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Islamophobia

Introduction

Islamophobia, prejudice against Muslims, has racist origins. In an age where open racism is more or less taboo in the "West", the criticism of Muslims is safer, where the word "Muslim" stands for people with darker skins, especially those from Arabic countries. If you do not believe this, consider the 60,000 Palestinian Christians. Where is the solidarity in the "West"? The criticism is becoming more commonplace in a manner reminiscent of anti-semitism in Europe in the last century, and is often justified by calling the "West" enlightened and modern, implying that other 'races' are backward and irrational. As Edward W. Said puts it in his book Orientalism:

On the one hand there are Westerners, and on the other there are Arabo-Orientals; the former are (in no particular order) rational, peaceful, liberal, logical, capable of holding real values, without natural suspicion; the latter are none of these things.

In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal rejected German arguments of the "necessity'' for pre-emptive attacks against its neighbours. "To initiate a war of aggression,'' said the tribunal's judgment, "is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.''

To this, the Palestinian writer Ghada Karmi adds, "a deep and unconscious racism that imbues every aspect of Western policy towards Iraq." It is this racism, she says, that has cynically elevated Saddam Hussein from "a petty local chieftain, albeit a brutal and ruthless one in the mould of many before him, [to a figure] demonised beyond reason".

To [UK] Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill, the Iraqis, like all Arabs, were "niggers'', against whom poison gas could be used. They were un-people; and they still are. The killing of some 80 villagers near Baghdad last Thursday, of children in markets, of the "chicks who get in the way'' would be in industrial quantities now were it not for the voices of the millions who filled London and other capitals, and the young people who walked out of their schools; they have saved countless lives.

– We see too much. We know too much. That's our best defence by John Pilger, 06 April 2003.

Racism in the mainstream media

Maybe we are too used to death and destruction in the Middle East. Or maybe it is a racist attitude that decides which deaths are more outrageous than the other.

In April, for example, more than 61 Palestinians were killed, according to several Palestinian sources including the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Of those deaths, 15 were children.

During the same period, far fewer Israelis were killed, yet the focus is on Israel's right to defend itself. It seems to me that it is the Palestinians who need to defend themselves, if you base the issue on who is dying faster.

– Double standard about deaths in the Middle East by Ray Hanania, 17 May 2004.

1. A recent rise in reported anti-Semitic attacks in France has prompted Paris to pledge to defend its Jewish minority. The attacks have been linked to neo-Nazi groups and to elements in France's sizeable Muslim minority that claim to be angered by Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. – BBC 20 July 2004. [My emphasis]

2. Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi told CNN that Palestinians were "enraged" by the agreement and believed it did nothing to end what they see as Israel's occupation of their land. – CNN. [My emphasis]

3. The BBC's John Simpson described Iraqi insurgents on Panorama as “opponents to what they see as the foreign occupation of their country”. (Panorama, BBC1, Simpson in Iraq, January 30, 2005) – Spin Watch. [My emphasis]

4. [Hamas] said it was up to Israel to change, by ending what Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the US and the EU, calls its occupation and aggression. – BBC. [My emphasis] [Note 1]

5. Israel says the barrier [i.e. the Occupation Wall] is needed to stop suicide bombers, but Palestinians say it is being used to expropriate West Bank land. – BBC. [My emphasis]

6. “While western diplomats at the meeting were unwilling to accept a link between western military intervention and Islamic radicalism, he [the BBC's Jonathan Kent] says, it remains one widely believed across the Muslim world.” – BBC.

7. “Iran has threatened to defend itself if attacked.” – The Times of London.

8. On the BBC television programme, This Week, leading British columnist, Maureen Lipman commented on the situation in the Middle East and denied that the Israeli actions were disproportionate: "What's proportion got to do with it. It's not about proportion, is it? Human life is not cheap to the Israelis. And human life on the other side is quite cheap actually because they strap bombs to people and send them to blow themselves up." – CAABU.

Apparently if you build a wall around someone else's land it is not necessarily "expropriation", but is open to interpretation.

The last quotation about Iran threatening to defend itself if attacked says more about the blind stupidity of the reporter than about Iran. One can threaten to attack, but threaten to defend oneself? What the reporter is in fact saying, is that the "enlightened West" has the right to attack any country whenever it wants to, and that that country has no right to defend itself, let alone mount a counter-attack against the "West".

Notes

Moslims can't win

While they are being stomped, shot, beaten, demolished, assassinated, intimidated, robbed, despoiled, starved, uprooted, dispossessed, harassed, insulted and killed with bullets, missiles, armored bulldozers, tanks, helicopter gun-ships, cluster-bombs, fleshettes, fighter-bombers, semi-automatic submachine guns, sonic booms, tear gas, electrified fences, blockades, closures and walls, they must renounce violence so that the hoodlums won't get hurt. If they defend themselves they lose. If they complain, they are insincere; if they ask for something in return, they are untrustworthy; if they ask for a fair hearing, they are advancing an "agenda"; if they hit back randomly, they are an instrument of terror.

– Watching the Dissolution of Palestine by Jennifer Loewenstein, 24 February 2006.