In defence of Islamophobia

Islamophobia in the liberal manner that the term is applied to all individuals and parties who make criticisms of Islam is in danger of becoming a self-defeating concept, as like those who lump all Muslims together in less than educated attacks on the faith, little effort is made to distinguish qualified criticisms from those made by the EDL and the BNP. It certainly cannot be denied that the British tabloid media and the public at large have a very poor understanding of the faith and any effort that furthers the public’s understanding that Islam, like its companion Abrahamic faiths can be and is practiced in a perfectly respectable and cordial manner by many believers. However, in common with those other faiths, the name ‘Islam’ is also an exceptionally multifarious term which covers a large variety of religious practice around the world, some of which deserves to be criticised just as much as its benevolent followers are in need of praise. The inability to do this in a sensible manner is what plagues the discourse over the subject.   

If voices such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Daniel Pipes, Salman Rushdie, Bernard Lewis and many others are put in the same camp as Tommy Robinson and Nick Griffin, then it does nothing but empower the latter. If we can’t face up to the reality and horrors of Iranian or Saudi theocracy then we equally can’t appreciate the success of Indonesian democracy, because once the debate becomes polarised by such exclusive behaviour a meaningful outcomes become highly unlikely and both sides will be at fault for ’treating Muslims all the same’.

It should not be ignored or wished away that, just like Christianity, Islam has been and still is being used by many of its followers around the word to commit heinous acts and atrocities against non-believers and Muslims alike. Foreign Policy magazine last year dedicated a week’s issue to highlighting the oppression women throughout the Muslim word. The UN has itself noted how treating women as second class citizens is one of the key reasons that the Middle East is so economically undeveloped having a collective GDP of similar size to that of Spain’s. Just as Islam might empower some women it also mutilates the genitals of millions of others and turns them into sexual chattel. Just as Muslim charities dispense aid around the word Islam is used as a justification for slavery in Northern Africa. We might be able to and should point to figures such as Tariq Ramadan who are fighting hard to modernise the faith and promote its compatibility with liberal democratic values but we can also point to figures such as sheikh qaradawi who with an outreach to millions of followers says the most atrocious things about homosexuals and that a person’s sexuality is a crime that should be punishable by death. We can point to many examples of Islamic tolerance and hospitality towards unbelievers, fostering a renaissance of Jewish scholarship in Arabic Andalusia being but one example, but we can also point to the current fate of the Coptic Christians in Egypt or the persecution of Shia minorities in Afghanistan under the Taliban as well as in Pakistan. Political Islam has a similarly checked record. Islamist parties are able to operate successfully as any other in the secular Turkish democracy but also find ideological decedents in Hamas, Hezbollah supported by the oil wealth of Wahhabi Islam. Those inspired by the writings of Sayyid Qutb are capable of making perfectly valid criticisms of Western materialism as they are of making horribly ignorant and sexually repressed outbursts about women who commit the crime of having their hair on show.

Closer to home we can also find examples of merit and criticism amongst the Islamic communities of Europe. In this country we have Muslim politicians, notably the chair of Conservative party, who are followers of the prophet yet at the same time faultless servants of British civil society. However we can also highlight examples of Muslim honour killings of young girls who dare to associate themselves with non-Muslim partners of the opposite sex.

Just as racist far right groups who terrorise Muslim communities should be deplored, many also feel, much like Douglas Murray, that making criticisms about Islam is equally likely to get you branded a racist. Is there not a sensible discussion that can be had for example over the idea that has been made by certain French politicians, about a requirement of living in an open liberal society is that you don’t conceal your face? Or is all legislation passed against the wearing of Burkhas inherently Islamophobic, including the French law that anyone forcing a woman to wear one is to be fined 30,000 euros? Equally could the Swiss decision to refuse planning permission for the building of minarets be perhaps to do with concerns about preserving Swiss architectural and scenic heritage than just outright hatred against Muslims? Should we all find it as equally incomprehensible, as Mr Galloway seems to do, that channel 4 should dare investigate and then provide video evidence of the malevolent influence of Wahhabi Islam in British mosques? Can we bring ourselves to the dreadful task of trying to understand that this isn’t a case of stirring up racial hatred but instead the highlighting of a concern that many British Muslims have of the growing Saudi influence in the British Islamic community? Or are we only allowed to publically berate Christian and Jewish fanatics?       

Allowing Islam to undergo the same criticisms that are made of Christianity or any other religion are just as vital for its integration into British and European society as recognising that not every Imam  shares the views of Anjem Choudary. But if making such a request is to be labelled Islamophobic then this article becomes a defence of Islamophobia and sits in the same trench as Mr Griffin and Mr Robinson, just as it stands on the side of those Muslims oppose religious extremism in all its forms.  Here it stands, it’s for society to decide, however it can do no other.       

France vows to reclaim the Isle of White within 20 years

Monsieur Hollande has made a clear statement of intent, directed squarely at London, that France will within the next 20 years recover sovereignty of the Isle of White. The French foreign minister echoing his President’s announcement has said that this is no less than a fight against colonialism. Just as British imperialism has been rolled back across the vast swathes of Africa and Asia that the Union Jack used to oppress, the liberation of the Isle of White is the last bastille still yet to be stormed, the final entrance into breach in the name of liberty and the much awaited denouement of a deformed ideology that by all rights should have perished in the Fuhrer bunker.

The French government have begun to lobby at the United Nations for support for their noble cause as well as marshalling support from its allies within continental Europe. Movie stars from America have flown across the Atlantic to Paris to lend their names and more importantly their extensive historical knowledge and expertise in international relations to France’s move to reclaim the territory which is rightfully theirs. This is not the only front in the PR offensive being launched by the French as British tempers were riled during the summer as the French Olympic team released a promotional video before games featuring French athletes training on the Isle of White next to British war memorials stating that they are ‘training on French soil to compete on British soil’. The British move to conduct a referendum amongst the island’s occupants to allow them to decide if they wish to remain British citizens has been scorned by the French government as irrelevant and a side issue and a distraction to the main issue which must be tackled head on which is the end of British Colonialism in the channel. Many have speculated if this latest move is an attempt by Monsieur Hollande’s government to draw attention from domestic French politics, which aren’t panning out as smoothly as he might like, and a sabre rattling strategy to raise national moral. The esteemed President of the United States Barrack Obama has made clear that he doesn’t think the referendum to be binding either and that the US is neutral in its opinion on all things Isle of White and wishes both parties to get round the negotiation table.        

Now for the less astute readers the above is indeed not true, the tricolour, though it certainly pays to keep an eye on it, is not on the march. However it becomes so if the word Argentina is inserted in the place of France and the Falkland Islands for the Isle of White, while still more than retaining its full measure of ridiculousness. This is because, minus the failed belligerent attempt to take the Islands by force of arms in 1982, the French standing towards the Isle of White is exactly the same as Argentina’s to the Falklands. The French never have had sovereignty over the Isle of White, neither have there ever been, or are there, any French occupants of the Island and neither has France’s geographical proximity to the Island ever been recognised by anyone, including the French, as being a reason why it should be handed to France (the channel islands are probably a better example for making this last point of geographical proximity). The above parody and comparison can and has been made by others, with for example American control of Hawaii or its hypothetical will to annex parts of Cuba, though importantly it must be pointed out that it can in fact be made with any piece of territory which a foreign country might decide it has the right own, regardless of the will of the current occupants.

 

The great irony in this glib and unlettered move by the Argentinians is that they are trying to seek their goal with the help of the United Nations an organisation that was founded primarily in the principle of the right of people to self-determination. This is the right that the Falkland islanders have made clear that they wish to exercise in the face of Argentinian advances, no matter how those Argentinian advances might be carried out. This is why the Argentinian foreign minister Hector Timmerman, who sounds when interviewed that if he was given an enema then he could comfortably fit into a match box, claim that this is an issue of colonialism is facile, to put it politely. Timmerman who believes that the more accurate comparison is not the Isle White but instead the extinct British colonisation of India doesn’t understand the definition of colonialism, or seemingly only as well as Sean Penn, in that you need the existence of a people oppressed against their will in order to vindicate the accusation. Call David Cameron old fashioned but I think he’s right in recognising this detail as somewhat indispensable. When called for by the inhabitants of those colonies Britain has relinquished control over all of her former territories most recently Hong Kong in 1997. No matter their geo-strategic importance or the resources that might lie beneath them and there is no reason to suspect that it would not do so if the Falkland islanders voted for such a departure.  

And the great betrayal in this piece is the other half of the special relationship which can’t bring itself to recognise this fact. Though Mr Obama isn’t alone as George Galloway also believes that the right of a people to their clearly expressed desire for self-determination is one open to negotiation. Galloway has increased his likeness to Benito Mussolini in offering to himself as the candidate to fly to Buenos Aires and to chair such a Munich conference 2.0.

The central argument hopefully made by now is that there is no argument to answer to or ‘negotiate’ or more importantly to ‘reclaim’. And hopefully the British people and our elected representatives will continue to form a united front on this issue. Otherwise another announcement might be soon received with regards to Le Isle de Blanc.