Let's go over some of the ways in which people use the word. If somebody is described as an Islamophobe, it is most likely that they have done or said something which is offensive to the Muslim community. It's a word commonly used to describe anyone who has a hatred of Muslims.
So what is the difference between Islamophobia and racism? Surely both harbour an irrational hatred, right? Wrong. Racism is a belief that one race of people is, in one way or another, inferior to another. It's characterised by a prejudice of an entire race, not just a few extremists.
Now let's go over Islamophobia and what the word actually means. The word 'phobia' I'm sure you're all aware of - it means an irrational fear of something. Arachnophobia is an irrational fear of spiders even though they can't hurt you, hippopotamonstrosesquipedaliophobia is a fear of long words, etc etc. So the literal meaning of Islamophobia is an irrational fear of Muslims. Wait, what?
Imagine someone who has an irrational fear of Muslims. He walks down the street, sees someone in a burka and runs off screaming. Ridiculous. However there are people who are scared of Muslims irrationally, terrified of an entire religion based on a few extremists who've blown themselves up. They're afraid to get on a plane in case it gets hijacked and explodes.
On the other hand, an irrational fear of Muslims can be seen as a bit of an oxymoron. Isn't it ok to be afraid of a group of people who preach hatred and kill anyone who converts from Islam, and force women to cover themselves up or else stone them to death? A group of people who are making their way across Europe and to the USA, trying to gain respect whilst at the same time doing crazy things like burning poppies and yelling about British soldiers burning in Hell? How can a fear of these people be irrational?
If you apply racism to this case, you would still be wrong, because it's not a fear of ALL Muslims, it's a fear of a few extremists. HOWEVER, if you apply it to ignorant people who think that every single Muslim in the world is like this, you'd be absolutely right. As long as they didn't think Muslims were inferior to themselves, then you'd be talking about racism.
If you look at society properly you'll see that people like the example above who think that every single Muslim in the country is out to get them you'll see that not many people actually think that way. Most of the people who are branded with the name 'dirty Islamophobe' actually just criticise Islam and disrespect some of the horrible things it influences people to do. That is neither racism nor Islamophobic. It's a rational conclusion that stoning women to death is generally not a nice thing to do. It's not Islamophobic because it's based on rational thought, and it's not racist because it doesn't claim that the entire religion is inferior, as there are a lot of Muslims who do not stone women or crash planes into buildings and the like. In fact the majority of Muslims are alright to live with. A lot of Muslims actually make an effort to integrate into the society they move into, and I'm sure nobody who isn't racist or Islamophobic has a problem with that at all.
If anybody is Islamophobic, it's the entire country as a whole. We are terrified of insulting Muslims in case they blow us up. We bend over backwards to appease them so that they won't get butthurt about what our actual beliefs are. Take this example.
In a toy farm set, the pig was removed after concerns that it would offend Muslims and Jews. Now, my brother actually had this play set before they removed the pig and I honestly don't understand how it could have offended anyone. If it had come with a shotgun to kill the pig with and a knife to chop it up, then yes it would be offensive. But you can't seriously believe that Muslims and Jews want to deny the existence of pigs altogether? Even Muslim mothers wrote in to say that it was absolutely ridiculous to do. This is just another example of "political correctness gone mad". How terrified do you have to be of Muslims and Jews that you are actually attempting to speak for them and guess what is going to offend them just in case they complain that you're not turning Britain into an Islamic or Jewish society and decide to kill people?
Not only is it cowardly, it's patronising. Do you really think that extremist Muslims are going to target the Early Learning Centre for their next bombing? Honestly.
Another case of this the fact that my sun cream got confiscated from me at the airport last summer. Why? In case there was a bomb in it. We also can't take printer ink onto planes, why? In case there is a bomb in it. This country is terrified of Muslims.
As you can see, Islamophobia is intrinsically embedded into British society, and yet we call rational thinkers and critics of the Muslim faith racist Islamophobe nazi evil bastards? If you want to call them anything, call them freedom fighters. Striving for the freedom of speech which Muslims would prevent us from having, given their way. Have you also noticed that nobody who criticises Christianity is called racist? Why is that? I'm not going to discuss that here, I think this blog post is long enough already. But nobody is scared of Christians, because whilst some of them are completely insane, the most they ever do is protest outside abortion clinics and military funerals. There is no Christianophobia. People are only scared of Muslims and there is a reason for that.
But yes, this blog post is long enough, I could go on for hours on this topic but I just want this post to be about the definition of Islamophobia and how wrongly the label is given to people. Maybe some other day I'll talk about Islam itself but for now I want to seem relatively impartial, don't know if that's worked... please tell me if you have any thoughts on this at all. I like hearing people's opinions!
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