According to the FBI’s database of
Hate
Crime Statistics, in 2010 (the latest year for which numbers are available)
there were 160 hate crime incidents involving anti-Islamic bias in the United
States. Such incidents have seen a marked rise following the September 11th
terrorist attacks of 2001 and have recently
made
headlines with various incidents around the country, ranging from arson
attacks on mosques to pig parts being thrown at the site of a proposed Islamic
center.
Such trends are rightfully worrying in an
increasingly multicultural society which supposedly prides itself on freedom,
equality, and justice for all. There is however, another closely related issue,
which is in its own way nearly as disturbing. It is the hyper-politically
correct reaction to such so-called “
Islamophobia,”
specifically, how it is
consistently
and fallaciously labeled as “racism.” Setting aside broader discussion of
the overall subject of Islamophobia in all its complexity (including its root
causes and any possible merit or lack thereof), let’s examine this charge of
racism. Without in any way condoning or defending the ridiculous actions of the
small percentage of angry, spite-filled bigots who lash out at those whom they
fear solely on the basis of superficial differences, the fact remains that this
particular assertion of racism is simply ludicrous.
The dictionary defines
racism as 1) “the
belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by
hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic
superiority over others,” and 2) “abusive or aggressive behavior towards
members of another race on the basis of such a belief,” with
race meaning “a
group of persons related by common descent or heredity.” The key word here in
both terms is “heredity.” Although it seems rather remedial to have to explain
it, apparently there are many in the media, academia, and general public who
somehow fail to discern what seems a very basic point, so I’ll state it as
clearly as possible: Islam is a religion, not a race.
While it’s true that most people are indoctrinated
into their religion osmotically from an early age through the influence of
their parents and surrounding community, I think you would be hard pressed to
identify any kind of allele coding for “submission to Allah” within the DNA of
Muslims (or a “Jesus gene” in Christians, etc.). Religions, no matter how deeply
embedded in the psyches of their adherents, are essentially ideologies; they
are systems of beliefs – collections of ideas, traditions, and practices.
Although, as
Richard
Dawkins has astutely pointed out, as a meme they exhibit many of the same
characteristics as a virus – replicating and spreading, and altering behaviors
to ensure their continuation – they are still acquired traits, and as such,
they are not something you are born with, nor are they in any way intrinsically
wedded to your physical being. Regardless of the fact that “
apostasy” –
disavowing Islam or converting to another religion – is still a
capital offense in
many Muslim nations, doing so nevertheless remains a considerably easier task
than Michael Jackson’s sad and misguided attempts to change his race through
plastic surgery and skin bleaching. Once again, for those still missing the
essential point, this is because Islam is a religion, not a race.
Approaching this oft-repeated
Islamophobia-equals-racism fallacy from another perspective, let’s look at some
uncontroversial statistics. It is estimated that there are currently close to
1.6
billion Muslims on Earth. Of these, nearly 222 million live in Indonesia
and Malaysia alone. Another 242 million live in sub-Saharan Africa. Around 75 million
live in Iran, and 322 million live in the Middle East and North Africa.
Pretending for a moment that Islamophobia is indeed a form of racism, just how
exactly is it supposed to work?
It may come as a shock to some, but most people
hailing from Indonesia and Malaysia, if filling out a form requiring them to
check a box for their race, will likely check “Asian/Pacific Islander.” Those
from sub-Saharan Africa will likely check “Black/African” and those from the
Middle East either “Caucasian” or the
recently
added category “Arabic/Middle Eastern.” Thus, racially, Islam is far from
being monochromatic, and it is far from being a purely Arab phenomenon. So
presumably, this charge of Islamophobia equaling racism only applies when the
perceived bias is originating from those of Western European descent? (Which
smells an awful lot like the logical fallacy of “
special
pleading.”)
How then to categorize the
ongoing
religious strife taking place in Nigeria between Christians and Muslims? Is
that racism? I mean, the two sides seem inordinately fond of chopping each
other up over issues such as the forced implementation of Sharia law. Yet they
are all black Africans. Or what about the
worsening
violence between Indonesian Christians and Muslims? – all of them Asians. After
centuries of relative peace and tolerance, church burnings and mob beatings
there are now on the rise. Racism?
What about the interminable conflict between
Israelis and Palestinians? Perhaps one of the biggest surprises resulting from
National Geographic’s
Genographic
Project has been the revelation that Israelis and Palestinians are
genetically
almost identical. They are the exact same people – they’ve simply assumed
mutually exclusive labels over the past few millennia in the name of religion.
And then what of Iran? It’s perhaps not widely
known, but the name of that nation is derived from the word Aryan, referring to
the original inhabitants of the Pontic-Caspian steppe region near modern
Ukraine (also known as the Indo-Europeans). Back in late prehistory, this
group, through conquest or assimilation, spread out into Persia as well as most
of Europe and northern India, leaving behind a linguistic legacy uniting
speakers of such disparate languages as Spanish, English, German, Farsi, and
Hindi. Considering this history, it’s really quite ironic that a group of
ignorant white supremacists residing in Idaho would call themselves the “Aryan
Nation,” oblivious to the etymology behind their group’s name and to their
close genetic, historic, and linguistic ties to people they likely despise.
To this day, despite a predilection for dark hair,
many Iranians and the inhabitants of the Himalayan regions of India are to all
appearances about as white as Bing Crosby, as would be expected. Race,
remember, means “related by common descent or heredity.” So how do squabbles
over religious identity get elevated to the level of “racism” between related
descendants of a
single ethnic
group who only diverged within the past ten thousand years? (A blink of the
eye in evolutionary timescales.)
Despite all of these apparent logical absurdities
which become evident with even a cursory amount of contemplation or the
slightest respect for semantics, supposedly serious
scholars and institutions
continue to assert that Islamophobia in any form clearly amounts to racism.
Okay then, if being less than enthused about adherents of an acquired belief
system automatically amounts to racism, what does it mean to be anti-Nazi?
After all, it’s a bleak yet undeniable fact that pretty much every last Nazi
was Caucasian. So if you hate Nazis, like it or not, your rage is directed
almost exclusively at white people!
Now, if the implications of that sound offensive as
well as ridiculous, they should, for it employs exactly the same faulty
reasoning (or total lack of reasoning) used by those myopic, self-righteous
scholars who intuit an “obvious” equivalence between opposition to Islamic
totalitarianism and hatred based on heredity and skin color.
Finally, to touch on one of my favorite subjects,
what does all of this mean for atheists/anti-theists, who find all religion to
be both false and harmful, and who feel humanity and the planet would both
benefit immensely if religious belief were to suddenly go the way of the
dinosaurs? By the stated rationale of the Islamophobia-equals-racism crowd,
surely all anti-theists (regardless of their own racial makeup or “post-racial”
indifference to distinctions of race) must be “omni-racist” – racist against
every race? Is such a thing even possible or meaningful in any sense of the
word?
The reality is, people often look for reasons not
to get along. Skiers dislike snowboarders, sailors dislike power boaters, even
Brians dislike Bryans. Coining neologisms and being sloppy with terminology is
not going to change that. That said, violence for any reason other than
immediate self-defense is seldom justifiable. Threats, harassment, and
destruction of property have no place in civil society – especially as the
world grows ever more crowded. The actions of the vast majority of the morons
committing these anti-Islamic acts are indefensible and should rightly be
punished. But so should the actions of fanatical Islamists such as the man who
attempted to bomb Times Square back in 2010, expressing the attitude and
fervent desire (as stated in his
video
suicide note) that, “I really wish that the hearts of the Muslims will be
pleased with this attack, God willing,” going on to predict that, “Islam will
spread on the whole world and democracy will be defeated.”
How are we to have constructive dialogue or debate
if stifled by censorship masking itself as political correctness? How can we
rationally address the very real problem of religious zealotry and the violence
it inspires (latent in the most of the world’s holy books) if muzzled by a
misguided pandering to the perceived victimhood of certain special interest
groups? To try to shield radical Islam from legitimate and honest criticism by
hiding behind the indefensible and unconscionable evil of racism is an affront
to all victims of actual racial discrimination as well as an invitation for
true intolerance to destroy our most cherished rights and freedoms. To conflate
concern about Islamic radicalism with the horrors of racism in order to squash
dissent is both illogical and inconsistent with the values of a free society.
To resort to irrationality in order to confront it is not only
counterproductive but profoundly idiotic as well. We can do better than that.
Think!
Colby Hess is a freelance writer and photographer
living near Seattle, WA. He is currently writing a book about science,
philosophy, and freethought. Follow him on Twitter
@ColbyTHess
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