The Invention of Islamophobia (2011) | Hacker News Reader

The Invention of Islamophobia (2011)

signandsight.com

32 pointsmpweiher24 comments

The term "Islamophobia" is in many cases a justified label for bigotry and prejudice, but I see it being used increasingly to stifle legitimate concern and criticism.

A 2015 poll of British Muslims conducted by ICM on behalf of Channel 4 found a number of attitudes that I think are genuinely worrying. 39% of respondents agreed with the statement "wives should always obey their husbands". 52% disagreed with the statement "homosexuality should be legal in Britain". 23% supported "areas of Britain in which Sharia law is introduced instead of British law". More than a third agreed with the statements "Jewish people have too much power" and "Jews have too much control over global affairs", while a quarter agreed with the statements "Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars" and "people hate Jews because of the way Jews behave".

I have been accused of Islamophobia simply for reporting on this data. Our ability to have a meaningful conversation about a significant social issue has been stifled by ideological absolutism - on one side by bigots motivated by hatred, and on the other by those who see anything but unconditional acceptance as symptomatic of bigotry.

https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Muli...

Report similar results about Jews and you'll be accused of anti-Semitism.

And stop bringing Jews into any discussion about Muslims. It's a fallacy.

Bruckner seems to be focusing on the word instead of the ideas behind different uses of the word. There are of course some who wish to see Islam “inviolate”, and it is natural for them to use the term “Islamophobia”. But there are also those who oppose different types of attacks on Islam, or different forms of fear of Islam. To resist a reflexive hatred of Islam per se is to say something that also usefully uses the word “Islamophobia”. It therefore makes little sense to attack the use of the term, as opposed to (a) overly broad usage where it is unnecessary, (b) automatic assumptions that an attack on Islam is invalid, and (c) attempts to render Islam “inviolate”.

[Edit] A further thought: Islam isn’t homogeneous, as many point out. Just as it is generally unhelpful to attack Christianity on the basis of observations of the Roman Catholic church, so too it is probably more helpful to describe specific groups or collections of groups. This works both ways: it helps to invalidate attacks on Islam as a whole based on rare practices, but it also helps to invalidate lazy responses that rely on a small liberal group of Muslims being representative, which is about as unhelpful as denying Christian homophobia by citing the examples of a few Oxonocantabrigian liberal Anglo-Catholics.

> Islam isn’t homogeneous

From the text: "Above all, however, it wants to silence all those Muslims who question the Koran, who demand equality of the sexes, who claim the right to renounce religion, and who want to practice their faith freely and without submitting to the dictates of the bearded and doctrinaire."

Yes, this is an important instance of the problem with excessive generalisation. Unfortunately Bruckner ends up excessively generalising about the use of the term “Islamophobia”, hence the not unjustified comments here attacking him for bigotry.

The article is a poorly argued white supremacist screed.

I think that this is a valid initial reaction, but there is a useful point here, which unfortunately has been expressed in the middle of a combination of potential bigotry as you note, bad translation (possibly) and poor phrasing.

A reasonable attack on something then begins to use a word (“Islamophobia”). It is then used by those who seek to render Islam “inviolate”. Clearly some people exist who think this, if not particularly many. Because Islamophobia can be construed as referring to any attack on Islam, there is a risk that one then incorrectly concludes from the fact that many things described as Islamophobic are bad that everything potentially Islamophobic (using the word in the broadest possible sense) is bad. Unfortunately this useful point is obscured by lots of other at least unhelpful material.

Once again, a de jour cliché phrase used as a handy catch-all plugin to save the effort of making a thoughtful contribution.

The term islamophobia is of french origin and dates back to at least the begining of 20th century ().
This fact alone gives clear indication of how serious Brukner and consorts (Fourest, Finkelkraut,etc) who have an agenda of downplaying the rise of anti-muslim bigotery on Europe.

() Maurice Delafosse, « L’état actuel de l’Islam dans l’Afrique occidentale française », Revue du monde musulman, vol. XI, n°V, 1910, p. 57

> it denies the reality of an Islamic offensive in Europe

Stopped reading here.

There's no evidence of this.

Are you serious? The hundreds dead in terrorist attacks aren’t evidence enough for you?

Are you serious ? Islam = Islamist terrorism ?

Check which religion are the first victim of Islamist terrorism in numbers and then think again...

There’s a different between islamist and muslim...

Islamic is to Islamic extremist as Christian is to KKK.

We don't go judging our local Baptist congregation by the Klan and it's equally unjust to judge a Mosque full of peaceful, loving people.

Why do we have to play such word games around Islam?

When someone plants a bomb and claims to do it for christianity, I call that "Christian terrorism". When someone plants a bomb and claims to do it for islam, I call that "Islamic terrorism".

am I saying all christians are terrorists with the first statement? of course not. It would be ridiculous. am I saying all muslims are terrorist with the second statement? of course not. That would be ridiculous too.

It's about time we start calling a spade a spade.

PS: And before the "Alt right" BS starts, no, I'm not right wing, I just voted one of the most left leaning parties in my country.

That's limiting 'offensive' to terrorism. But in a democracy, all you need to take control are numbers. E.g. see how votes are split along racial lines in the US - few hispanics will vote for limiting further immigration, and even existing immigration laws aren't upheld in sanctuary cities.

Oh for sure there's been an increase in extremist activity in Europe, as Anders Breivik and many others provide evidence for.

Could be a pretty bad translation from the French. Original article in Liberation: https://www.liberation.fr/societe/2010/11/23/l-invention-de-... my school boy french and DDG search charitably appears to read something like "reality of a fundamentalist offensive" which could possibly be translated as "Islamist"?

Looks like it. Google translate does this:

"The term Islamophobia fulfills several functions: to deny, in order to better legitimize the reality of a fundamentalist offensive in Europe, to attack secularism by likening it to a new fundamentalism."

Also, not that it should matter, the site is/was part of Perlentaucher.de, a well-known and not at all right-wing etc. culture magazine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perlentaucher

“Le terme d’islamophobie remplit plusieurs fonctions : nier pour mieux la légitimer la réalité d’une offensive intégriste en Europe, attaquer la laïcité en l’assimilant à un nouveau fondamentalisme.”

I think that Google Translate is probably correct here on “en l’assimilant”,⁰ but it could also be “to attack laïcité by assimilating it into a new fundamentalism”: I suppose the argument is then that one has radically altered laïcité into some neutered form that cannot recognise any problem with Islam.

⁰ assimiler means both “liken” and “assimilate” according to my memory and Wiktionary

> Nine EU Member States reported a total of 205 foiled, failed and completed terrorist attacks in 2017..These attacks killed 68 victims and left 844 injured. Nearly all casualties (62) were the result of jihadist terrorist attacks. The number of jihadist terrorist attacks grew from 13 in 2016 to 33 in 2017.

and:

> 975 individuals were arrested in the EU for terrorism-related offences (2016: 1002). Most of these arrests were related to jihadist terrorism

This from the EU Terrorism Situation & Trend Report

Also just read or watch any ISIS material for further evidence.

Or simply interact with reality.

> Or simply interact with reality.

I have and I've noticed that by far the easiest and most obvious demographic correlation with terrorism is men.

In my interactions with reality I've noticed that there's an inordinate/biased fear of Islam over and above a fear of men, in demographic terms, particularly among the men who tend to proclaim Islam is some immanent threat to Europe.

Maybe there's a useful word we can use, in reality, to describe an inordinate fear of Islam?

Criticisms of ideologies is fair game.

Especially ideologies that are the source of illiberal thought and which legitimatize violence as a defensive tactic.

Islamophobia tends to get equated with discrimination towards people, however. Something which obviously should be condemned.

What I find weird and annoying is that we call people who are against Islams as Islamophobics. For the most part they are not afraid of Muslims, but rather hate them. I think there reason for calling them -phobics is because it is a way to make fun of them. They are not a strong force fighting people who they hate, but rather scaredy-cats who should be ridiculed.

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