Words as Weapons: Islamophobia

Have you noticed how, in today’s Politically Correct climate, anyone who dares to criticise anything about Islam – such as its attitude to women or to non-Muslims- or to mention the fact that the perpetrator of a terrorist act was a Muslim, is immediately accused of being a hateful bigot and branded by the Thought Police of the Left as “Islamophobic”?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “phobia” as: “an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation“.

Other dictionary definitions are similar: “a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object,activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.”

The medical definition is similar: “Specific phobias are an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of objects or situations that pose little real danger but provoke anxiety and avoidance.”

Note the emphasis, in all these definitions, on the illogicality, irrationality and unreasonableness of the specific fear.

Let us ask ourselves – just how irrational is the fear of Islam and, by extension, of Muslims?
A survey of the views of British Muslims, commissioned last year by Channel 4, revealed that while, to a high degree, they feel at home in Britain, on certain issues, notably those supposedly close to the heart of truly liberal, tolerant people, such as women’s rights and “gender-equality” (I have deliberately used the Politically Correct terminology here, to show up the hypocrisy of the PC Thought Police), British Muslims are significantly at odds with the general population. For example, almost a quarter of British Muslims (23%) support the replacement of British law with Sharia law in parts of Britain. Almost a third (31%) believe it is acceptable for British Muslims to have more than one wife. 39% believe that wives should always obey their husbands.  Almost half of all British Muslims (47%) believe that homosexuals should not be allowed to be schoolteachers – hardly surprising when the survey shows that fully 52% believe that homosexuality should be illegal in Britain. Think about that. We are not talking here about whether or not homosexuals should be allowed to marry one another. More than half of Britain’s Muslim population believe that homosexual acts between individuals, in the privacy of their own homes, should be criminalised. Bear in mind that, as I mentioned above, almost a quarter of British Muslims believe British law should be replaced by Sharia law.
The penalty for homosexuality, according to Islamic law, is death.
When it comes to freedom of expression, 4% admit to sympathising with those who commit terrorist acts as a form of political protest, while almost a third (32%), while not admitting to sympathising, refuse to condemn those who take part in violence against those who “mock” the Prophet. If the Charlie Hebdo massacre had taken place in the UK, almost a third of Britain’s Muslim population would have refused to condemn the murderers.
When you consider that the Muslim population of Britain is growing much faster than the general population, more than doubling over a a ten year period, and now numbers well over 3 million, even a “mere” 4% who are ready to admit to sympathising with terrorist acts is surely a reasonable cause for concern.

In France, a recent poll conducted by the Institut Montaigne found that 29% – almost a third – of French Muslims favour Sharia law above French law, while a quarter support the wearing in public of the full-face veil (niqab or burqa) by women.  A quarter of those questioned were defined as “hardline”, supporting also polygamy. Particularly worrying is the fact that about half the Muslims under the age of 25 fell into this hardline category – and this is, of course, the fasting growing demographic group.

Add to this the many terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims, and in the name of Islam, in Europe and in the US, over the past couple of years, criminal incidents such as the grooming of British adolescents by Muslim paedophile gangs, mass sexual assaults such as the New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne, combined with the increase in the Muslim population in the West, whether by natural increase or by migration, and we must ask ourselves: is the fear of Islam – and, by extension, of Muslims – really so inexplicable, irrational, unreasonable or illogical as to constitute a phobia?
The only possible answer to that question must be a resounding “No”.

And just for the record – Fear and Phobia are not necessarily synonymous with Hatred.