Islamophobia.

jackofalltrades

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Unless you were actually living in an Islamic State and you didn't support Islam, it's difficult to understand why you would fear something that has no bearing on your life or how you live your life, so in that sense it is irrational to fear something which isn't a threat to you, and that's probably why the term Islamophobia was coined whereas Christianphobia wasn't, because there isn't generally an irrational fear of Christianity in a society in which the majority are Christian.

The term Islamophobia was coined to shutdown valid criticism of Islam, simple as.
People saw the stigma attached to words like homophobia and though that it would be a great way of shutting down people who criticise Islam.
All it took was a willing army of useful fools and now you can easily get accused of being prejudiced for having a negative opinion of an ideology.

One eyed Jack

jackofalltrades wrote: »

The term Islamophobia was coined to shutdown valid criticism of Islam, simple as.
People saw the stigma attached to words like homophobia and though that it would be a great way of shutting down people who criticise Islam.
All it took was a willing army of useful fools and now you can easily get accused of being prejudiced for having a negative opinion of an ideology.

It's not a term I lend any credence to myself in it's modern usage, where I agree that it is a term used in recent times to attempt to shut down legitimate criticism of an ideology -


The term was first used in the early 20th century and it emerged as a neologism in the 1970s, then it became increasingly salient during the 1980s and 1990s, and it reached public policy prominence with the report by the Runnymede Trust's Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (CBMI) entitled Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All (1997). The introduction of the term was justified by the report's assessment that "anti-Muslim prejudice has grown so considerably and so rapidly in recent years that a new item in the vocabulary is needed".


I'd view the term with the same eyeroll I give to any sort of -phobia which is rolled out as a rebuttal of legitimate criticism of those particular political ideologies, but it has a legitimate use in terms of people who try to imply that Islamic ideology means we should be afraid of Islam and they start implying nonsense like Muslims are terrorists and so on. Muslims generally don't present any more of a threat to society than any other group in Western society, and it's irrational to think that they do.

nozzferrahhtoo

Indeed, a concern about Islam should never be conflated with a concern about individual Muslims. Often people contrive to conflate the two in order to strongly misrepresent and distort the otherwise legitimate concerns of people who speak about the issues with Islam. On this very thread we have a user who was so desperate to paint someone as an "Anti Muslim Extremist" that he took some quotes from her and literally swapped instances of the word "Muslim" with "Islam" and vice versa. And when people do that, we see where the REAL phobias and agendas lie. And it is not Islamophobia so much as "Criticism of Islam"phobia.

Whatever the word is MEANT to mean, Islamophobia has joined the ranks of words like "Virtue Signalling" and "Social Justice Warrior" and "Privileged White Male" and many others that are used mainly with the goal of shutting conversation down. Because when people start constructing legitimate concerns and criticisms on a subject then one merely has to throw out such a buzz word and instantly the people with legitimate concerns are derailed into defending against positions and ideologies they neither hold, nor hold to as if they now have mud splattered on them and they can not continue to talk until they can wipe it off.

The concerns about Islam are the same concerns about Christianity from many years ago. he admirers of an illiterate middle eastern peasantry that we have today have gone through reform and Christianity has many problems but nothing like from history. With Islam we have the same issues but in the modern world, with modern technology and modern social media. But worse is that aspects of Islam, such as claiming to be the final revelation, and more of an obsession with it's core personality cult, and it's exaggerated offence taking at images and texts relating to it's prophet...... put us in a place where those seeking to stimulate the same kind of reforms in it......... both from the outside AND the inside by people like Maajid Nawaz........ have a steeper mountain to climb.

I hate the comparisons to the church. Our issue was with the clergy, not the congregation.

Franz Von Peppercorn

professore wrote: »

Ah here. Have you ever been in a medieval museum in Europe that has torture equipment? I have. That **** was called medieval by that big black fella in Pulp Fiction for a reason.

In Seville there were windows in a church specially for the authorities to pick out who was next to have their faith tested.

In ireland we had our share of torture and murder from the Catholic Church.

I have a problem with Islam but for different reasons than you - I see horrifying similarities with the Catholic Church abuses.

If you get your history from museums and implements of torture this century and the last would also look bad.

Most medieval torture was by the state.

weisses

Mutant z wrote: »

But its a very serious issue which you want to sweep under the carpet.

A phobia is a serious issue.

Luckily there is professional help available to overcome phobias