As repression against the Palestinian liberation movement in Canada continues to intensify, this handbook serves as yet another tool for curtailing our right to protest and speak out against the atrocities Israel is committing. As charges from the past year against protestors in Toronto are being dropped, the state is seeking new and creative ways to criminalize Palestinian solidarity. Hiding behind the same excuse used to found the State of Israel, the IHRA definition of antisemitism and the newly released handbook are merely another tool for distraction and repression.
It seems that Jews and Muslims learn from each other. The widely-used definition of “Islamophobia” does much the same to insulate Islam, the religion, from criticism as well, allowing all sorts of horrific things - from honour killings over sexual slavery to apostate killings - in the name of “protecting Islamic values”.
My Muslim neighbor seems pretty chill. I doubt he partakes in honor killings, sexual slavery, and/or apostate killings in his free time.
There are extremists in almost any facet of humankind, especially so when religion gets involved. It’s best not to paint everyone with the same brush.
And there is that intellectual dishonesty and malicious misdirection that makes up so much of “Islamophobia” accusations.
I don’t think you’re entirely wrong considering the trope of “a religion of peace” and all, but the person you’re replying to isn’t entirely wrong either.
Claiming any religion to be uniformly the same across every member is a gross generalization, especially so for the major Abrahamic ones. ‘Islam’ isn’t a monolith, any more than ‘christianity’ is—they’re huge umbrella terms covering wide varieties of belief and practices.
And secondly, it’s really important to be specific when talking about and criticizing religion, which is often tied to culture and nationality. Honor killings and other practices are obviously fucked up, but be specific about what culture accepts/expects that, and what legal/religious doctrine is used to justify it. Don’t generalize it to each and every person on the planet who is even tangentially related through the umbrella of ‘islam’.
Except that the person is intentionally misdirecting the entire convo in order to invalidate an entire highly problematic edifice of issues. “Not all Muslims” is the misdirection, because I am not talking about individuals or even people in general.
I am talking about how an entire concept - “Islamophobia” - is wielded in a maliciously dishonest manner to protect the evils of the religion, specifically and primarily, instead of only the people.
I did no such thing.
Orly?
There it is, the “not all Muslims” defence. Totally misdirects away from how “Islamophobia” is wielded to protect all manner of religious-based evil, by throwing up a “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy to force the convo onto the people instead of the religion.
I never focused on the people or even a single person, my argument was entirely the flip side - how a tool that is meant to protect people is instead shielding an entire religion.
If a religion needs protections of any kind from criticisms, censure, or challenges, then it has no right to exist in the first place. And that is what makes “Islamophobia” so unremittingly evil - it protects the religion from anything that can diminish it. It goes out of it’s way to conflate the religion with the people, thereby muddying the waters and making both the exact same thing; usurping what is meant only for the people to include the religion as well.