.... We do know that 115 anti-Muslim attacks were reported in the seven days after the Paris atrocity – a threefold increase. As with the optician, the victims tended to be women, singled out because they were wearing hijabs. In Fife, a man and a woman were violently assaulted by more than a dozen people outside their takeaway shop, their assailants berating them over the Paris atrocities. In a more heartening incident, passengers turned on a bigot yelling abuse at a 23-year-old Muslim woman on a train in Newcastle.
These are not just terrible examples of bigotry, of hatred directed at people having the audacity to get on with their lives. Those responsible are not just bigots, but recruiting sergeants for Islamic State. When Isis executes its attacks, it has a script. It knows that Muslims will be blamed en masse in the aftermath. One of its key aims, after all, is to separate western societies and their Muslim communities: if Muslims are left feeling rejected, besieged and hated, Isis believes, then the recruitment potential will only multiply. [Owen Jones, 1232 comments]
[TOP RATED COMMENT 505 votes] Islam is a set of ideas. Ideas are not protected from criticism in this society.
[2ND 342] Shia Iran has just sentenced two poets to 11 years imprisonment and 99 lashes for 'shaking hands with the opposite sex'.
Sunni Arabia has just sentenced a poet to death for writing 'atheistic poems'.
This is Islam in 2015
[3RD 340] exactly
"Islamophobia" is a lazy term and is hurting the argument
Always be free to crticise ideas
[4TH 317] Ignorant hand wringing liberals like Owen who blame everything on the west and ignore all the hatred,bigotry and backwardness of islam play into the hands of isis.
[5TH 315] ANOTHER COMMENT SAID: ".... then criticise the ideas of islam by all means, but don't throw abuse at muslims."
That's not going to work when they all take criticism of Islam as a personal attack on their collective. The offended turn criticism of Islam into abuse.
[6TH 290] The answer is for a group of muslims Christians Jews and Yazidis lead by Owen to make a visit to Mecca and preach multifaith peace and love to all in the Middle East.
[7TH 283] Daesh atrocities play right into the hands of daft fuckers looking to blame Western values.
[8TH 282] Islamophobia is a ridiculous word.
If you mean anti-muslim then use that term. Islamophobia is an attempt to conflate criticism of Islam with racist bigotry.
[9TH 278] "What needs emphasising is the distance that exists between Isis and the quarter of the world’s population that is Muslim"
What also needs emphasising is the distance that exists between Muslims and liberal, secular democracy respecting the rights of women, other faiths and atheists, LGBT etc. [Guardian Cif] Read more
