learly not as significant a problem as anti-Semitism, why is there so much elite focus on Islamophobia?
To answer this, it’s important to understand that campaigns against Islamophobia aren’t really concerned with promoting tolerance towards Muslims. Though the term was first used over a century ago by French colonial officials in Algeria, it acquired its contemporary meaning when Islamic fundamentalists started wielding it against writers critical of Islam, like Salman Rushdie, Irshad Manji and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Its main function is to shield Islam, often violently so, from any form of criticism. Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader and the man behind the bounty on Rushdie’s head, even labelled unveiled women as ‘Islamophobic’. As French writer Pascal Bruckner explains, the accusation of Islamophobia represents an attempt to stigmatise or even criminalise any critique of Islam as racist. This, in turn, stifles any discussion of Islamic practices and preaching, even at their most radical. The result is the creation of a legal double standard, where some ideologies and political practices can be criticised, while others enjoy privileged immunity….
Islamophobia is simply not comparable with anti-Semitism. Islamophobia amounts to a new form of blasphemy, in which any criticism of Islam is prohibited. Anti-Semitism is a hatred of Jews, an ideology that unites German neo-Nazis with radical Islamists and even climate activists. It is a universal language of loathing, a kind of Esperanto of resentment that flourishes in times of crisis. As Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, the anti-Semite is a ‘destroyer by vocation, a pure-hearted sadist’ who desires ‘the death of the Jews’.
By equating anti-Semitism with Islamophobia, our elites are conflating the hatred of Jews with criticism and mockery of Islam. This conflation undermines the struggle against anti-Semitism. And it empowers Islamic reactionaries.
Feldon is a journalist based in Berlin, but the situation is little different here in the UK. Many on the left – Corbyn set the tone – are simply unable to mention antisemitism without dropping in something about the horrors of Islamophobia. We're still waiting to see if the Labour government will make "Islamophobia" illegal – in effect, a blasphemy law by the back door.
