Both Omar and Dr. Dean link to this article, which describes the fantasies of Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci of blowing up mosques. Fallaci’s pathalogical hatred of Islam is well known, and has even gotten her in some legal troubles in Italy (she lives in New York City). But it is important to go to the source of the article – namely, the revealing portrait of Fallaci in this week’s New Yorker Magazine. Fallaci came of age during World War II, and in her mind Islam is somehow linked to fascism; this is made clear in this passage:
Fallaci sees the threat of Islamic fundamentalism as a revival of the Fascism that she and her sisters grew up fighting. She told me, “I am convinced that the situation is politically substantially the same as in 1938, with the pact in Munich, when England and France did not understand a thing. With the Muslims, we have done the same thing.” She elaborated, in an e-mail, “Look at the Muslims: in Europe they go on with their chadors and their burkas and their djellabahs. They go on with the habits preached by the Koran, they go on with mistreating their wives and daughters. They refuse our culture, in short, and try to impose their culture, or so-called culture, on us. . . . I reject them, and this is not only my duty toward my culture. Toward my values, my principles, my civilization. It is not only my duty toward my Christian roots. It is my duty toward freedom and toward the freedom fighter I am since I was a little girl fighting as a partisan against Nazi-Fascism. Islamism is the new Nazi-Fascism. With Nazi-Fascism, no compromise is possible. No hypocritical tolerance. And those who do not understand this simple reality are feeding the suicide of the West.”
The fallacy of Fallaci, of course, is that the same argument could be made about fundamentalist forms of Christianity or Judaism, as Karen Armstrong brilliantly discusses in her book The Battle for God. Fallaci, in her writings and her public appearances, displays the classic tendencies of islamophobia, as discussed at length in the blog Islamophobia Watch. Here are a few critical characteristics:
1) Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.
2) Islam is seen as separate and ‘other’. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.
3) Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist.
4) Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a ‘clash of civilisations’.
5) Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political or military advantage.
6) Criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of hand.
7) Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.
8) Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.
Raddatz Watch: Here is a mystery: Where is the German islamophobic "scholar" Hans-Peter Raddatz living these days? The Wall Street Journal had a front-page article last month about the Dutch-Somali activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and mentioned this in passing: "Hans-Peter Raddatz, an Islamic-studies expert under police protection, recently moved to the U.S." Then on May 23 it printed this retraction: "HANS–PETER RADDATZ, an Islamic-studies expert under police protection, is still in Germany." Whereever he resides, Herr Raddatz is too cowardly to meet face-to-face with representatives of the German Muslim community to respond to his hateful allegations and "expert interpretations" concerning Islam.
Finally, in order to counteract islamophobes in the US Congress – such as Tom Tancredo (Republican, Colorada), who recommended that the US bomb Mecca – a group of Muslim Capitol Hill staff workers have banded together to educate and promote dialogue with US political leaders. Today’s New York Times reports:
The president of the association, Jameel Aalim-Johnson, who is chief of staff for Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Democrat of New York, said he relished the chance to teach people about Islam.
The lack of knowledge about even the most basic aspects of Islam is widespread on Capitol Hill, Muslim staff members said. Many people do not know, for example, that Islam is an Abrahamic religion that shares roots with Christianity and Judaism.
More of this, please.
Islam Islamophobia Islamophobie
