Monday, February 13, 2006

A note on the word "Islamophobia"

The word "Islamophobia" was evidently adapted from the word "Homophobia." The original idea of the word "Homophobia" was that "Homophobes" are afraid of their own suppressed homosexual feelings and become bigots in order to compensate. Eventually "homophobia" came to be used simply to mean "people bigoted against homosexuals." In this form, as the latest and trendiest term for a type of bigotry, it got adapted into "Islamophobia."

As the cartoon controversy has unfolded, Muslims have constantly used the term "Islamophobia" to imply that the cartoons manifest some sort of bigotry towards Muslims though they actually came into existence in response to political correctness. They were, after all, an attempt to determine whether Denmark is now subject to Muslim taboos--which it may be.

Since most of the cartoons evidence little hostility towards Muslims, and since most of them represent a rather abstract experiment in daring to ruffle Muslim feathers, the extremely ironic upshot of all this is that Muslims are using the term "Islamophobia" to mean "failure to fear Islam."

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