Is Islamophobia racism? Because that’s what some folks—myself included—claim. But when I so accuse, I hear the same response time and again (so much for creativity): Since Islam is not a race, hating on Islam cannot be racism. In fact, on the now infamous Bill Maher segment over a week back, Sam Harris said the same thing. Islam’s an idea. And I suppose if we’re being absurdly, strictly literalist, then yes, neither Maher nor Harris is a racist--because Islam is not a race. But Harris’ attitude to Islam is to racism as finding your husband sitting on the edge of your bed with another woman is to alimony. It doesn’t matter how it starts—it matters how it ends. (Except Harris doesnt pay, but Im still working on the analogy.) Heres the bigger problem meanwhile: Race is no more real than religion is, especially if you don’t believe that one of the two came from God. Interestingly, though, a fair number of people believe both did. Because religion’s a construct, just like race is. Does Harris think people in 14th century England thought of themselves as white? Does Harris think racism has always existed—or that it’s not socially constructed? Of course, religion isn’t a phenotype. But it’s awfully close and, almost whenever it matters most, religion becomes a race. It’s treated like a race. It’s confused for race. Sometimes, in other words, Islam is a race. So Islamophobia is racism. On the same episode of his show, Maher compared Islam to a mafia, in that “it”—I’m not sure how religions have agency, but there you have it—kills you if you want out. He forgets that there are non-Muslims—among them, in recent memory, atheist Communists—who killed Muslims who wanted out of Islam. Or in. Basically kill. Religion and race are often interchangeable. Sometimes theyre changed by the religious themselves. Zionists worked hard to transform a belief system into an ethnic identity. The Pakistan Movement did a very similar thing with Islam, turning Muslimness into a national identity. But, more worryingly, sometimes religion and race are changed on you, and there’s not a damned thing you can do. Say, the Holocaust. Among the many enormities of the previous century or two that had nothing to do with the Muslims Maher seems so concerned about. Because Hitler didnt just massacre religious Jews. As if that’d be okay. The Nazis and their collaborators went after secular Jews, even Jews whod become Christian. Did these Germans think of themselves as Jews? Probably a lot of them did not. They were German. Until they couldnt be. The same thing happened in Bosnia, albeit to Muslims. From religious Muslims to folks who just happened to have “Muslim” names—religion became the same as a race. And then that race was slaughtered, starved, and expelled. When I was speaking at a college in Long Island a few years back, a gentleman stood up in the question and answer session and proceeded to challenge everything I said. He dredged up the beloved concept of “taqiyya,” or dissimulation—in effect, Islamic ethics teaches that you can lie, or misrepresent the truth, to save your life or another, or to bring people together. Islamophobes love to argue that taqiyya means Muslims can just lie, and not just in extreme circumstances, and more than that, that we always do. Therefore, you can’t believe a word a Muslim says. Which means, perversely, and maddeningly, that no matter what I say, someone like Harris or Maher will accuse me of disingenousness. They have appointed themselves the overseers of Muslims, and interpreters of Islam, no matter what the actual adherents say. Got that? Harris and Maher believe they know what Islam is, and Muslims dont. They judge Islam, by which I mean all Muslims, by the most radical actions of a minority Muslims. And yeah, they say it’s because these radicals do so “in the name of Islam—which they do—but I simultaneously believe my religion compels me to the very opposite. To democracy, civic activism, concern for the environment, and healthcare for all. Why doesn’t my view, if even a minority view—and I doubt that very highly—represent “the real Islam,” and ISIS the false Islam? Theyll cut your throat, but theyre incapable of lying to you. I mean, seriously? Why do 1.6 billion people get reduced to what a few white men talking to themselves on a subscriber channel believe their religion is? That’s as close to racism as I think we need to get for the charge to effectively apply. Its treating whole categories of people as inferior and backwards and stupid based on categories someone else creates. And imposes. You don’t get to define Muslim, the Serb militant with the gun does. The Nazi defines Judaism, not the Jew. And if I were to do the same to Maher and Harris? The only time atheism has been in power, it’s been in Communist societies, where it was imposed, to devastating effect, time and again. What if I judged all atheists by Stalin and Pol Pot? But—and here’s the next part of the racism—it doesn’t matter if I do. I don’t count. I don’t decide policy. I don’t sway voters. I don’t get paid to write Facebook posts. I don’t have an audience of millions. And those are just ideas, too, but those ideas kill. If you think all Muslims are the same, you’d have voted for the Iraq War, because sure, Bin Laden and Saddam share the same religion, so they must be cooperating, and hundreds of billions of dollars and one ISIS later, oops. Islamophobia isn’t harmless. It’s devastated America. It’s made mincemeat of the Middle East. But theres an even easier way to prove Mahers racism, his spitefulness, his smallness of heart and crudeness of character. And its this fashion show. I dare you to watch it. Lets say Islam doesnt oppress women inherently. Then this fashion show is factually wrong. Hes wrong. His audience is misled. But lets say that Islam does oppress women. Let’s say that Muslim women are nearly universally second-class citizens everywhere they live. They are forced into a life of subjugation and silence by their patriarchal suppressors. That’s not true, but Maher does. He thinks it’s true. And yet, who’s he laughing at? Who mocks the oppressed? What kind of human being humiliates the downtrodden? Who’s he asking the audience to laugh at? Who finds this kind of thing funny? What kind of human being would sit through that and chuckle and cheer, instead of feel disgusted and dirty? Taken from Haroon Moghul
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 10:53:31 +0000
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