Would this discussion benefit from definitions of terms? It seems a lot of us are talking past each other. Islamophobia, for instance, doesn't really mean fear of Islam, as such. It's used, really, as shorthand for fear of fanatics who'll blow up good people on the train.
Remembering that would make it possible to also remember that expending energy against Islam isn't really useful. Bomb-throwing fanatics come in all stripes. It's the violence we fear, so it's the violence that we should deal with.
All the stuff about culture clashes is also largely code words. Nobody is afraid of pita bread. Some Westerners may not like Arabian music, but they're not afraid of it. "Culture clash" is used to talk about human rights. It's shorthand for fear of fanatics who'll try to make us live by their rules. Like violence, if the fear is given its right name, it's easy to see that not all Muslims are fanatics, and not all fanatics are Muslim.
Personally, I think we can't be phobic enough about fanatics of any stripe. We've given them a free pass for far too long, out of respect for what they call religion. Now the really dangerous ones are sitting on 10,000 nukes, starting wars, and shipping red heifers to Israel to hasten on the Last Days. Enough already. Let's get extreme about not tolerating extremism, whether it calls itself Islam or anything else. |
