The foul-cry of Islamophobia has become a decisive tool for the Islamists to silence critics or critical investigation of Islam. Islamophobia is racism they claim. Are you an Islamophobe? Take this test to be sure...
This article appeared in "Pajamas Media".
The greatest danger is a closed mind and a finger-on-the-trigger. The minds are closing all over Europe; rather late in the day, a small resistance emerges. American minds have also been shutting down for many years. For example, one is really not allowed to talk about race or religion (gender is fair game–look at all the photos of naked women that still surround us). One cannot say “black” or “African-American” without raising a storm. One dare not say “Islam” or “Muslim” without raising an even bigger storm.
Americans (students, professors, journalists, film stars, media talking heads, left-liberal bloggers) are especially sensitive to the wrongs done to the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims–and, no doubt, wrongs have been done. But these same Americans are a lot less sensitive to the sorrows, nay, the atrocities, that these very groups (Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims) have inflicted upon their very own and upon all infidels, for 1400 years.
Try to talk about this, try to raise the issue of Islam’s long history of colonialism, genocide, and gender and religious apartheid and you will quickly be demonized as a “racist” or as an “Islamophobe.” Google notes 616,000 references to “Islamophobia.” What is really going on? Why is “racism” not a good enough word to describe prejudice towards people with different skin colors, if that indeed is the case? Or is “Islamophobia” more complicated, or more specific in terms of Muslims and Islam?
Lorna Saltzman, a really good writer, an environmentalist, and once a Green Party Presidential candidate, has written a tongue-in-cheek Test Guide for all those who are worried about their own racism or Islamophobia. She writes:
Are you an Islamophobe? Here is a simple test.
Lorna Saltzman’s Test
Do you favor equal rights and treatment of women and men?
Do you oppose stoning of women accused of adultery?
Do you favor mandatory education of girls everywhere?
Do you oppose slavery and child prostitution?
Do you support complete freedom of expression and the press?
Do you support the right of an individual to worship in her chosen religion?
Do you oppose government- and mosque-supported anti-Semitic publications, radio, TV and textbooks?
Do you oppose the wearing of burqas in public places, schools and courts?
Do you oppose segregation of the sexes in public places and houses of worship?
Do you oppose the death penalty for non-Muslims and Muslims who convert to another religion?
Do you oppose “honor” killings?
Do you oppose female genital mutilation?
Do you oppose forced sexual relations?
Do you oppose discrimination against homosexuals?
Do you support the right to criticize religion?
Do you oppose polygamy?
Do you oppose child marriage, forced or otherwise?
Do you oppose the quranic mandate to kill non-Muslims and apostates?
Do you oppose the addition of sharia courts to your country’s legal system?
Do you disagree with the quran which asserts the superiority of Islam to all other religions?
If you answered most or all of these affirmatively, you are a vile Islamophobe and deserve to be beheaded as the quran instructs.
If you answered one third or more of them affirmatively, you are a borderline Islamophobe and need to receive brainwashing to become a full-fledged dhimmi.
If you answered a quarter or fewer affirmatively, you need a few private lessons in dhimmitude to scrub yourself clean of those remnants of Islamophobia.
If you answered affirmatively to NONE of these, Congratulations! You are a worthy observant (radical–PC addition) Muslim and have a bright future vilifying Jews, torturing women or, inshallah, becoming a suicide bomber.”
Thank you Lorna for laying it all out.
FYI: Lorna Saltzman has been a environmental writer, lecturer and organizer since the early 1970s and was a candidate for the US Green Party’s presidential nomination in 2004. Her articles on evolution, energy, Green politics and secularism can be found on her website: www.lornasalzman.com.
Phyllis Chesler is a Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at City University of New York, and celebrated feminist author of many books, including "The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom"
& "The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It"
. She was married to a Muslim, and lived in Kabul for a number of year.