The UK government has published more details about a working group set up to advise it on a possible definition of Islamophobia which would also protect the right to “insult” religious beliefs and practices.
The membership of the working group appears to signal that the government is engaging with the recently launched British Muslim Network (BMN), but not the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) - the largest umbrella body claiming to represent British Muslims.
Dominic Grieve, a former Conservative attorney general, has been appointed chair of the group with BMN co-chair Akeela Ahmed among its four other members.
Ahmed’s inclusion in the working group comes just weeks after the official launch of the BMN in February with backing from faith minister Khan, and after Middle East Eye had previously revealed it had lost much of its Muslim support and was being backed by a charity set up by disgraced former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
would also protect the right to “insult” religious beliefs and practices.
This is a good thing, yes? Clearly they understand the dangers of a too wide definition, but it also is an actual problem.
So yeah they’re saying off the bat that it’ll still be fine to make jokes at the expense of silly archaic belief systems.
Singling out members of one religion for hatred and abuse is bad, but the right for rational people to take the piss out of everyone who has an imaginary friend to make them feel guilty is something that definitely needs to be a legal pastime
Honestly, “islamophobia” is a stupid word which I wouldn’t see as valid. A phobia is an irrational fear, and it’s not irrational to fear an ideology, especially one like Islam. Of course, hate crimes against people who believe in an ideology is not okay at all, whether it be Islam, Atheism, Christianity, Communism, etc. But no ideology should be immune from scrutiny. And Islam is known for using the “islamophobia” card for trying to enforce their beliefs which include censoring any criticism of it.
It’s similar to the word “homophobia”, i.e. an irrational hatred (and fear in some cases) of a particular group. What’s the problem with having a word for it? It’s not like it doesn’t exist.
Because being scared of homosexuals is irrational.
So is being scared of Muslims.
But the word isn’t muslimphobia- it’s islamophobia
That’s your issue with it? Seems like splitting hairs.
Not really, when people who criticise islam and never call for harm against Muslims get punished for “islamophobia”
Idk what to tell you. It’s a word with a meaning that you can look up in the dictionary. Sometimes people use it wrong. But I’ve explained what it means and I can’t be arsed to argue semantics.
That must be why everyone screams hate slurs about Muslims in ways they would never dare to do about Jews.
everyone screams hate slurs about Muslims
They do?
“Muslim rape gangs” hoax?
You’re beginning to sound like a bit of a conspiracy nut. Are you muslim? You’d have to be kind of nuts to think that a guy who heard voices in his head was genuinely talking to a real live Jewish angel rather than just suffering from untreated mental illness!
I do not understand what your comment means but I assume that you are desperately trying to dodge me being right.
That’s why I asked if you were muslim. Are you? If you are, you should know that the islamic religion was started by some guy in the desert who heard voices in his head, and he thought the voices belonged to a Jewish angel.
That’s not very special - go to any mental care ward in any modern city, and you’ll find plenty of schizophrenics saying very similar things. What makes Mohammed special was not the voices in his head, but that he managed to convince other people that he really was talking to this magical flying Jew (who was conveniently enough completely invisible and could only be heard by Mohammed), and they should follow him and do whatever he said.
So my point is that anyone in the modern world who believes a story like the Mohammed story has already taken leave of their senses, and it would be no surprise if it turned out they believed all sorts of other conspiracy theories, like 911 was faked, or the moon landings were faked, or the muslim rape gangs were faked.
Doubling down on your Islamophobia after being presented an example proving you are completely wrong is certainly a strategy.
Eh, I think it’s much more an issue of the use of the word “Islamaphobia” being missed after how “antisemitism” is used to shut down discussion or criticism. But to do you. Or whatever, I don’t fucking care
Yep. I’m not saying that irrational hatred towards individual muslims on the basis of their faith is okay. It isn’t, and it is irrational. But whenever you get the likes of David Wood (Christian apologist and critic of Islam. Has NEVER called for violence or attacks on Muslims themselves) being banned from the UK or Thaddeus Billman in the USA being fired from his job for being “islamophobic”, that’s just ridiculous.
Antisemitism is applied to scensarios where no antisemitism is present. Islamophobia is well accepted and promoted by the most mainstream of media sources.
I, personally have seen more antisemitism than hatred towards Muslims
It’s hard to know anymore if people are talking about real antisemitism or just not liking Israeli politicial/military actions
I’ve seen people mainly say things like “(((them)))” and “the 👃”
