Islamaphobia Legislation (UK)

h4rm0ny

h4rm0ny

h4rm0ny

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Upcoming thought-crime, speech crime legislation on criticising Islam.

This isn't getting a lot of press but it is moving forward behind the scenes. The Times has covered it. Other media not so much.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-definition-of-islamophobia-risks-helping-terrorists-xffnj2rbr
https://www.conservativehome.com/pl...ters-pose-problems-for-national-security.html

The tack taken by both is that adopting definitions of Islamophobia put forward by the All Party Parliamentarty Group on British Muslims would hinder anti-terrorism work and police work in some cases. Which is probably true. But personally I don't need to seek any justification for opposing this other than it would criminalise my speaking of my views.

Firstly, they declare that Islamaphobia is racism.

"Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets
expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness."
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This is false. I have a deep distrust of Islam and major issues with the religion. It's little to do with race. Put an apostate Muslim in front of me (such as a friend of mine is), I don't give a damn about their skin colour. Put a White Western person who has "discovered Islam" and is now a devout worshipper, I find it unsettling and their skin colour again, doesn't change that one bit. It's clear that dislike of Islam is not racism but again and again and again, that charge is made. Because if it's racism, then it's wrong.

"Muslims harbour grave misgivings about their
acceptance in society with three in five (63%) Muslims
saying they think there is more prejudice against
Muslims than against other religious groups, a
perception that is especially widespread among
young Muslims and graduates"
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Throughout, the report takes as a given that any dislike of Islam is prejudice, rather than something well-founded. Yes, you can compare religions even though modern post-modernists think everything must be subjective. Two core beliefs of Islam are that the Koran is the literal word of God, and that Mohammed is to be emulated as an example of how to behave. Most Christians don't even believe the Bible is literal truth let alone that God wrote it. Nor does emulation of Jesus (who is largely mythologised if he even existed) equate to a 6th Century warlord who killed people, slave-traded and molested children. I reject entirely the idea that all religions must be treated equally but this idea runs throughout this report and its supporters. Freedom of belief must be universal. That does not equate to all beliefs being of equal value.

“a baseless hostility and fear vis-à-vis Islam,"
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And

“an irrational or very powerful fear or dislike of Islam
and the feeling as if the Muslims are under siege and
attack. Islamophobia however goes much beyond this
and incorporates racial hatred, intolerance, prejudice,
discrimination and stereotyping. The phenomenon
of Islamophobia in its essence is a religion-based
resentment.”
Click to expand...

The implicit assumption that fear of Islam is baseless runs through all of this. And if this basis is adopted for legal purposes what you get is a criminalisation of thought and expression. This is an attempt to outlaw criminalisation of Islam, to be applied to anyone visible enough and popular enough who does so.

this definition introduces the intersectional nature of Islamophobia by incorporating ‘racial hatred’ as a defining feature of anti-Muslim hostility.
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And of course... "Intersectionality". That all-purpose word to shut down rational thinking.

Now the report anticipates that many will call this an attack on Free Speech (which it is). So it spends a few paragraphs dancing around the subject without ever actually refuting it, and then concludes that the definition of Islamaphobia is too useful to give up just because it has an impact on Free Speech:

"As such,giving up the term Islamophobia – and with it the
possibility of creating legal instruments to tackle it
– simply because of the perceived risk that may limit
free speech would be highly misguided. “Freedom of
speech comes with a responsibility”, contends Sariya
Cheruvallil-Contractor, as she emphasises the need to
“protect the dignity and rights of everyday Muslims”
because the consequences of harmful, Islamophobic
speech are real and acutely felt by the victims."
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This is dangerous. And this is where we are heading.

(If anyone wants to read the cross-party group report, link is here:
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...70ceee/1543315109493/Islamophobia+Defined.pdf)
 
This is false. I have a deep distrust of Islam and major issues with the religion. It's little to do with race. Put an apostate Muslim in front of me (such as a friend of mine is), I don't give a damn about their skin colour. Put a White Western person who has "discovered Islam" and is now a devout worshipper, I find it unsettling and their skin colour again, doesn't change that one bit. It's clear that dislike of Islam is not racism but again and again and again, that charge is made. Because if it's racism, then it's wrong.
Click to expand...

Kind of sounds like you're religiously discriminating at best and racist at worst. You have described two iterations/examples and I hear this a lot; my described scenario is OK but anything that falls outside is not. I have lost count of the number of conversations where I am talking to someone who clearly has an issue with immigration, 'coming here and taking our jobs' etc. I explain I wasn't born here and grew up just fine - "ahh but you're OK". Personally I have better things to do than judge someone on their skin colour or which God they believe in.

But yes, on face value I agree - Islam doesn't need special protection against racism IMO.

The rest of the press are slow at picking this story up.

This thread won't make the end of the week.
 
Tories in shock motivation to play to their base by creating the outrage for their base to froth over.

Inb4 some folk blame duh libruls for this regardless.
 
Ah it would be such a shame if the human civilisation was wiped out before it could drag itself into an age of enlightenment and tell the difference between a reasoned opinion and an intent to cause offence.
 
It's not racist to be critical of Islam. The point is, prejudicing someone based on their race is pretty dumb/awful because people don't have a choice about what race they are. You have a choice to be religious, especially in this country because I'll admit in some countries you don't have a choice, but that could be a valid criticism of Islam anyway.
 
Is this any different to laws and protections for Jewish/Israel people?

Would make sense for Christians to be offered the same protection now and possibly through introduction of this legislation it automatically platforms this.
 
Giving one group special treatment and protection over others is a fast track to causing more problems than it will solve. If you want special protection for your religion there are plenty Islamic countries offering it.

Equality under the law for all in our land thank you.
 
So does this mean that we're not allowed to criticise Islam the next time a Muslim walks into a children's music concert and detonates a suicide vest in the name of Allah? What about the next time a few Muslims decide to fly planes into buildings, are we allowed to be critical of Islam then? What about the next time a rape victim is brutally stoned to death for adultery or the next time a few gay guys are thrown to their deaths from tall towers?
 
The entire reason things like this come along is because Islam is incompatible with democracy, Arabs in the middle east vote along tribal lines and always will. Western society did this as well for millennia until we created the idea of a national identity, which took many centuries to cultivate. No where does Islam have this, they have the tribes and they will always vote along those lines. End of story. This can be seen most recently in Iraq with the laughable Democratic government that was set up that voted into power their Shia radical groups that Saddam had punished for his entire regime in literally the first election. They then of course move to immediately punish the Sunni tribes that comprised the elite of Iraq and the Saddam Regime. These anti speech thought laws are just the first step in a very slippery slope.
 
Stuff like this is just driving an even deeper wedge between Muslims and everyone else, you've got to be pretty special (Brexit has shown most of our MP's are unfortunately) to think that excessively protecting one section of society at the detriment of everyone else is going to bring them closer together, on the contrary it's going to have the exact opposite effect.

We should all be equal under the law and there shouldn't be laws favouring some groups over others.
 
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Lord-Jaffa said:
The entire reason things like this come along is because Islam is incompatible with democracy, Arabs in the middle east vote along tribal lines and always will. Western society did this as well for millennia until we created the idea of a national identity, which took many centuries to cultivate. No where does Islam have this, they have the tribes and they will always vote along those lines. End of story. This can be seen most recently in Iraq with the laughable Democratic government that was set up that voted into power their Shia radical groups that Saddam had punished for his entire regime in literally the first election. They then of course move to immediately punish the Sunni tribes that comprised the elite of Iraq and the Saddam Regime. These anti speech thought laws are just the first step in a very slippery slope.
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I somewhat agree, it will only be resolved if you are free to be critical of this behavior. Look at the way Ahmadiyya Muslims are treated by followers of other Islamic communities for example. The internal fighting has a history just as long as anything the West has done.
 
Be very careful when discussing this topic and seeing Muslims as Muslims. There like in many religions are a wide variety of views within them and go from extreme views to those who are Muslim by birth but do little if anything to practice the religion. In the same way as many in the UK Jewish community criticise the actions of the state of Israel the same is true for UK Muslims for those in other countries.

If you look at the Irish troubles catholic’s and Protestants often lived in segregated communities which had great hostility to each other but now due to great sacrifice and hard work a generation has grown up on both sides of the border without this and benefited greatly. Just be careful to judge the actions and not condemn a whole community in the UK wholesale for the actions of others, this breeds intolerance, racism and makes the 3,000,000+ Muslims in the UK face the same unwarranted prejudice the Jewish and other communities currently do.
 
doodah said:
Kind of sounds like you're religiously discriminating at best and racist at worst.
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What's wrong with discriminating if it's done on a rational basis? the problem with this law is its ultimately going to penalise all attempts at rational debate as the crime of irrational hate.
 
no such thing as islamaphobia

any sane person can judge this particular religion to be insidious and repugnant.

All religion is stupid, Islam is more stupid than the rest.
 
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