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What is "Islamaphobia"?

  • 08-05-2015 6:17am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 17,822 ✭✭✭✭


    CCppsDmW0AECOHk.jpg

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    silverharp wrote: »
    CCppsDmW0AECOHk.jpg

    . . . or less, more usually.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,790 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    . . . or less, more usually.

    So how much should someone know about each of the many religions they don't belong to, then, in your view?

    I'd suggest we have no obligation to know anything about them other than the actions we see their adherents taking, particularly those done in the name of their religion - and that judging the religion by that is a perfectly reasonable thing for the average non specialist to do.

    And by that measure, it doesn't look too good for Islam.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,386 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Personally, I'd defined "Islamophobe" as "Somebody who understands the islamic religion sufficiently well to be frightened of its aims and its means of achieving them".


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 990 ✭✭✭timetogo


    This thread is in danger of heading into debate territory. It's just for jokes isn't it?


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,370 ✭✭✭TheChizler


    timetogo wrote: »
    This thread is in danger of heading into debate territory. It's just for jokes isn't it?
    You need to trust in Mod.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,858 ✭✭✭Undergod


    TheChizler wrote: »
    You need to trust in Mod.

    Okay fundamentalist. I've personally never seen a shred of evidence that Mod exists...


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,348 ✭✭✭✭Timberrrrrrrr


    TheChizler wrote: »
    You need to trust in Mod.

    In Mod we trust.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    volchitsa wrote: »
    So how much should someone know about each of the many religions they don't belong to, then, in your view?
    Nobody needs to know anything about religions they don't belong to, if they don't care too. My point is just that there are plenty of islamophobes out there who are living evidence of the fact it's perfectly possible to hate something about which you are profoundly ignorant. In fact, it's generally easier.
    volchitsa wrote: »
    I'd suggest we have no obligation to know anything about them other than the actions we see their adherents taking, particularly those done in the name of their religion - and that judging the religion by that is a perfectly reasonable thing for the average non specialist to do.
    Well, possibly, provided they're not going to be selective about it, characterising the religion only by reference to actions which are congruent with the view they want to reach. Have you some reason to think (or some authority to decree) that the actions and attitudes of the Muslims who don't engage in terrorist violence, or who deplore it, for example, are less authentic an expression of Islam than the actions and attitudes of Islamist terrorists?

    If someone is justified in looking at the actions of Islamist terrorists and ascribing characteristics to Islam in general from them, then someone else is justified in looking at, say, the Terror, and ascribe characteristics to rationalism and republicanism from that.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,386 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Posts moved over from ha-ha thread!


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,790 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Nobody needs to know anything about religions they don't belong to, if they don't care too.
    Well you're the one who said it, not me.

    Peregrinus wrote: »
    My point is just that there are plenty of islamophobes out there who are living evidence of the fact it's perfectly possible to hate something about which you are profoundly ignorant. In fact, it's generally easier.
    Not in this case apparently. These are Muslims making these claims about being entitled (being duty-bound in fact) to kill those who disrespect the prophet etc. if think that's acceptable, then fair enough.
    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Well, possibly, provided they're not going to be selective about it, characterising the religion only by reference to actions which are congruent with the view they want to reach. Have you some reason to think (or some authority to decree) that the actions and attitudes of the Muslims who don't engage in terrorist violence, or who deplore it, for example, are less authentic an expression of Islam than the actions and attitudes of Islamist terrorists?
    Irrelevant, unless someone is claiming that all Muslims are violent. I haven't seen that claim made.
    Peregrinus wrote: »
    If someone is justified in looking at the actions of Islamist terrorists and ascribing characteristics to Islam in general from them, then someone else is justified in looking at, say, the Terror, and ascribe characteristics to rationalism and republicanism from that.

    That's an interesting point, however, and is the only reason I bothered replying to all the rest above first.

    I'd make an important distinction in that political ideologies make no claim to "be" a uniform whole, but are developed as our thinking develops. So the fact that the U.S. constitution claimed to be universal while excluding blacks doesn't invalidate what it has now come to mean in modern thinking.

    Whereas the problem with organized religion is that they generally claim to be immutable. That's the point of them. So if a group can point to justifications within their religion for their actions, that's an issue for the whole religion. And apparently Muslim extremists can, and do, do that.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 17,822 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    Peregrinus wrote: »

    Well, possibly, provided they're not going to be selective about it, characterising the religion only by reference to actions which are congruent with the view they want to reach. Have you some reason to think (or some authority to decree) that the actions and attitudes of the Muslims who don't engage in terrorist violence, or who deplore it, for example, are less authentic an expression of Islam than the actions and attitudes of Islamist terrorists?

    people arent robots , they are moral beings in their own right and use reason which explains why you dont have one and a half billion terrorists. As religions go though Islam doesnt stand up well. The Qur'an is violent and the later violent versus are supposed to take precedence over the earlier less violent parts. Mohammed would be judged today as a war criminal and child abuser which is a bit different from the pacifist virgin Jesus. And who in their right mind would want to submit to Sharia?


    If I had my own definition of Islamophobe, its a term used by a certain type of individual to shut down debate and who in their preceding breath has said something to the effect that all religions are same, something something Crusades something something Inquisitions.

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    Technically Islamophobia would be having an irrational fear of Islam - this does exist. For example, it's used to stir up fear and anti-immigration sentiments towards people who are, when you get down to it, almost certainly not terrorists. They're not even usually all that evangelical.

    In places like Britain, the bulk of Muslims are already or are becoming Westernised. Most can see the writing on the wall that the ****ty countries they left or their ancestors came from aren't worth emulating and Western enlightenment ideals are why Western countries are relatively pleasant places to live. Abandoning those ideals will create a self-fulfilling prophecy where immigrants and those of immigrant ancestry will be driven away from society and into insular, backwards communities.

    Tapping into that fear is just an applied version of racism really.

    But, of course, it's thrown around by lefties and Islamic apologists inappropriately all the time as well, when they conflate criticism of a culture or a religion with blanket statements about the people that hold such beliefs and values.


  • Registered Users Posts: 35,523 ✭✭✭✭Gordon


    In Mod we trust.

    Goderators

    Our author who aren't in heaven,
    allow access be thy game.
    Thy modding comes.
    Thy post be done
    on boards as it is in prison.
    Give us this day our daily thread,
    and forgive us our ellipsises.
    as we forgive those who ellipsis against us,
    and lead us not into quotation,
    but deliver us from illegal.
    For thine is the mod-dom,
    and the powertrip, and the story,
    for ever and ever.
    Acumen.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    silverharp wrote: »
    ..................

    Generally its the reverse. Hysterical exaggeration combined with half truths and ignorance.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    I don’t think anyone on this board would quarrel if I said that homophobia was rooted in ignorance, and thrived on it. Or if I said that about antisemitism.

    So when somebody posted a claim - OK, a joke, but still intended to make a point - that islamophobia is the condition of knowing more about Islam than you are supposed to, I felt it was reasonable to post a one-liner suggesting that it was more probably the result of knowing less about Islam, not knowing more. Why, of all the bigots that we characterise with the -phobe suffix, should Islamophobes along get away with a claim that they are enlightened, rather than ignorant?

    And, so far, nobody has offered an account for this.

    Volchitsa offers a reasonable case for hatred or fear of Islamism, the political ideology, but his leap from that to his feelings about the religion as a whole is not well-argued. The actions of, say, Stalin do not justify hate and fear of secularism, the actions of Mao do not justify hatred and fear of socialism, the events and actors of the Terror do not justify hatred and fear of rationalism or republicanism, but the actions of Islamists justify hatred and fear of Islam. Why? becase religion “claims to be immutable”.

    This gives rise to a couple of points.

    First, it;s not true. While some religions may claim to be immutable, it is not the case that all do. Conversely, there are secular ideologies which make similar claims to universal validity and immutability - rationalism, for example.

    Secondly, even if it were true, I don’t see that that leads to the conclusion that Volchitsa argues. An ideology which claims to be immutable is no more threatening than one which makes no such claim. The threat, surely, stems from an ideology which fosters violence, hatred, etc? Is that not the salient characteristic? Should I be less concerned about Naziism, which makes no claim to immutability, than Buddhism, which does?

    Thirdly, if doesp justify Islamophobia, mustn’t it equally justify anti-semitism? The two religions are strikingly similar in their fundamentals, worshipping the same god, offering the same cosmology, sharing many of their myths, venerating many of the same figures and, of course, making the same claim to immutability. So if people practice violence and justify it with an appeal to their religion - and we can find examples both in Islam and in Judaism - then on what basis are we going to say that antisemitism in the 1920s was deplorable but Islamophobia, playing out in a disturbingly similar way, in the 2010s is justified?
    silverharp wrote: »
    If I had my own definition of Islamophobe, its a term used by a certain type of individual to shut down debate and who in their preceding breath has said something to the effect that all religions are same, something something Crusades something something Inquisitions.
    I’m slightly surprised to see that this remark gets a ‘thank’ from Volchitsa, since in the immediately preceding post he had, in fact, said precisely that all religions are the same. (“The problem with organized religion is that they generally claim to be immutable”.) He generalised his defence of Islamophobia to a defence of a similar distaste for any religion, and of whose practitioners cite it to justify violence.

    Silverharp takes a different tack, arguing - I think correctly - that not everyone accused of being as Islamophobe in fact is. And, yes, a fairly common technique to silence critics is to accuse them of bigotry. Accusations of antisemitism are often used to try and circumvent criticisms of Israel, for example, or accusations of anti-Americanism when the US is criticised. But when somebody really does hate and fear Islam (and is not, e.g., simply attaching Al Quaea, or Islamic State, or the policies of the Saudi government) that response is not quite so meaningful.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,790 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    You're surprised that a comment got a "thanks" from me because you think it contradicts what I said. One of two conclusions are logical then : either I'm an idiot, or you misunderstood much of what I'm saying.

    I humbly suggest it's the latter. :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    volchitsa wrote: »
    You're surprised that a comment got a "thanks" from me because you think it contradicts what I said. One of two conclusions are logical then : either I'm an idiot, or you misunderstood much of what I'm saying.

    I humbly suggest it's the latter. :)
    It's certainly not the former; I do not think you are an idiot. Humility compels me to concede that it could well be the latter. But we should not fall into the trap of the false dichotomy; it doesn't have to be either of these things.

    It's not that I think that Silverharp's post contradicts what you said. It's more that its stricture against the "all religions are the same" line seem to me to apply to your defence of your position, which does indeed take an "all religions are the same" line.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    The term seems to be open ended and can be interpreted differently, for a wide variety of reasons.

    Ex Labour leader Ed Miliband was promising to criminalise Islamaphobia, without clarifying what exactly that was. All fine to have lofty ideals to protect people (which usually does more harm then good) but the devil is in the details and many commentators attacked the plan which would have basically amounted to criminalising people who criticised Islam.

    http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2015/04/free-speech-campaigners-concerned-by-ed-milibands-vow-to-ban-islamophobia--without-defining-what-he-means
    NSS campaigns manager Stephen Evans commented: "There already exists a distinct offence of religiously aggravated hate crime that carries a maximum 7 year tariff. We all want to prevent bigoted attacks on people, but given how tough the law is already – this sounds like Ed Miliband may want to revisit the 2006 legislation on 'insulting religion'. If so he'll be challenged every step of the way.
    "'Islamophobia' is a highly contentious and nebulous term, and at the very least, Mr Milliband needs to define what he is intending to outlaw."
    NSS honorary associate Maajid Nawaz, who is a Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate, said "no idea is above scrutiny" and described the vague proposal as "illiberal."
    Professor Richard Dawkins, also an honorary associate of the NSS, has been drumming up opposition to Mr Miliband's comments on social media and called on him to explain his plans. He asked if the proposed law would prosecute Charlie Hebdo and said that if it wouldn't "it would be useful" to have a clarification of the Labour leader's comments "to explain why not."
    Dealing with the confusion around the term 'Islamophobia', Professor Dawkins said he thought Ed Miliband was against violent attacks against people and anti-Muslim bigotry, for which there were already applicable laws, but asked, "why privilege religion?"

    The British public at large given their exercised democratic mandate made it clear what their thoughts were of Ed Miliband's proposal.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,100 ✭✭✭✭Pherekydes


    jank wrote: »
    The British public at large given their exercised democratic mandate made it clear what their thoughts were of Ed Miliband's proposal.

    And there was I thinking it was just about the economy, stupid. Me.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,790 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    It's certainly not the former; I do not think you are an idiot. Humility compels me to concede that it could well be the latter. But we should not fall into the trap of the false dichotomy; it doesn't have to be either of these things.

    It's not that I think that Silverharp's post contradicts what you said. It's more that its stricture against the "all religions are the same" line seem to me to apply to your defence of your position, which does indeed take an "all religions are the same" line.

    "All religions have certain aspects in common which makes analogies with all political ideologies unreliable" is not at all the same as "all regions are the same".

    You do understand the nuance, I hope?

    (It's kind of funny that someone who drew such a grossly over simplistic, black and white interpretation of what I said is now telling me not to fall into a trap of oversimplifying!

    Especially as the dichotomy in your case was either "you interpreted my post correctly" or "you misrepresented important aspects of what I actually said" - what middle ground do you suggest exists there? :rolleyes: )


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  • Registered Users Posts: 17,764 ✭✭✭✭keane2097


    I think it's very clear that Volchista said nothing approaching "all religions are the same", a bad case of poor comprehension to suggest it at best.


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,822 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Thirdly, if doesp justify Islamophobia, mustn’t it equally justify anti-semitism? The two religions are strikingly similar in their fundamentals, worshipping the same god, offering the same cosmology, sharing many of their myths, venerating many of the same figures and, of course, making the same claim to immutability. So if people practice violence and justify it with an appeal to their religion - and we can find examples both in Islam and in Judaism - then on what basis are we going to say that antisemitism in the 1920s was deplorable but Islamophobia, playing out in a disturbingly similar way, in the 2010s is justified?


    I see some important differences here. When looking at antisemitism or homophobia for instance there is nothing these people under scrutiny can do to escape criticism, which says more about the "logic" of the critics. If 99% of Jews in Europe had confirmed they were atheist , they would still have been sent to concentration camps. Gay people cant really do anything to stop being hated or beaten up by homophobes which again put the eye back on the logic of haters. So I would need to see these qualities in Islamic critics before I would start to use the term Islamophobia.

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,790 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    silverharp wrote: »
    I see some important differences here. When looking at antisemitism or homophobia for instance there is nothing these people under scrutiny can do to escape criticism, which says more about the "logic" of the critics. If 99% of Jews in Europe had confirmed they were atheist , they would still have been sent to concentration camps. Gay people cant really do anything to stop being hated or beaten up by homophobes which again put the eye back on the logic of haters. So I would need to see these qualities in Islamic critics before I would start to use the term Islamophobia.

    Yes exactly. I don't care what people believe, whether that is flying horses taking Muhammed up to heaven or Spaghetti Monsters, my problem is what people do in the name of their ideology.

    So if people want to refuse the Jews access to the Western Wall because that is where Mohammed tethered his flying horse (buraq), then I have a problem with that.

    The problem is also that non violent Muslims, of whom there are of course plenty, are nevertheless surprisingly numerous to condone violent action against those who "disrespect" Islam (various polls). So there does seem to be a tendency to use of violence in the name of their faith which other religions may well have shown in the past but no longer accept.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,220 ✭✭✭jackofalltrades


    The vast, vast majority of times I've seen this phrase used is as a lazy retort to valid criticism of Islam.
    It's rare that I see it used to describe someone's irrational fear or hatred of Islam.

    TBH I'm amazed the word Christianophobia hasn't taken off.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    The vast, vast majority of times I've seen this phrase used is as a lazy retort to valid criticism of Islam.
    It's rare that I see it used to describe someone's irrational fear or hatred of Islam.

    TBH I'm amazed the word Christianophobia hasn't taken off.

    I think it's a thing in the US, where they've weasled Christianity into government despite it being expressly forbidden and then whine about being persecuted when someone calls them on their bull****.

    Basically, this cartoon:

    relii.jpg

    That "let's have a little bit of respect" is what passes for Christianophobia to the Christians with a persecution complex.

    I'm sure our buddies in the Iona Institute and John Waters have waffled about it or something similar.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    The vast, vast majority of times I've seen this phrase used is as a lazy retort to valid criticism of Islam.
    It's rare that I see it used to describe someone's irrational fear or hatred of Islam.

    TBH I'm amazed the word Christianophobia hasn't taken off.

    The difference of course is the in the West we have an old Christian tradition where by the majority are or at least did subscribe to this religious philosophy. Islam by contrast is seen as a religion practised by a minority in the west, most of them non-white. Therefore we have a knee jerk reaction by some that because they are a) non-white b) a minority, they need to be protected at all costs from criticism no matter how valid. Proof of this is the reaction by some of the usual suspects to Charlie Hedbo terror attacks, who saw it as a Islamphobic racist publication even though it satired both Jews and Christians just as much as Islam. We saw the blame for the murder of 11 journalists landed not at the feet of extreme Islam but at the West itself.

    Putting our cards on the table, who gets the raw deal? Muslims in the West or Christians in the Muslim world. Without question its the latter. We in the west are not taking Muslims and beheading them en mass and we have provisions that guarantee freedom of religion or non belief. Much of the Muslim world fails in this regard, yet the term Islamaphobia is branded about and is part of our everyday vernacular. By contrast do we every talk about christianphobia in the Muslim world?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,356 ✭✭✭MakeEmLaugh


    "Islamphobia" is a silly neologism that should not be used by those engaging in serious discourse.

    The correct term would be "anti-Muslim prejudice" or "anti-Muslim bigotry".


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    silverharp wrote: »
    I see some important differences here. When looking at antisemitism or homophobia for instance there is nothing these people under scrutiny can do to escape criticism, which says more about the "logic" of the critics. If 99% of Jews in Europe had confirmed they were atheist , they would still have been sent to concentration camps. Gay people cant really do anything to stop being hated or beaten up by homophobes which again put the eye back on the logic of haters. So I would need to see these qualities in Islamic critics before I would start to use the term Islamophobia.
    So if you hate on people for a characteristic which they can change, that's not bigotry?

    Right, got it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,822 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    So if you hate on people for a characteristic which they can change, that's not bigotry?

    Right, got it.
    not a very well thought out response. if you happened to be around in the first half of the 20th century would you "hate on" the belief of actual Nazis in the 1930's and 1940's? would you wish that they had changed their beliefs? would you call me a bigot if I criticised Nazi's in public.?

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



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  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    silverharp wrote: »
    not a very well thought out response. if you happened to be around in the first half of the 20th century would you "hate on" the belief of actual Nazis in the 1930's and 1940's? would you wish that they had changed their beliefs? would you call me a bigot if I criticised Nazi's in public.?
    No, I wouldn't call you a bigot.

    But your claim is a bit bigger than that. You are saying that hatred of people for a characteristic which they cannot change is bigotry, whereas Islam is a something that people can leave. The unstated premise in your argument is that hating people for a characteristic which they can change is not bigotry. My point is that hating people for a characteristic which they could change may well be bigotry - not that it necessarily is, but that it can be. And, therefore, you can't justify Islamophobia just by saying "Muslims can change".


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