Islamophobia
Oliver Kamm says:[Islamophobia] is a fabricated and question-begging linguistic manoeuvre designed to present the protection of religious sensibilities as a civil liberty issue.
i.e. Islam is not a race, and therefore "phobia" to it is a respectable position. Which makes sense.
And yet, and yet. There seems to me a difference between criticising religious belief, which is in everyone's interest, and becoming obsessed with one religion to the point where your criticisms become both absurd, e.g. pretending its adherents control organisations they plainly don't, and personal - ie obsessing about the number of adherents it has, and where they live.
This tendency is most obviously represented in the mainstream media by this piece from Melanie Phillips. And there (and in similar cases) I think "Islamophobic" serves a purpose - like all new words it takes time to settle on a definition, but it's edging towards something like "obsessive, extreme, irrational and fantastical criticism of Islam and Muslims".
So the committee awarding the prize is guilty of adopting a too wide definition, in my view (and Harry's Place is only guilty in the sense that they are phobic of all religions, for instance see Harry's proposal that children should be banned from religious services until they are 18). But the word adds value.
posted by Matthew @ 10/24/2006 07:19:00 AM
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