are doing is co-opting a word to mean something it doesn’t. Islamophobia is an irrational fear of Islam -and- Muslims as far as I’m concerned, it is not a critical rejection of Islam, or its tenets, that is, in at least some respects, atheism.”
But I’m not co-opting the word, I’m saying the word in question is the wrong word for the job. That’s because it’s obvious, on-the-face-of-it meaning does not match what people seem to mean by it and want to use it for – the meaning that you cite. That’s simply because of the word ‘Islam’ in ‘Islamophobia’. Just as saying ‘I disagree with (or hate) Islam’ is not at all the same thing as saying ‘I disagree with (or hate) all Muslims’ so Islamophobia is not the same thing as Islam-and-Muslims ophobia. That’s why it’s just a bad, misleading, clumsy, incoherent word – though it’s also useful for people who want to do a particular thing, which is to equate dissent from Islam with hatred of Muslims. I’m not co-opting the word at all, because I never use it (except in meta-uses like this one), I’m simply examining its meaning.
OB, I understand your point that, strictly speaking ‘Islamophobia’ as a word can be narrowly construed as (after the OED):
a. L. -phobia, a. Gr. -, forming abst. ns. from the adjs. in – (see -PHOBE) with sense ‘dread, horror’; as in , hydrophobia ‘horror of water’. Also in modern words formed in Eng. by analogy, as Anglophobia, Gallophobia, Germanophobia, Russophobia,
i.e. dread/horror of Islam
But that requires Islam to be narrowly construed as applying to simply the religion of Mohammed, as religion, rather than to the body of Muslims, or Muslim world, which is also ‘Islam’. So maybe a better word would be Muslimophobia, but I imagine that formulation of the word would offend the ear, can -you- suggest a better word to use?
But since you’ve taken this tack, let me ask you, doesn’t ‘homophobia’ make absolutely no sense at all?
And of course, while we’re at it, what about ‘anti-Semitism’, not exactly the right word either, opposed to the Semites (arther than Jews, or Hebrews), but we all know what it means.
ChrisM
“Insisting is probably too strong a word for it. I won’t launch a fatwah on you if you fail to answer, But I was curious as to:_
what grounds you used to distinguish between rational fear and irrational fear
what grounds you think I fear Islam on.
Those two bits of information (or definitions I suppose) are needed before we can decide whether I (or anybody else) am Islamaphobic.”
I haven’t claimed you fear Islam.
How can I give you a definition of rational that isn’t circular, why can’t you just accept that we all can and do make judgements of whether or not other people hold rational or irrational beliefs, whether their reasoning is sound – I refer to this as a pomo argument to close discussion because it uses a questioning of widely held assumptions to prevent debate moving any further, like me saying, ‘ah yes, but how do you know that I exist?’ – I really don’t see why I need to elaborate on “what grounds [I use] to distinguish between rational fear and irrational fear”.
“What in my posts do you find unfair on Islam? For that matter what do you think my view on Islam is?”
This line, the one I replied to:
“Likewise Islam. I do not have to be scared of every single muslim to be scared of the beleif system, aims, and methods used to carry out those aims. And that would seem to be Islamaphobic. Indeed any system that thinks it is the only way, and acts accordingly deserves phobia.”
Because I do not think that you can claim that the aims and methods you are scared of are intrinsically those of Islam, rather than those of -some- of their followers, much like abortion clinic bombers don’t necessarily represent ‘Christianity’ as a belief system.
“However, today at least, the muslim religion seems to be much better than others at inciting people to do barbaric things.”
What characteristics specific to Islam do you think makes it so much more likely to incite people to do barabric things? Could the difference not be partly to do with the countries in which people are Muslim, rather than the religion itself, the huge numbers of Muslims versus other religions, the greater prominence given to Muslim barabric things versus other religions, and teh greater fear that things might happen to -us-, in the West, rather than in this unimportant 3rd world countries, since Sept 11th?
“So more moderate versions where there is only moderate oppresion of women is OK then ;-).”
Oi, I deliberately included extreme oppression of women as a fundamentalist move, whereas your general run of the mill oppression is right there in mainstream Islam.
re: Kilroy, I think a case case made that in most people’s minds, and quite probably Kilroy’s – Arab and Muslim are synonymous – ge full text of Kilroy’s article makes me think that he was referring to all Arabs, not just leaders, I’ll see if I can find it:
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1055475/posts
PM,
“But that requires Islam to be narrowly construed as applying to simply the religion of Mohammed, as religion, rather than to the body of Muslims, or Muslim world, which is also ‘Islam’.”
Ah, I suppose that’s true – I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I suppose people do say ‘Islam’ meaning the Islamic world. Do people use ‘Christianity’ the same way, I wonder? Don’t think so – doesn’t seem familiar.
“can -you- suggest a better word to use?”
No. But then I don’t feel any particular need for such words. For one-word formulas for irrational group hatreds. If it takes three words to make the meaning clear, then we might as well use all three, it seems to me. Plus I’m suspicious of the usage anyway, because it so often functions to elide rational disagreement and mindless hatred. That’s partly what it’s meant to do, I think. It’s a covert debate-stifling-device. Words like ‘bashing’ and ‘demonizing’ work the same way – which is why they are in the FD.
“doesn’t ‘homophobia’ make absolutely no sense at all?”
Not much. Especially since literally all it means is same-phobia – which is stupid. It’s shorthand, but a shorthand that leaves out an essential ingredient. On the other hand, I do think it describes something real – I just think it does a bad job of it.
“I think a case case made that in most people’s minds, and quite probably Kilroy’s – Arab and Muslim are synonymous”
If so, they really need to get over it! Not all Arabs are Muslims, and most emphatically not all Muslims are Arabs. One might as well use ‘Brazilians’ and ‘Catholics’ as synonymous.
Kilroy-Silk’s ravings were aimed at Arabs, as I remember it. I assumed he actually meant Arabs, not Muslims.
What a nuisance identity politics can be.
Me: “doesn’t ‘homophobia’ make absolutely no sense at all?”
OB: “Not much. Especially since literally all it means is same-phobia – which is stupid. It’s shorthand, but a shorthand that leaves out an essential ingredient. On the other hand, I do think it describes something real – I just think it does a bad job of it.”
Does that mean that you don’t think Islamophobia describes something real? If so I would have to strongly disagree with you.
No, it doesn’t mean that at all. ‘On the other hand’ just refers to the literal meaninglessness of the word, not to some parallel term like Islamophobia.
Mind you, I don’t exactly think ‘Islamophobia’ refers to something real, because I think it refers to more than one thing, some arguably more real than others. But if your question is ‘do I think there is such a thing as unreasonable or irrational hatred of Muslims as a group,’ then sure, I do think there’s such a thing. For that matter, find me a group, any group, and I bet there will be people who hate it.
Quakers?
Hell yes, Quakers! Quakers are heretics, for a start.