Islamophobia

I have written many times about how progressives alter words, distorting them into things far removed from their original meanings. All of us can come up with every day words that today mean something very different from what they did yesterday: "gay" and "liberal" being probably the most prevalent of these transformed words. As noted in a prior posting, the left has been a master at redefining words, imposing censorship, e.g. "hate speech" codes and laws, and at inculcating self-censorship among academics and media elites. In addition, when facts and arguments won't do, simple and loud shouts of "Racist!" or "Science Deniar!" and even violence prevent "politically incorect" words and the thoughts they convey from entering the ever shrinking "marketplace" of ideas. When George Orwell wrote about how the masters of the universe in his dystopian 1984 continually shrunk the dictionary in an effort to remove dangerous words, he was onto something very profound.

The word for today is "Islamophobia."

What does that word mean? Just as, presumably, one can have a fear of heights, open spaces, tight spaces, dogs, or clowns, one can have a fear of Islam. When lefties throw around the word, it is to imply that the fear of Islam is as irrational as the fear, say, of walking under a ladder. In other words, it being a phobia, one can address it with lots of therapy and rehab, as is the case with most other phobias.

Is it, however, irrational to have a "fear of Islam"?

Let's put "phobia" in context, and ask, whether it would have been irrational for a Cossack or a Ukrainian in 1930s USSR to have a fear, a phobia, if you must, of the Communist Party, and of Joe Stalin? Would we judge a "Communistaphobe" under those conditions as an irrational, hate-filled person? Would we see a Jew, a Gypsy, or a Jehovah's Witness in 1930s Germany as the holder of an irrational phobia if he or she expressed a fear of Nazis? Would therapy and censorship have helped the sufferers of those "irrational" phobias? Would it have helped for Winston Churchill not to express open disdain for both Communism and Nazism? Was Churchill helping make "phobia" of Nazism and Communism a respectable irrationality? Was he making it impossible for us to understand the Nazis and the Communists and to have a peaceful accommodation with them and their ideology? Should we have reached out to the "moderate" Nazis? Rudolf Hess, misunderstood messenger of peace . . . right.

Let's look around the world, and ask "Who is not an Islamophobe?" The world is full to the rafters with Islamophobes. I wonder if the people slaughtered at Charlie Hebdo and in the kosher market had a bout of Islamophobia just before the AK rounds put an end to those thoughts? What about the people in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi or in the villages of Nigeria? Guess what? Huge numbers of Islamophobes live lives of utter misery and horror in the Islamic world. I lived for years in Muslim countries, and met countless Muslims terrified of Islam, especially women and budding intellectuals. Let us not forget that in the long and bloody history of the Religion of Peace, the greatest number, by far, of Islam's victims have come from the ranks of Muslims. Nobody massacres Muslims as frequently and as copiously as do other Muslims following the dictates of Islam.

The question, however, and in truth, that we should be examining is not "Who fears Islam?" Everybody does. Yes, everybody, or at least any person who has the capacity for rational thought. It, however, should not be whether we fear Islam, but what are going to do about the threat that it poses? Shall we do as the progressives want us to do, reach out, better said, submit to Islam, give in to our fears? Rest assured that nobody fears Islam more than the people who tell us we should learn to "coexist" with Islam, that we should have the Muslim call to prayer broadcast from the cathedral towers at Duke University, that we must avoid "offensive" words such as "bacon" and "pork" in our books, etc. It is the progressives who are the biggest Islamophobes, because quite literally, they fear Islam and give in to the "phobia."

In the past we came to fear the Nazis, the Fascists, the radical Shintoists, and, eventually, the Communists. We did not give in to our fears, we fought back, and, oh yes, we won.

You bet I fear Islam. It is the first step to rational thought about Islam.