Rizvi believes the left and right conflate Islamic ideology and Muslim identity.
“On the left, they say, if you criticise Islam, if you criticise anything in the Koran that you don’t like then you are being a bigot against Muslims. They conflate it that way, any criticism of Islam is bigotry against all Muslims.
“On the right they often say, there are many problems in Islam – the ideology - and that means we must surviel all Muslims, we must ban Muslims from coming into the country or get rid of Muslim immigration.”
Separating the ideology from the followers allows meaningful conversation without bigotry to take place he says.
“If you criticise ideas, you challenge ideas, that’s when you move a society forward. When you demonise people that’s how you rip societies apart.
“The word Islamophobia doesn’t make that distinction either. The reason the Muslim Brotherhood like the term so much and use it so much is because it actually takes the pain that genuine victims of Muslim hate go through. They take that pain and exploit it for the political purpose of stifling criticism of Islam.” [Newsroom NZ] Read more
