Tag: islamophobia

Fools Against “Islamophobia”

How the Regressive Left Neutralizes the Gay Movement

2017-01-29

In this blog I present two examples of LGBT activists who, instead of pursuing the necessary fight against religious homophobia, become dupes of the imposture of “Islamophobia.”

Sommaire en français Dans le présent blogue je donne deux exemples de militants LGBT qui, au lieu de faire la nécessaire lutte à l’homophobie religieuse, se font duper par l’imposture de l’« islamophobie ».

First, a quick reminder of the horrific event in Orlando, Florida, last June, as described by Wikipedia:

On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a terrorist attack/hate crime inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. […] It was both the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter and the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in United States history. It was also the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks in 2001. In a 9-1-1 call shortly after the shooting began, Mateen swore allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and said the shooting was “triggered” by the U.S. killing of Abu Waheeb in Iraq the previous month.

Thus we have a massacre, an act of murderous terrorism, motivated primarily by Islamism and homophobia.

Now consider the following quotation taken from a “Solidarity Statement from LGBTIQ communities against Islamophobia” issued by the AIDS Network of several southwestern Ontario communities and co-signed by dozens of gay, lesbian and other organizations from Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and other localities in Ontario. (A copy of the document is also available here.) The statement, dated June 24th 2016, less than two weeks after the Orlando atrocity, declares:

We issue this statement against Islamophobia and in support of Muslim communities across Ontario. In the early hours of Sunday, June 12, 2016, (7 Ramadan, 1437), in Orlando, Florida, 49 people were killed and 53 people wounded in a shooting at a nightclub popular with members of the LGBTIQ communities. Most of those killed were LGBTIQ People of Colour, primarily Latino and Black. […] For people in LGBTIQ communities who identify as Muslim, this past week has also been particularly challenging as they deal with the shock and pain of the attack on LGBTQ people as well as facing the fear of increased racial profiling and Islamophobia. […] There has been a rise in hate speech against Muslims. Some are using this attack on LGBTIQ people to justify their racism and Islamophobia. […]

So let us summarize: An atrocious act of religiously motivated homophobia occurs, and what do these Ontario organizations do: they issue a statement in support of co-religionists of the perpetrator of the act, because somehow, in their warped imaginations, the possibility of antipathy towards those who practice Islam is worse than murdering gays in the name of Islam. They even give the Islamic date of the attack! Disgusting.

Imagine if a Christian fanatic, motivated by their faith, were to attack an abortion clinic, killing and wounding dozens of doctors, nurses and patients, and suppose that feminists, instead of condemning Christian misogyny and asserting their support for women’s right to control their own reproduction, were instead to sympathize with those poor Christians who might have to suffer dirty looks from their neighbours for the next few days because of resentment over this act. The total inversion (and perversion) of priorities here is obvious.

The appropriate response to the Orlando terrorist attack should have been, and was, for those of us who preserved our sanity, to denounce religious homophobia in general and Muslim homophobia in particular. Islam does not deserve special treatment any more favorable that Christianity receives. Islamic homophobia is just as virulent as Christian homophobia, and arguably much more so currently. Just as we categorically and resolutely condemn Christian homophobia, Islamic homophobia deserves at least similar condemnation.

LGBT Against Islamophobia at Birmingham Pride 2015Click to view full size
Source: LGBT Against Islamophobia

Another example: Consider the photo on the right found on the web site of LGBT Against Islamophobia. We see a bunch of colourful people at Birmingham Pride 2015 carrying a banner denouncing “Islamophobia,” “racism” and “fascism” and promoting “diversity.” It must be pointed out that:

  1. The term “Islamophobia” is obvious bullshit, a word whose purpose is to censor criticism of Islam.
  2. The word “racism” is inappropriate here because Islam is a religion and has nothing to do with race.
  3. The term “fascism” is worse than inappropriate, indeed it is hypocritical, because fundamentalist Islam is every bit as totalitarian as fascism, indeed more so.
  4. Furthermore, “diversity” is just a nonsense buzzword whose true meaning is that if you disagree with the previous sentiments, you will be accused of xenophobia or racism or worse. In the age of Islamophilia, the word “diversity” has become a form of bullying just like the other three words.

Fortunately, some clever individual had the perspicacity to take the Birmingham photo and join another relevant photo to it. Here is the result:

Gays for Islam, Islam for GaysClick to view full size
Gays for Islam, Islam for Gays

Blasphemy in the XXIst Century

The obsession with “Islamophobia” and similar specious accusations are used by the regressive left to silence necessary criticism of Islam and Islamism (the latter being a subset of the former). The accusation is a modern form of censorship of blasphemy, where the ban is enforced using intimidation. This bullying has effectively neutralized entire sections of the gay rights movement (but fortunately not all, see below) and other progressive movements.

Those who practise this form of bullying are partially responsible for the current wave of events such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, both of which were motivated in part by a desire for popular sovereignty, the ability of the people to have some control over their condition (i.e. democracy), a concept which has been denigrated and vilified by the regressive left by associating nationalism and populism totally with racism and xenophobia. In the words of Sohrab Ahmari of the Wall Street Journal:

[…] freedom of movement is unraveling now because liberals won central debates—about Islamism, social cohesion and nationalism. Rather than give ground on any of these fronts, they accused opponents of being phobic and reactionary. Now liberals are reaping the rewards of those underhanded victories.

[…]

For too many liberals, every Islamist atrocity was cause to fret about the “Islamophobic” backlash it was sure to trigger. This had become an almost an automatic reflex: When a jihadist would go boom somewhere, liberal hashtags expressing solidarity with threatened Muslim minorities were never far behind. But liberals didn’t bother nearly as much about the pathologies in Muslim communities, and in Islamic civilization itself, that were producing so much carnage. Some liberals would sooner abandon their own feminist and gay-rights orthodoxies than criticize what imams in certain suburbs of Paris and London were telling their congregations about Afghanistan and defending the honor of the ummah.

How Liberals Killed the Freedom of Movement

Where Ahmari refers to “liberals,” he is talking of course about regressive liberals. (In the USA, where there is basically no political left left, the term “liberal” is about as far left as one can generally go.)

An Appropriate Response

As mentioned above, the appropriate response to the Orlando terrorist attack should have been to denounce religious homophobia in general and Muslim homophobia in particular. That is indeed what I and my friends of the group LGBT pour la laïcité (LGBT for Secularism) did at the Montreal Gay Pride march in August of 2016, about a month after the Orlando atrocity. In the photo below you can see the banner of the group with the slogan “L’HOMOPHOBIE RELIGIEUSE TUE” or “RELIGIOUS HOMOPHOBIA KILLS.”

LGBT for Secularism in 2016 Montreal Pride ParadeClick to view full size
Contingent of the group LGBT pour la laïcité (LGBT for Secularism)
in the 2016 Montreal Pride Parade

Next blog: The Quebec City Attack: Some Context

Aphorisms about “Islamophobia” and “Racism”

2016-07-22

A few pithy assertions about two words which are frequently used as slander.

Sommaire en français Quelques brèves assertions concernant deux mots utilisés fréquemment pour diffamer :

  • Quiconque profère des accusations d’« islamophobie » est soit islamofasciste, soit dupe de l’islamofascisme. Les 2 sont obscurantistes.
  • Quiconque n’a pas peur de l’islam en particulier, et du monothéisme en général, est soit insensé, soit stupide — ou peut-être les deux.
  • Version 2016 d’un vieux dicton : « Lorsque le sage pointe l’islamisme, l’imbécile l’accuse d’islamophobie. »
  • Accuser quelqu’un d’« islamophobie » c’est l’accuser de blasphème. Quiconque se dit contre les lois anti-blasphème mais qui profère des accusations d’« islamophobie » est hypocrite.
  • Accuser un individu de « racisme » pour avoir critiqué l’islam est une imposture, même s’il est anti-musulman. L’islam n’est pas une race. L’accusateur manifeste ainsi un manque total d’intégrité intellectuelle.

Anyone who makes accusations of “Islamophobia” is either an Islamofascist or a dupe of Islamofascism. Both are obscurantists.

Indeed, the highly problematic nature of the term “Islamophobia” is well known and has been discussed and exposed by many authors. Do your homework, please!

Anyone who does not fear Islam in particular, and monotheism in general, is either insane or stupid—or maybe both.

A phobia is normally understood as an irrational fear. There is nothing irrational about fearing a religion, especially a monotheism, and in particular Islam. Indeed, monotheisms are highly totalitarian as well as irrational, and thus rightly to be feared.

2016 version of an old proverb: “When the wise point at Islamism, idiots accuse them of Islamophobia.”

There is a popular French saying which, translated into English, is “When the wise man points at the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.” When confronted with a warning of the dangers presented by Islamism, foolish people fail to heed the warning and instead slander the messenger.

An accusation of “Islamophobia” is an accusation of blasphemy. Anyone who claims to oppose anti-blasphemy laws but makes accusations of “Islamophobia” is a hypocrite.

Anti-blasphemy laws are enforced by the threat of fines or incarceration or worse. The taboo on criticizing Islam is enforced by accusations of “Islamophobia” which threaten a person’s reputation, with the goal of shaming them into silence. Such accusations are Islamofascist slander. Criticizing Islam includes criticizing the actions of fundamentalist or rigorously pious Muslims whose behaviour facilitates or supports the theocratic goals of Islamism. For example, as Mona Eltahawy has so aptly observed, “Western women who wear the veil contribute to the subservience of women elsewhere in the world for whom wearing the veil is an obligation.”

To accuse someone of “racism” because they criticize Islam is nonsense, even if the person is an anti-Muslim bigot. Islam is not a race. The accuser thus displays a total lack of intellectual integrity.

A religion is not a race. A person’s race, to the extent that that word is meaningful, is an innate attribute, fixed at birth (in fact before birth) and immutable. A person’s religion is an acquired characteristic, acquired after birth—usually by indoctrination as a child, but sometimes later in life—and can be readily changed if the indoctrination was not too severe or if the person strives diligently, through intense intellectual effort, to overcome it.

For an example of this type of slanderous accusation see the discussion of Gerald Caplan (Assertion #3) in my previous blog The Extended Weinberg Principle.

Next blog: The Acquired-Innate Spectrum

Of Pigs and Prayer

The Selective Outrage of Islamophiliacs

2016-06-23

The seriousness of the recent pig’s head incident in Quebec City has been greatly exaggerated by some. What is just as serious, indeed more so, is the contempt shown by most of our politicians for citizens who are legitimately concerned about radical Islam, thus increasing the likelihood of such mean-spirited, threatening gestures.

Sommaire en français Plusieurs média ont grandement exagéré la gravité d’un événement récent, lorsqu’une tête de porc a été laissée à la porte d’une mosquée de la ville de Québec. Ce qui est aussi grave, encore pire au fait, est l’attitude de mépris affichée par la plupart de nos politiciens à l’égard des citoyens qui se préoccupent raisonnablement de l’Islam radical. Cette attitude augmente la probabilité de tels gestes mesquins et menaçants.

Recently many media have been in a tizzy, doing their best to manufacture excessive outrage over an instance of anti-Muslim mischief. A pig’s head was left on the doorstep of a Quebec City mosque recently. The pig’s head was gift-wrapped and accompanied by a greeting card inscribed with the erroneously spelt (but phonetically correct) words “Bonne appétit.” This was an act of provocation in very poor taste, but no more alarming than a small number of cases of minor vandalism reported over the past few months in various locations across Canada, unacceptable of course, but hardly surprising considering the current political climate.

Indeed this incident was much less serious than other acts of provocation perpetrated by persons who, while claiming to be friends of Muslims in general, are in reality objective allies of extremists (and in fact responsible for the current political climate), acts which were far more “hateful” than the pig’s head incident.

The most disturbing aspect of the severed pig’s head incident is the possibility of violence, unspoken but implied: given such a bloody mess, are other acts of bloody violence thus intended? On the other hand, animal heads are inevitable by-products of food provisionning in our society, so perhaps no violence is implied.

As for the choice of a pig, as opposed to any other animal, this aspect is evidently a dig at Muslim dietary practices which, like most religious practices, are irrational, arbitrary and baseless. So this aspect is hardly disturbing—on the contrary. Furthermore, the fact that this occurred during the “holy” month of Ramadan is also significant, given that the fasting imposed during Ramadan is a major threat to the health and welfare of Muslims and is often used as a way to threaten and intimidate individuals who exercise their freedom by choosing not to fast. Maryam Namazie (see links below) calls it the “heinous, dark month of Ramadan.”

A more subtle aspect of this case is disturbing in a completely different way: I think we can assume that it was an expression of fear—fear of Islam? or fear of Muslims?—and that this fear is partly legitimate. I must stress this point: fear of Islam is not unjustified. That fear has been allowed to fester by the inaction of political leaders, such as Premier Philippe Couillard and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who have taken a complacent approach to radical Islam. Even worse, such leaders have been complicit with fundamentalist Muslims, using the latter as clients to support their political goals, and have unscrupulously accused the fearful of various “sins” such as xenophobia and intolerance.

Finally, this event raises the all-important issue of distingishing radical or extremist Muslims from others. By adopting a very Islamophile attitude, mainstream politicians cultivate a climate of censorship of criticism of any form of Islam, thus stifling necessary debate which would help the public to be better informed and to take a more nuanced attitude. The perpetrator(s) of this incident, for example, were they targeting all Muslims, or only those they perceived as radical? What about the Quebec City mosque where they pig’s head was left: do radical Muslims have significant influence there, or do they not? How can we find out, if politicians tell us that we must simply shut up and say nothing against Islam?

Are you, dear reader, outraged by the pig’s head incident? Perhaps your outrage is rather selective. I have a few questions for you:

Were you outraged when … the Moderator of the United Church of Canada … stupidly accused supporters of a niqab ban of “Islamophobia” … ?

  • Were you outraged when the United Church of Canada recently held a public-prayer event in collaboration with the Muslim Association of Canada? This was an act of provocation more serious than the pig’s head. It involved moderate Christians helping fundamentalist Muslims to invade public space with their religious rituals—rituals which should occur only in places of worship. Worse, the media reported this event in a totally non-critical, indeed approving manner! (You are invited to sign the petition calling on the mayor of Montreal to prevent such events.)
  • Were you outraged when, in December 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a statement defaming the supporters of Quebec’s Charter of Secularism?
  • Were you outraged when, during the federal election campaign of October 2015, Justin Trudeau, Thomas Mulcair and many others slandered all those who supported a ban on the niqab during citizenship ceremonies?
  • Were you outraged when, during that same campaign, the Moderator of the United Church of Canada, Jordan Cantwell, stupidly accused supporters of a niqab ban of “Islamophobia”, thus spreading the idea that opposing fundamentalism is immoral?
  • Were you outraged during the 2013-2014 debate over the Quebec Charter of Secularism when supporters of secularism where denigrated and slandered as “intolerant,” “xenophobic,” “racist,” or worse by opponents of the Charter who included an unholy alliance between the Liberal Party of Quebec and fundamentalist Muslims?

Running through the above examples is a common thread of opposition to secularism, a white-washing of fundamentalist Islam and a failure to distinguish between fundamentalist and secular Muslims. By secular Muslims I mean those who welcome modernity and secularism and accept to practice their religion—if they practice it at all—in private, so as not to impose it on others. (I prefer not to use the term “moderate” because so-called moderate believers, while personally rejecting the most retrograde aspects of their religion, fail to denounce those aspects definitively, this enabling fundamentalists who continue to practice them and demand privileges based on them.)

For example, granting Zunera Ishaq the privilege of wearing the niqab at citizenship ceremonies as if the niqab were representative of Muslim women’s dress serves to assimilate all Muslims to radical, fundamentalist Muslims, because only the latter promote the wearing of such oppressive clothing. Claiming that allowing the niqab is a “victory” for Muslim women grossly misrepresents who Muslim women are, and is an insult to the many women who have courageously resisted the imposition of the veil in Muslim-majority countries, often at great personal risk.

mainstream politicians, by failing to take clear action against Islamist radicalism … and worse, by showing utter contempt for critics of Islam, fail to reassure a concerned public and instead contribute to the climate of fear …

Most important of all, mainstream politicians, by failing to take clear action against Islamist radicalism—for example, by banning the niqab in official ceremonies, by banning foreign financial support to religious institutions in Canada, by investigating more thoroughly what sorts of discourse are commonplace in Canadian mosques—and worse, by showing utter contempt for critics of Islam, fail to reassure a concerned public and instead contribute to the climate of fear, thus increasing the probability of mean-spirited actions such as the pig’s head incident. Ordinary citizens concerned about religious radicalism have not only been abandoned by our country’s leaders, they have been treated with outright disdain, and this is especially true in Quebec where support for secularism is strongest.

Yes, whoever delivered the pig’s head to that mosque in Quebec City acted very stupidly—but no more stupidly than Justin Trudeau, Thomas Mulcair, Jordan Cantwell and many others. If the pig’s head gifters had instead behaved intelligently, they would have sought co-operation with ex-Muslims and secular Muslims who do not practice Ramadan, together they would have organized a public event involving a feast during daytime in Ramadan, and instead of leaving a pig’s head they would have left a kind invitation to all Muslims, and everyone else, to join in the festivities and partake of the feast in defiance of Ramadan. And on the menu, I would suggest a variety of dishes to please a variety of palates, including, among other meats, a few pork dishes and maybe even some head cheese.

Suggested Links

Next blog: Aphorisms about “Islamophobia” and “Racism”