Beware the rising tide of
Shaista Gohir is very generous.
Legitimate criticism of Muslims who spew extremist rhetoric and commit criminal acts is acceptable.
Oh. Thanks. We’re allowed to criticize people who commit criminal acts. That’s awfully nice of you.
In France, where the headscarf has already been banned and a face veil ban likely to follow, only a couple of thousand women wear it out of 5 million Muslims.
The headscarf has not been banned in France, of course; it’s been banned in public schools and other government buildings.
Currently Muhammad is the second most popular boy’s name in Britain – if it tops the list of baby names, how long before there are calls to ban Muslims from naming their sons after their beloved prophet?
Gee, I don’t know. Should we start stockpiling baked beans right now, just to be safe?
Gohir says: Recently traffic police in France fined a Muslim woman for wearing a face veil while driving based on her not having sufficient field of vision. She was able to see as well as motorcyclists wearing helmets – but they are not being fined…
I must ask here how Gohir carried out the abovementioned comparative test. After all, the purpose of the veil is to hide the face of the woman beneath it. This is not achieved with one-way glass, but with dark open-weave cloth. As long as the traditional veil-wearer can still see well enough to avoid other walkers in the street, the veil has done its job. In Saudi and some other Muslim countries women wearing veils do not drive: no women drive.
In general, the stricter the Islam, the more frequent the veils, and the less frequent the women drivers. From this we can derive the formula: (1) I = V/D where I = Islamic intensity, V = veil frequency (0-1) and D = female driver frequency (0-1). It follows also that in countries where there is only about one unveiled woman per million of population, and around one woman driver per million, Islamic intensity approaches infinity. It reaches the far end of the Universe when D = 0 and V = 1.
The purpose of the motorcycle helmet is to protect the face and head from impact while giving the best possible all-round vision to the wearer in order that he/she may avoid collisions.
The rising tide of Islamophobia needs to be tackled now – Muslims should take strategic advantage of the predicted prospect of a hung parliament and demand justice and equality. And it will be equality that is central to achieving a safe and cohesive society, not burka bans.
Equality; now there’s an interesting Islamic concept.
There is another expression: (2) E = D / V, where D and V are as in (1) above, and E is the index of social equality.
Well, that’s a cautionary tale, at any rate. Imagine, you can’t name a teddy bear Muhammed, but all those boys …?! Perhaps, the fact (if it is one) that Ms. Gohir reports, has more to do with lack of imagination than popularity. In my father’s home community there were so many George MacDonalds that my grandfather was known as Geordie D., others as George D., Geordie F, George F, George J., etc. Imagine the problem of classrooms full of Muhammeds! And why would you want to be called after a cutthroat and a brigand, I wonder? (Sorry, just had to add that. I think, when I read the stories of Muhammed, what a horrible man he really was. Sadly, the quote by Benedict a few years ago was right. There is very little that is original in the Qu’ran, and what is original tends to be regrettable. Muhammed ran a protection racket, and the Muslim Empire became a protection racket on a huge scale. In fact, such a huge protection racket that the finances of the empire depended to a large degree upon payments by dhimmis. Of course, I admit, it’s true. I do despise religion, but perhaps Islam the most.)
But this really is the most awful tripe. Actually, motor-cycle helmets offer fairly good peripheral vision, but why do I think Ms. Gohir already knew this? This is not about Islamophobia, it’s about Islamism and its bag of dirty tricks, from which she is so transparently playing, even as she denies it. Also, it’s a cautionary tale as well about democracy and its uses.
I really wonder what she thinks equality and justice would look like. As Ian says: “now there’s an interesting Islamic concept.” After all, she talks about Africans and Asians, but there is no concern here for Hindu equality, or Buddhist equality, or Sikh equality, but just equality for Muslims. She is not talking about anti-Hindu prejudice, or anti-Sikh prejudice, but of Islamophobia. Funny how that word seems to sum up racism for her. Race is really not the issue. Islamism is. I’m sure there’s lots of racism in Britain, as there is in Saudi Arabia, for instance, but this is not the problem. There are unstated expectations here, but what are they? And whose?
As you suggest, Ophelia, most of Ms. Gohir’s claims are mere insinuations, but what insinuations they are! And what do they really insinuate, I wonder? How they do, by misdirections, make directions clear.
Oooh an adapted Polonius-ism – very nice.
It does seem a bit odd that the scarf is banned before the veil.
@ Ian: Re the issue of a “comparative test” on vision with a niqab and with a motorcycle helmet: I know about that case (here in France, it’s been a huge controversy, as you might imagine), and I believe from what Gohir writes that she was just quoting the arguments of the woman’s legal counsel. The motorcycle helmet was among one of the examples he cited, and he also brought up fact the hoods that the GIGN (a French police elite force, kinda SWAT) officers often wear in mission, even while driving… I call shenanigans on the whole fining for “dangerous dress”.
Well, at least, the writer of the article got that tidbit of quote right. She reveals a lot of confusion or ignorance about the Muslims in France. Indeed, the headscarf or veil isn’t banned. Yet. (Though the ever-restless Sarkozy is busy pushing for a law banning the wearing of “burqas” and similar body-concealing garments, in all public places, even for adult women. Which shows clearly how much that government doesn’t care about women, but only about the so-called “national character” of the country…)
The so-called “ban” Gohir mentions is a dress code for students in the public (i.e., state-funded) schools and for the civil servants. Note that the symbols of other religions are not allowed either: I know some Orthodox Jewish men who work in government offices and cope with that regulation by wearing a beret indoors, instead of their traditional yarmulke!
Interestingly, in the same building, there is also a devout Muslim woman who doesn’t wear her usual hidjab at work, but a bandanna knotted on her hair.
Which goes to show that religion per se is less of a problem that intransigence about religion. As it often is.
@ Sili #4: That’s because until very recently, no Muslim woman in France has been wearing a face-veil, except a few rich tourists from the Persian Gulf. And nobody wanted to alienate those.
Hmmm. Is ms Gohir aware that one is not allowed to wear motorcycle helmets in, say, banks?
One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. Breaking with my usual practice this morning, I visited N&C before going to the usual Sydney Morning Herald website. So I did all my above posting ignorant of Burqa bandit in armed cash grab
Enough said.
Why must so many religious people come off as whining, petulant, ultra-sensitive, and deeply invested in a “downtrodden martyr” mythology? It’s something that has been complained about on atheist/secular blogs forever. Even the slightest perceived slight or possible threat to their privileges or rights is enough to bring up ghastly comparisons to the persecutions of Nero or Diocletian, or bloodthirsty medieval crusaders, or rabid Russian pogroms. “Help! Persecution is imminent because Catholic adoption agencies can’t discriminate against gays!” What makes it even more offensive is when the group in question is already a majority but takes on the mantle of a horribly oppressed minority, at the mercy of the illiberal secular state that wants to wipe it out, or when a religion with enormous numbers and global authority feels “persecuted” because not every nation or person on the planet will kiss its behind and give it the respect it feels it deserves. (Islam and Catholicism both fit nicely here…) It gets quite tiresome and difficult to take such complaints seriously!
Until Moslems, in general, get the message that,in a liberal democratic state,Islam is just another superstition, there will be no end to their whining. The unspoken fear with some Moslem commentators appears to be that Moslems, could in the future, be treated in the same way as non-Moslems are in Islamic societies,perhaps we should reassure them that this won’t happen.
Where did they get the idea that religious freedom is absolute in democracies?
Just what is ‘Islamophobia’ ? I’ve asked Moslem commentators to provide a clear definition,and to give examples of ‘Islamophobia’ in practice-so far I’m still waiting.
Which infinities are you familiar with?
This is such insidious, divisive, manipulative nonsense…
The Islamists are skilled in manipulating the sentiments of the well-meaning masses, and the anti-Western Westerners are all too eager to aid them in their velvet jihad.
RusselW:
I am not sure whether your question on what is Islamophobia is a rhetorical question, or an actual one, but if the latter, then you can take a look at the shaded box in the last page of this link: http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/islamophobia.pdf , to get an idea of what is meant by Islamophobia. You could also look at: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sgsm9637.doc.htm
As for what constitutes Islamophobia in practice, well, I assume opinions on that would vary greatly, but I suppose some may construe the Swiss minaret ban; the ban on burqas; the idea of relegating heinous practices such as clitoridectomies and honour killings as necessarily Islamic, without bothering to see if there is any other socio-cultural basis for them (ie, google ‘honour killings in India’ – to get a wider understanding of this); the practice of singling out men with supposedly Muslim names/appearances for ‘random’ security checks at airports and so on, as Islamophobia.
I am certainly not a Muslim commentator, but I am surprised that the ones you have talked to have not been able to give you any answers at all.
Well, I am an Islamophobe. I am fearful of the society and philosophy propounded by Islam as stated in the Koran and the other “pillars of Islam” and for that matter, any totalitarian theology. I am not ashamed of being so but am ashamed every time I fail to declare it. Incidentally, I have met very few Muslims I didn’t like. It is the practical philosophy (ideology, as love of knowledge is disdained by Islam) against which we stand and, if need be, fight.
important article that liberals should support…rather than castigate
whatever your beliefs about islam…their has been a rise in by the far right in Europe…they have dropped their antisemitism (at least openly) and now propagate bizarre conspracy theories about Muslims i.e. Eurabia
what secular liberals/anti-thesist need to do is: hold fast to your critiques of islam/islamism etc. but please leave us Muslims alone…
AHR, the first step surely ought to be to disentangle dislike of Islam from dislike of Muslims, which the silly made-up bullying word “Islamophobia” is a tool for not doing. You seem to be taking the word at face value. That’s a mistake.
Saeed, that’s what we do. (Russell W’s tone is a bit atypical.)
It’s a dishonest and manipulative article that liberals should call out for what it is.
It depends where you are in Europe and whether those far right groups are nationalist or theocratic. And anti-semitism has become quite mainstream in Europe. Again.
@AHR,
Thanks for the information-a useful summary.
@AHR
Thanks for the link. But if the grey box is intended as a condensed and exshaustive tabulation of the characteristics of “Islamophobia”, I find it markedly unsatisfactory.
One general problem is that most of the distinctions cannot be descibed as true dichotomies. There are several optional responses/attitudes availabe for each of the distinctions, and especially the outcome of an “open” attitude. It is demonstrated allready in the first “distinction” , where the list points to the error of describing islam as monolitthic (a position only the most bigotted take) . It then makes the same error itself when describing the “open view” only as a “monolithic” positive evaluation of islam. (As if there was a monolithic ESSENTIAL core).
As usual the leaflet conflate DISLIKE with HATRED.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
@ Ophelia Benson,
‘Islamophobia’ implies a pathological condition on the part of the ‘Islamophobe’ and that consequently criticism of Islamic ideology is irrational,we certainly can’t let it go unchallenged.
their has been a rise in the far right in Europe…just look at geert wilders…i know a number of Somali women who have left Holland (and come to england) because of the intimidation they have suffered by white street thugs……i think its dreadful that they had to flee their country ,Somalia, because of war (which has led to mass rapes of women, famine and the rise of the Islamic ultra-right al-shabbab movement) and then had to leave Holland cos of racism…
Ophelia: I think the point of disentangling dislike of Islam from dislike of Muslims is an important one you raise. But I don’t think it’s that simple to separate belief systems from ‘believers’ and possibly that’s one point where people get really riled up with criticism of Islam – especially when this criticism is perceived as a reason for denying them space in the polity in question, for instance. Criticism of Islam certainly need not mean hatred of Muslims or anything of that sort, as you point it, but at the same time it’s important to note some of the potential fallouts of ideology taken to an extreme (and I guess at it’s core ‘Islamophobia’ is an uncritical examination of and against Islam, which is where the examples I provide come in). Again, I think you raise an interesting point here because a negative term like ‘Islamophobia’ kind of denies space to constructive critiques of Islam(s), and this is definitely something which very much needs to remain open.
Cassanders: I am not saying I agree with the conception of ‘Islamophobia’ as condensed here, but I thought it would be a starting point to more critically examine and unpack what we are dealing with. Defining any term/concept is a tricky undertaking, but one has to start somewhere!
Sorry for posting twice in a row, however I just read CharlesBs post so I thought I would add something there:
“It is the practical philosophy (ideology, as love of knowledge is disdained by Islam) against which we stand and, if need be, fight.” Specifically the part in bold.
In my opinion, this is not a justified statement to make, and here’s why: science, knowledge and faith in Islam are interrelated concepts, and don’t fall under the religion vs reason dichotomy. A friend of mine pointed out to me that science and religion have both flourished under Muslim empires (ie esp the Fatimid period). He wrote to me suggesting that ‘Islam takes creation as a part of Allah’s beauty and intellect. The intellect (‘aql) is an integral part of humanity in the Islamic faith and reason is highly emphasised. There is no conflict between faith and science; they are irrevocably intertwined, both uncovering Truth and giving us pieces insight into Reality – things are they truly are.’
Additionally, you may be interested in reading: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7810846.stm
Saeed, yes, that’s terrible. AHR, agreed – valid criticism of Islam can always be hijacked by people who have more sinister motives.
By the way there is a discussion of the Runnymede Trust view of “Islamophobia” in Does God Hate Women?
We’re not actually starting from the beginning in analyzing the word on this thread – it’s been under discussion here for years.
That is (I hasten to say), “agreed” with respect to comment 23 – not 24!
That’s just lovely, AHR, but then how do you explain the current state of science and learning in majority-Muslim countries? It’s hardly flourishing, in any of them. I recommend Taner Edis on this subject.
I really don’t much want to get into the ABCs of this. Maybe explore the Notes and Comment archive a little first, rather than starting from scratch.
That section of Does God Hate Women? can be read here.
i think even said ayaan hersi ali has always said her critique/beef is with islam and not with Muslims…if that is good enough for her then it should be good enough for posters on this thread…(on a side note hersi ali seems be about the only Somali femsint westerners know about so take some time out and have a look at other Somali feminists (http://www.nagaad.org/lag/)
…i can usually tell a fascist by his/her critiques…if they focus on Islam then ok…someone who talks about Muslims incessantly is of course a fascist…
@benson…the term islamopobia can be used by people (certainly islamists and the ignorant) as a tool to silence people…i think though we should use another term anti-Muslim bigot…which we should recognise as a harmful prejudice which is fueling the emergence of the far right.
Thanks for the Does God Hate Women and Taner Edis suggestions. I couldn’t access the link you provide here, but will look up the stuff elsewhere. That’s a pertinent question about the state of Muslim-majority countries and the state of education there (and, if I may add, the deplorable state of Muslim’s education even where they are minorities…) – and is something well worth thinking about. Just as, in my opinion, it’s well worth keeping in mind that Islam has (even if at a point in the past) had a better relationship with science and knowledge and all that good stuff than it arguably does at present. So I would think that a phrase such as ‘disdain for knowledge’ is still quite off mark.
Anyway, that’s enough from me on this!
Dud link, sorry; I fixed it.
A few Guardian Cif commentators (a miniscule number) supported Shaista Gohir blaming the media for Islamophobia. It is all down to bias, false reporting, and the deliberate selection of negative stories. It is nothing to do with Muslims or Islamic beliefs.
Readers should revisit Ken Livingstone’s study “Common Ground” which sought to prove how biased the British media is. See: http://libertyphile2.blogspot.com/2010/01/common-ground-or-not_30.html
The study analysed a large number of news stories over a period (the University of Cardiff Dept. of Journalism have done something similar with much the same result) and do you know what?
The Guardian carried almost the same proportion of negative stories about Muslims and Islam as the Daily Mail. Can you believe it!
As the Guardian regularly gives a platform to Muslim propagandists such as Inayat Bunglawala, Tariq Ramadan, and this lady, I think we can assume there is no reason why their reporting should be deliberately anti-Muslim. In fact, like other newspapers what they report is likely to be a fair reflection of reality.
Islam compared with other beliefs causes far more trouble. Period.
Mr Trad, a spokesman for the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, said it was ”totally uncalled for to bring these phobias into Australia.”
Mr Trad was referring to phobias against burkas and calls in the press for a ban on the public wearing of them, not to the phobias certain Muslims have about women showing their faces in public.
Well, once Mohammed becomes a really common name, there won’t be any problems in Wales. Mohammed the Post, Mohammed the Meat, Mohammed the School, Mohammed the Police.
On the subject of science in Muslim societies, didn’t we have something about that recently at B&W?
The most productive Muslim country by far is Turkey, which produces less science per year (peer-reviewed articles) than, say, Yale University.
Mohammed the Meat? Sounds like an Islamic all-male strip show. I’m there.
Saeed, I clicked your link. It seems this is not an atheistic organisation, which would make their MO fundamentally different to Hirsi Ali’s. I would support their feminist activism, but have doubts about how efficacious it could be while entwined with a superstitious, patriarchal and misogynist belief system. Unless of course the women wear Islamic garb because they are forced, or because they would be made into pariahs without it, and therefore once again lose efficacy. But yeah, I would support their cause.
That’s an interesting and constructive suggestion but I’m not convinced that the concept is usefully separable from racism in Europe. Indeed the UK government’s attempt to replace ethnic with religious identity has been part of the problem for both those suffering from racism and those seeking to criticise far-right politics of whatever kind.
I’m open to persuasion on this though, and I’d certainly call someone an anti-Muslim bigot if they were harrassing people because of their chosen religious identity.
Saeed, could you please clarify the point you want to make? It seems to me that you are using the word ‘fascist’ in an unacceptably vague way to refer to people you disapprove of. That’s not to deny that there are some really terrible people out there, racist, sexist, and xenophobic in various ways. But it will scarcely do to say that those who talk about Muslims are fascists. Like Christians or Hindus or Sikhs or adherents of other superstitions, Muslims can be very illiberal and insular, and deserve to be called to account. Islamism, as a religious/political ideology, is perhaps the most widely held view of Islam today, and it leads many Muslims to act in ways, and to make demands, that are in conflict with the best traditions of liberal democracy. To the extent that this is true, Muslims will deserve criticism, just as many Catholics deserve criticism for the absurd demands that they make for recognition in public space.
One of the problems, in both cases, lies in the fact that religions are so chameleon-like that it is sometimes almost impossible to address them in a way that the religious themselves are prepared to acknowledge. They tend to slip away by saying something to the effect that ‘this is not Christianity/Islam/Judaism (etc.) as I understand it,’ thus effectively making themselves immune to criticism, though this characteristic of religion is itself grounds for criticism of religion as well as its adherents, insofar as they play this intellectual parlour game.
In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins criticises what may seem to be a fairly literal or fundamentalist variety of Chrsitianity, and lots of Christians have said that it simply doesn’t apply to them. Muslims no doubt can do the same with criticisms levelled at Islam. The so-called ‘world’ religions are huge, amorphous affairs, and include under the same umbrella-term people who, at one extreme, are to all intents and purposes, non-believers, and those, at the other extreme, who believe (or at least claim to believe) ex anima everything that is taught in the name of their particular religion as they understand it (which still leaves enough wiggle room to float a supertanker).
So, when some Muslims express the expectation that they be respected, publicly, for their beliefs, they might believe anything from the idea that Muhammed was a “real” prophet, who was in communication directly with the angel Gabriel, and received words that express actual thoughts in the mind of God (whatever it means to say something like that), and that, because these are the thoughts of God, they deserve the kind of public recognition and respect that make them important guidelines for the governance of society and the structuring of relationships. Or they may be asking for the simple respect that is due to anyone in a civil society, with the added assurance that their religious beliefs give them a sense of purpose and meaning in life, and that they will be governed in their private and public lives by the prescriptions of their religion, though they don’t expect anyone else to find the same beliefs either helpful or meaningful.
But it is very unclear what you are trying to say, and who are the objects of your criticism. I am very critical of Muslims for the way that they come to Western, liberal democratic societies, expecting deference and respect, and then acting as if they were still in seventh century Arabia, responding with anger and threats if their religious sensibilities are offended, treating women in oppressive (and sometimes violent) ways, expecting Muslim law to be upheld, and effectively creating parallel (and sometimes threatening) insular communities at the heart of democratic societies.
My criticisms might be wrong, and you would be quite right to point out in what way they are wrong, but this is one of the characteristics of democratic societies, that things like this are discussed and debated. In the same way I actively question roman catholic and other fundamentalist Christian demands, and the way Christians often insist that their own ideas and moral peculiarities be taken into consideration in decisions regarding public policy. No one gets off without criticism in this society, neither Muslims, Christians, Jews, nor Islamists. No one is immune to criticism. That’s part of what it means to be a citizen of a democratic country. These freedoms are vital, and are not to be dismissed with a facile use of the word ‘fascist’.
Yes but Eric – do we (does one) really talk about Hindus this and Catholics that and Muslims the other? I don’t think so. I think Saeed is right about that. I think we avoid that, one avoids that, both because it over-generalizes, and because it sounds invidious at the very least. Your penultimate para above, for instance – not all Muslims do what you claim they do in that second sentence! Some do, but by no means all, and putting it the way you do in that sentence just does sound illiberal.
Notice that in your last para there are qualifications – fundamentalist, often. Yet they’re missing in the para above. Leaving out the qualifiers is a mistake, both factually and politically.
I’ll acknowledge the lack of qualifiers in my penult para, Ophelia, if you’ll ackowledge that I didn’t speak about <i>all</i>. (And the word ‘fundamentalist’ occurs only once in the last para – but see my last para infra.) How should I have put it? <i>Some</i> muslims create parallel communities? Well, yes they do, but do those communities create problems of integration in the host countries? Yes, they do. What’s the critical mass here? How many does it take to create politically fissile situations? How many does it take to bring islamic women’s oppression into the heart of democratic societies? How many lives threatened does it take before we acknowledge that there is a problem with a particular religious group? How many children need to be raped before we acknowledge that there is a problem with a celibate priesthood, however much the catholic church continues to deny it?
And we <i>do</i> talk about catholic this and christian that and hindu something else. (I’m not at all sure why these things need to be capitalised.) Practically all criticism of religion is of this type. It has to be, religions are such big houses. If we didn’t generalise we wouldn’t criticise at all, as most christians argue that we shouldn’t. We haven’t stopped talking about the pope and the catholic church, and we’ve even wondered aloud (in print) why someone at the FCO is disciplined for making perfectly sensible suggestions, by way of critical jest, as to what the pope might do on his visit to Britain. Jokes are made about ‘no child’s behind left.’ (Perhaps only Hitchens says that.) I’ve even heard the suggestion that Madelaine Bunting should have got the point by now. She seems to be just on the verge of getting it, and then she backs away. Some catholics, of course, are ashamed. Madelaine Bunting has been. Perhaps some muslims are ashamed, too, at how islam has presented itself in much of Europe, North America and the antipodes. Some are. That’s why we have the Quilliam Foundation, the One Law for All campaign, Ishad Manji, Kenan Malik, etc.
But these are responses to very real threats, felt not only by muslims, but by larger communities. There are mosques throughout the West, hundreds of them, funded and staffed by Saudi Arabia and their fundamentalist form of islam. From many of them the message of jihad is spread in muslim communities, whether by sermons or literature, and people are urged to fight against the decadence of the West, a decadence which is identified with liberal values. Some of the polls of muslim opinion in Britain are quite frightening. They do not justify the brutal idiocy of the BNP, but they are worrying.
No one who is a muslim is immune to criticism of these things, just as no catholic can be quite unscathed by the widespread outrage of the abuse of children by clergy and religious, and the systematic cover-up that accompanied it. The latter is not, as so many catholics have said, hysterical anti-catholicism, but legitimate criticism. There is a reason for the anti-catholicism. And the same goes for muslims who want to subvert freedoms that we value. Of course, not all muslims want to subvert those freedoms. Possibly most do not. I don’t know. Certainly, the evidence suggests that some have come to the West to escape oppression, and some have found it again in their European homes. Of course, no one can speak about all muslims, just as no one can speak about all christians, but this doesn’t make some muslims not a problem for democracy, nor does it make the pope’s demands for respect and submission, and his criticism of ‘relativism’ and secularism, not a problem for democracy either. And it doesn’t mean that criticism of muslims is off the agenda, as Saeed suggested. It doesn’t turn anything that I said into fascism – that suggestion is in itself worrying. It’s not only islamism that is the problem. And saying so is not (at least in my view) islamophobia. If it is, then I’m part of the tide. But I’ve just spent the last few days reading Paul Berman’s new book, <i>Flight of the Intellectuals</i>, which led me to return to his <i>Terror and Liberalism</i>, so that may explain the fervour of my response.
Lastly, my remark about ‘roman catholic and other fundamentalist christian demands’ in the last paragraph was meant as an insult, not a qualification. Catholics don’t think of themselves as fundamentalist, but, in my view, they are. And that is, and was meant as, a criticism.
Sorry, just used to filling in my own html.
Yes, but I didn’t say we didn’t. What I said was “do we (does one) really talk about Hindus this and Catholics that and Muslims the other?” Then I said I don’t think we do, and that we avoid that. Then I explained why. I didn’t say most of what you dispute in your comment, and you don’t really respond to what I did say.
This is all a bit silly, surely. You can’t possibly think that I sentimentally over-value Islam! Or that I think Islam should be immune from criticism. But huge sweeping generalizations about “Muslims” are just…well they’re just that.
I mean…honestly…I don’t know why you’re lecturing me as if I’ve never thought of all this before! I think Islam has very little to recommend it apart from ethical bromides it shares with other religions and ethical systems, and that it has much that is horrendous. But that does not translate to wanting to rail at “Muslims.”
No. Look – it’s simple (I think) – it just is terribly fraught to talk about groups of people in that way. You must know that. It does sound akin to racism – it can’t help it. The way many people talk about “libbruls” in the US sounds more than akin to racism. It’s not “Islamophobia” because that’s a stupid and misleading word, but it does belong in the category of ___ism – I don’t know what to call it – of othering, if you like. There’s often a whiff of that in the way some people talk about “New Atheists.” Maybe I sound like that when I talk about believers, I don’t know – but I think that term focuses on the verb rather than the group. But maybe that’s just a rationalization.
There’s also, come to think of it, more than a whiff of that in the way a lot of people talk about “Americans” – and it can be very damn irritating. That’s all it is though, but then Americans are hardly underdogs. On the other hand if I were in, say, Waziristan and I heard people fuming about Americans, that would be threatening. Sweeping generalizations about “Muslims” sound threatening to Muslims. That’s not a good strain to get into.
We’ve had this discussion before. I’m not sure that’s what I was doing, and if that’s what it sounds like to you, then…, well, that’s what it sounds like to you. I’m not quite sure – and I wasn’t a couple years ago – what it is that I’m doing that you’re not. I seem to have a blind spot, and I’m quite prepared to leave it at that.
Ophelia: Sweeping generalizations about “Muslims” sound threatening to Muslims. That’s not a good strain to get into.
Agreed. But when Osama bin Laden got his minions to carry out 9/11 and bomb a few other places that he has a bit of a fetish about, he really put Muslims in the spotlight and Islam on the map. That boy definitely has a master’s degree in public relations.
Getting back to the veil and burka issue. At #5 above, Irene Delse made the comment that … religion per se is less of a problem that intransigence about religion. Intransigence implying lack of middle ground or room for compromise. A very good point for discussion in my view.
There is no room for compromise between the idea that God made the Universe and the idea that it made itself. (The ‘how’ left as a precious mystery for adherents of the first idea, and as a bit of a tricky one to investigate for those of the second, although steps are being taken.) How does one reach a compromise? What exactly is the position half-way between? That God ordered the Universe to make itself? Well it certainly keeps both positions pretty much intact.
God made life vs life made itself. How about that? How about And God said: Atoms, organise yourselves! (Well Karl Marx probably would not have complained.)
Similarly, there is no room for compromise between a view that our lives are best lived by the rules God had his scribes write down in the ancient book of choice, and a view that such rules can be derived from certain human individual and social requirements, which science and reason can provide. Where is the half-way house there? (And is the bar open? It’s gonna be a long night.)
I have been fascinated of late by the case of a thief using a burka as a mask for committing a robbery here in Australia. What was the thief’s mask for? To make him unidentifiable. To obliterate his identity for the time he was wearing it. A mask is the near-perfect obliterator of identity and individuality. In short: of personality. And why is the burka the garment of force/choice for Muslim men for Muslim women, and the garment of force/choice for Muslim women [strike out whichever does not apply]?
A Muslim woman shall be available as a human personality only to her family and within the confines of the home. That is a tenet of one variant of Islam. And it is straight out of the stuff that gave Orwell nightmares and compelled him to write 1984.
Well, yes and no. This is of course the issue between the evil New Atheists and their critics, but even I think there is some room for compromise, depending on the context and so on. To put it another way, there doesn’t always have to be compromise because there doesn’t have to be a quarrel in the first place because the issue doesn’t have to arise. Theists can just stop forcing the claim that God made the universe on everyone else and then there won’t be a dispute. It’s only when the claim that God made the universe is actually made that it becomes necessary to deny it.
Well, yes and no again. Any 2-way contest ends when one of the players pulls out of the game. But converesely, when the claim that any god made the universe is not being made does it become necessary to make it? As we know, the theism-atheism debate depends on what the default position is. It would never have been necessary if the onus had been on the theists to prove their hypothesis. But as the ID debate has shown, common human experience with design and fabrication can lead in practice to theism the default position. For my own part, I can remember once asking my mother ‘where did everything come from?’ My infantile assumption being that anything here must have come from somewhere else. (Not far wrong, as I later found out.)
But in tennis, when one player refuses to hit the ball back, the other one wins.
But that’s a different kind of winning from the kind that leaves no room for compromise!
It’s not actually that I think there should or can be compromise, at least not epistemically; it’s that I think there needn’t always be a battle that calls for compromise. Theism could just back off. But if it won’t…