Monday, July 9, 2007

The Case for Islamophobia


No, this is not just another right-wing opine piece, it is down right islamophobic, racist, offensive and disgusting. I cannot believe the LA Times would publish something like this.

Below are excerpts that are particularly disturbing:

Now, despite friendly and long-lasting relations with many Muslims, my first reaction on seeing Muslims in the street is mistrust; my prejudice, far from having been inherited or inculcated early in life, developed late in response to events.

The fundamental problem is this: There is an asymmetry between the good that many moderate Muslims can do for Britain and the harm that a few fanatics can do to it. The 1-in-1,000 chance that a man is a murderous fanatic is more important to me than the 999-in-1,000 chance that he is not a murderous fanatic: If, that is, he is not especially valuable or indispensable to me in some way.

And the plain fact of the matter is that British society could get by perfectly well without the contribution even of moderate Muslims. The only thing we really want from Muslims is their oil money for bank deposits, to prop up London property prices and to sustain the luxury market; their cheap labor that we imported in the 1960s in a vain effort to bolster the dying textile industry, which could not find local labor, is now redundant.

In other words, one of the achievements of the bombers and would-be bombers is to make discrimination against most Muslims who wish to enter Britain a perfectly rational policy. This is not to say that the government would espouse it, other than surreptitiously by giving secret directions to visa offices around the world. But why should a country take an unnecessary risk without a compensatory benefit?


!!!!!!

I won't even begin responding to Theodore Dalrymple (his real name is Anthony Daniels) because I think there's a serious problem with his whole attitude and approach to the situation. Criticising Muslims for not doing enough to prevent and condemn terror acts is one thing, but calling for all Muslim immigrants to be deported or barred entry is another.

I can't believe that a 'respectable' newspaper would publish an article like this.

1 comment:

Zahra Billoo said...

Wow. And I thought I had seen it all . . .