<b>OIC's sinister message</b>
Here
The Organisation of Islamic Conference, whose membership is
understandably restricted to 57 Islamic countries, at its meeting in
Dakar, Senegal, over Thursday and Friday, <b>has released a report that
stands out for its remarkable casuistry</b>. The 'Observatory Report on
Islamophobia' , a bulky document that lists a <b>variety of imaginary
grievances to make the point that Islam is being defamed and Muslims
are being discriminated against, is of a piece with the OIC's untiring
efforts to promote imagined victimhood as a convenient cover to
justify Islamist terror</b>.
In the past, the OIC has lashed out at India for 'suppressing' Muslim
aspirations in Jammu & Kashmir; it has now lashed out at the entire
world (barring, of course, those countries where Islam rules) for
"defamation of Islam and racial intolerance of Muslims". The bulk of
the OIC's anger is directed at "Western societies", but that is
essentially because it wishes to play to the gallery and reflect the
"concerns of the Islamic ummah". The report, however, should cause
concern across the world, not least because it seeks a "binding legal
instrument" that will delegitimise "negative political and media
discourse" on issues with which Islam and Muslims are intimately
associated, severely restrict freedom of expression, and force
universal acceptance of, if not compliance with, all that is claimed
in the name of Islam.
A fortnight before the official unveiling of this <b>compendium of rant
against the free world and denunciation of open and plural societies,</b>
the OIC Ambassadorial Group at the United Nations issued a statement
on Islamophobia in New York on February 29. The statement is a summary
of the obnoxious contents of the OIC report; its tone is belligerent
and dismissive of dissenting opinion. "The Group is particularly and
deeply alarmed by the intensification of the campaign against Islam,
as it impairs Muslims' enjoyment of the right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion, and impedes their ability to observe,
practice and manifest their religion freely and without fear of
coercion, violence or reprisal," the statement says.
<b>The statement and the report, however, are deliberately silent on
non-Muslims being denied the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion - for instance, as has been denied to the Pandits of
Kashmir Valley and is now being denied to Hindus in Islamic countries
like Malaysia - and thus impeding their ability to observe, practice
and manifest their religion freely and without fear of coercion.</b> This
is not surprising as the OIC is known for speaking with a forked
tongue. Nor is it surprising that it should seek to bring into popular
usage a neologism like 'Islamophobia' that serves its sinister agenda,
while insisting that others like 'Islamofascism' , along with 'radical
Islam' and 'Islamic terrorism', must be banned from public discourse.
Those who persist with using these terms shall be seen as, and held
guilty of, Islamophobia. Terror has a new identity.
Ironically, what Europe is now being accused of owes its origin to
entirely misplaced European, more specifically British, faith in
'multiculturalism' which has become the magic password to escape
censure for indulging in Islamofascism, the ideology of those who
subscribe to radical Islamism. The world first heard of Islamophobia
when the Runnymede Trust set up the Commission on British Muslims and
Islamophobia in 1996, much before New York's Twin Towers and the
London Underground were bombed. It is no less ironical that the
commission's report, 'Islamophobia: A challenge for us all', was
released in 1997 in the House of Commons by then Home Secretary Jack
Straw. In October 2006, Mr Straw was pitilessly denounced by those who
claim to be victims of Islamophobia in Britain and abroad for daring
to describe the Islamic veil as a "visible statement of separation and
of difference".
<b>By 2004, it was felt necessary to denounce Islamophobia to keep
Islamofascists in good humour.</b> In May that year the Council of Europe
summit formally "condemned Islamophobia" . Seven months later, Mr Kofi
Annan, who brought shame and disgrace to his office as UN
Secretary-General, gave it the stamp of international recognition by
presiding over a conference on 'Confronting Islamophobia' . Between
then and now, it has become fashionable to condemn any criticism of
radical Islamism and fanaticism of the variety practiced and exported
by Saudi Arabia, as Islamophobia, much the same way it is considered
politically correct to describe the terrorism of Hamas and Hizbullah
as "resistance against Zionism".
The truth is that Islamophobia is not about 'undue fear of Islam'.
Well-known scholar Daniel Pipes, who is known to berate those who use
Islam to justify their perversions, but not Islam (that has not
prevented the OIC from naming him, along with Samuel P Huntington,
author of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,
and eminent historian Bernard Lewis, as an Islamophobe) says, "While
prejudice against Islam certainly exists, Islamophobia deceptively
conflates two distinct phenomena: Fear of Islam and fear of radical
Islam." So, those who feel repelled by the ideology of radical
Islamism and fear the terrible consequences of not putting down its
practitioners, are also accused of Islamophobia. Similarly, it has
become a convenient tool to silence critics of Islam and reformists
within the ummah. <b>It equates freedom to question with racism.</b>
Worse, it gives fanatics the right to abuse others and vilify their
faith, secure in the knowledge that anybody who dares protest will be
branded an Islamophobe. When Britain toyed with the idea of adopting a
law against hate speech, this point was made eloquently by <b>Mr Azzam
Tamimi, a senior member of the Muslim Association of Britain, who
insisted that while the law should gag critics of Islam, it should not
prevent Muslims from berating other religions since it is their 'duty'
to do so, or from glorifying Palestinian suicide bombers because, as
he put it, "We love death, they love life." Mr Tamimi, curiously, is a
leading light of the 'Stop the War Coalition'</b>.
Similarly, criticism of textbooks used in a London school funded by
Saudi Arabia, describing Jews as "repugnant" and Christians as "pigs",
would be considered Islamophobia, as would any attempt to rein in
Islamist terrorist outfits anywhere in the world. When the British
Government tried to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, it struck back by launching a
'Stop Islamophobia' campaign on British campuses. Apart from referring
to the 9/11 terrorists as the "magnificent 19", as was done by its
prominent leader Omar Bakri Mohammed, who later floated Al-Mohajiroun
and now sends out e-mail 'advising' Muslim youth from his hideout in
Lebanon, Hizb ut-Tahrir is guilty of practising anti-Semitism, abusing
Hindus and Hinduism, and preaching that "suicide bombers go straight
to heaven". To stand up to Hizb ut-Tahrir, therefore, amounts to
Islamophobia.
<b>Closer home, the Students Islamic Movement of India, which has been
banned for being a terrorist organisation, insists that it is being
targeted because its members are scrupulous adherents of Islam. Hence,
if the OIC report is to be taken seriously and its definition of
Islamophobia accepted, the order banning SIMI is a manifestation of
Islamophobia. The Government of India is equally guilty of
Islamophobia for providing dissident Bangladeshi writer Taslima
Nasreen with a resident permit. </b>And, those in media who refuse to
endorse the humiliation of Gudiyas and the persecution of Imranas by
the ulema, and believe there is a connection between radical Islamism
and Islamist terrorism, stand accused of "targeting Muslims and Islam".
We can afford to ignore the ringing message from Dakar only at the
expense of the <b>values that set us apart from those who decree that a
woman who has been raped should be publicly flogged, if not stoned to
death</b>.
