Post by fretslider on Mar 13, 2020 7:16:57 GMT -5
The Labour Party has suspended Trevor Phillips, the man who helped popularise the word ‘Islamophobia’, for er, ‘Islamophobia’ .
There is something grimly ironic about the Labour Party’s decision to suspend Trevor Phillips from its membership on the grounds of ‘Islamophobia’. For it was Phillips who helped introduce and popularise this bogus word and fraudulent concept in the first place.
In 1997, the Runnymede Trust think-tank, which Phillips chaired, published a report titled Islamophobia: A Challenge For Us All, assessing the state of race relations and specifically looking at the question of sometimes hostile attitudes towards Muslims.
Despite being noble in intent, the neologism was an unfortunate one. ‘Phobia’ suggests irrational fear, and while some anti-Islamic prejudice may be irrational – there is a whole spectrum of different interpretations of Islam – some fear of Islam isn’t. The fundamentalist interpretation, as acted out on the Twin Towers four years after the Runnymede report was published, proved that a form of Islam is indeed something to be feared.
‘Islamophobia’ not only presented itself as something inherently irrational, but it also sought to protect one religion from any criticism. The term became a means to reintroduce heresy, if not into actual law, then into modern-day discourse. It is to this day employed to censure or silence anyone who criticises the religion, its adherents or those brought up in Muslim communities.
Thus, any prominent figure who has expressed concerns about the Rotherham child-abuse scandal, perpetrated by men of Pakistani-Muslim origin, is tarnished as an ‘Islamophobe’. The same goes for those who draw attention to evidence showing a disturbingly high proportion of British Muslims sympathising with the terrorists who killed the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo. ‘Islamophobia’ inevitably becomes attached to a voice who worries that the UK is ‘sleepwalking towards segregation’, and that a ‘chasm’ has been opening up between Muslims and non-Muslims on key issues such as sexuality, the validity of violence, and freedom of speech.
It is on those statements above that Phillips’ presumed sin of ‘Islamophobia’ rests. In recent years, he has drawn attention to these issues, particularly in his 2016 Civitas paper Race and Faith: The Deafening Silence. To this day, as a columnist for The Times and television documentary maker, he is one of the most honest, tenacious and authentically liberal voices talking openly about these issues. No wonder the Labour Party has suspended him ‘to protect the party’s reputation’.
In short, Trevor Phillips has come a long way since 1997. Perhaps he now regrets helping to introduce the concept of ‘Islamophobia’, perhaps he doesn’t. Maybe he thought it right for the times. In any case, the episode is a reminder of the dangers of censorship, of trying to shut down debate through censure, through fright-words like ‘Islamophobia’. The neologism was a dangerous and stupid concept in 1997, and it still is now.
www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/13/the-irony-of-trevor-phillips-suspension/
It was Phillips who eventually 'fessed up to the [New Labour] disaster of bringing African children - who had been numbed by the grossest of sadistic acts in the many war zones - and dumping them, unsupported in any way, in council estates where the level of [knife] violence then went throught the roof and has stayed there.
For the benefit of any upset identitarians, Trevor Phillips really is black.
There is something grimly ironic about the Labour Party’s decision to suspend Trevor Phillips from its membership on the grounds of ‘Islamophobia’. For it was Phillips who helped introduce and popularise this bogus word and fraudulent concept in the first place.
In 1997, the Runnymede Trust think-tank, which Phillips chaired, published a report titled Islamophobia: A Challenge For Us All, assessing the state of race relations and specifically looking at the question of sometimes hostile attitudes towards Muslims.
Despite being noble in intent, the neologism was an unfortunate one. ‘Phobia’ suggests irrational fear, and while some anti-Islamic prejudice may be irrational – there is a whole spectrum of different interpretations of Islam – some fear of Islam isn’t. The fundamentalist interpretation, as acted out on the Twin Towers four years after the Runnymede report was published, proved that a form of Islam is indeed something to be feared.
‘Islamophobia’ not only presented itself as something inherently irrational, but it also sought to protect one religion from any criticism. The term became a means to reintroduce heresy, if not into actual law, then into modern-day discourse. It is to this day employed to censure or silence anyone who criticises the religion, its adherents or those brought up in Muslim communities.
Thus, any prominent figure who has expressed concerns about the Rotherham child-abuse scandal, perpetrated by men of Pakistani-Muslim origin, is tarnished as an ‘Islamophobe’. The same goes for those who draw attention to evidence showing a disturbingly high proportion of British Muslims sympathising with the terrorists who killed the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo. ‘Islamophobia’ inevitably becomes attached to a voice who worries that the UK is ‘sleepwalking towards segregation’, and that a ‘chasm’ has been opening up between Muslims and non-Muslims on key issues such as sexuality, the validity of violence, and freedom of speech.
It is on those statements above that Phillips’ presumed sin of ‘Islamophobia’ rests. In recent years, he has drawn attention to these issues, particularly in his 2016 Civitas paper Race and Faith: The Deafening Silence. To this day, as a columnist for The Times and television documentary maker, he is one of the most honest, tenacious and authentically liberal voices talking openly about these issues. No wonder the Labour Party has suspended him ‘to protect the party’s reputation’.
In short, Trevor Phillips has come a long way since 1997. Perhaps he now regrets helping to introduce the concept of ‘Islamophobia’, perhaps he doesn’t. Maybe he thought it right for the times. In any case, the episode is a reminder of the dangers of censorship, of trying to shut down debate through censure, through fright-words like ‘Islamophobia’. The neologism was a dangerous and stupid concept in 1997, and it still is now.
www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/13/the-irony-of-trevor-phillips-suspension/
It was Phillips who eventually 'fessed up to the [New Labour] disaster of bringing African children - who had been numbed by the grossest of sadistic acts in the many war zones - and dumping them, unsupported in any way, in council estates where the level of [knife] violence then went throught the roof and has stayed there.
For the benefit of any upset identitarians, Trevor Phillips really is black.