In October 1997 the Runnymede Trust report on Islamophobia attracted wide attention from political circles and the media. Muslim groups have long been calling attention to what they see as ingrained anti-Muslim prejudice in Western society.
In their eyes, the term is equivalent to anti-Semitism, and signifies several problems: firstly, cultural animosity from Western society to the distinctives of Islam, secondly practical discrimination in the socio-economic sphere and above all in perceived media stereotyping.
In 1995 the Muslim monthly Q-News convened a meeting of major Muslim groups on the theme 'Muslims Against Racism', and the advert for this blamed Islamophobia for the marginalisation of Muslims in the anti-racist movement.
A major problem with any term is definition. If by 'Islamophobia' we mean sectarian discrimination against Muslims, such as firing women for wearing the hejab (head covering), or refusing to hire Muslims at all, we are dealing with identifiable and concrete examples of injustice which must be condemned and addressed. The Report, for example, refers to a Pakistani woman refused a job because she would not wear a knee-length skirt, which was against her religion. The same is true of inflammatory language against Muslims. Several instances of this were cited by the Report. A particularly vitriolic example is found in a leaflet sent to Muslims by a group calling itself 'English Solidarity Against Multi-racialism' which called on Muslims to 'Take your fundamentalism and faith back home and fight for them on your own soil. Calling all Christians! Defend your faith on English soil'.
Definitions
However, there is a real danger of applying the term 'Islamophobia' too loosely: labels are often misused and lose much of their force. This is clearly demonstrated by certain Muslim reactions to the allegations of sleaze against Britain's only Muslim MP, Muhammad Sarwar. The general response reflected in the Muslim media has been to see him as the victim of an anti-Muslim conspiracy. In June 1997 Q-News ran an article indicating that he was the target of a muck-raking operation by Indian Intelligence, while failing to produce any solid evidence of the same. It is certainly wrong to jump the gun and convict Mr. Sarwar before the facts are known, but to react as many Muslims have done is likely to create the impression that Muslims are committed to a whitewash, regardless of the facts.
Likewise, Farooq Murad, Vice-President of the Islamic Society of Britain, in a speech to launch Islamic Awareness Week (September 22-28 1998), complained that negative popular images of Islam are the result of '... age old myths and fears ...' (Q-News, October 3-16 1997). This ignores the fact that some of these perceptions have arisen as a result of Muslim intolerance of other faiths, especially in Saudi Arabia, the killing of Christian converts in Iran and elsewhere by the authorities, and the trumped-up charges of blasphemy used on occasions against Christians in Pakistan, a particularly blatant example of which led to the protest suicide of a Christian bishop in May.
Westophobia
Moreover, the phenomenon of Islamophobia cannot be divorced from the prevalence of Westophobia in Muslim countries and among Muslims in Britain, a phenomenon which has received relatively little attention. Muslim phobic criticism of the West goes far beyond opposition to Western policies towards the Muslim world. It is grounded in the West's very cultural distinctives, specifically all that flows from the concept of the freedom of the individual and the equality of belief-systems, religious or atheist.
Ironically, this criticism, based upon the difference in value-system, is the same basis as some aspects of Islamophobia! To hold a stereotyped derogatory view of any culture is always unhelpful, whatever its identity.
A frequent Muslim criticism of the West is that it is 'a moral cess-pit', in the words of one British Muslim speaker at a Muslim-Christian debate in London two years ago. Many Muslims criticise what they see as sexual immorality and perversion in Western societies, and tend to portray certain libertarian approaches to morality as representative of all Westerners.
Thus Trends, the magazine of the Young Muslims UK (Vol. 7, Issue 1), equated 'Baywatch' with American culture in general, and stated that every six minutes a woman is raped in the United States. The Muslim Parliament's bulletin, Majlis al-Shura (Vol. 1, Issue 4), states that 'In Britain, it is Western women who are most exploited and oppressed.' This idea is frequently repeated by Muslims of different organisations. No exceptions are offered, and thus this comment is as guilty of phobic stereotyping as the unqualified attacks upon the status of Muslim women that are characteristic of Islamophobia.
This Muslim criticism of contemporary morals ignores several important issues. Firstly, it ignores survey findings which show that considerable numbers of Westerners still adhere to traditional moral codes based on pre-marital chastity and marital fidelity. Secondly, it is less than honest about the prevalence of immorality in the Muslim world, which may not be in the public domain, but certainly exists behind closed doors, especially in hotels. In recent years in Pakistan, there were calls for the gender segregation of buses because of the frequent groping of women passengers. Western women tourists in countries like Turkey and Egypt frequently complain of sexual harassment, usually verbal, by the police, as well as by male members of the general public.
Hating the church
Westophobia also leads on to another similarly understudied phobia - Churchophobia. In the September 1997 issue of Q-News, it was reported that nominally Catholic Dayak tribesmen in Indonesia were engaged in cannibalism against Muslim neighbours. The article stated that this practice may have been legitimised in the minds of the tribesmen in question by the Christian communion rite. In highlighting and circulating such unsubstantiated claims, Q-News is guilty of the very thing which it has so vociferously criticised in Westerners - namely, creating a negative stereotype of the religious practices of other faith adherents.
Some Muslims are even prepared to suggest that at times there is a 'Christian conspiracy'. Trends (Vol. 7, Issue 1) resurrected a quote by the 19th century British convert to Islam, Abdullah Quilliam that 'The Christian powers are proposing a new crusade in order to shatter the Muslim powers ...' Trends also recorded his declaration that 'The fruits of Christianity are ... drunkenness, gambling and prostitution', and carried a short article which noted the establishment of a 'Nudist Church Convention' in the USA. One must question the sincerity of those complaining about Islamophobic victimisation if they themselves damn other faiths and nationalities through the use of sweeping and misleading stereotypes.
All phobias of these kinds are, in the final analysis, based on ignorance and prejudice. Surely the way forward is to acknowledge the existence of universal phobias, address the problems and move on to establish better relations. Christians must be forthright in condemning all manifestations of Islamophobia, and Muslims must reciprocate by condemning negative attitudes and practices towards Westerners and Christians. Only in this way can phobias be cured, and good relations established.
Centre for Islamic Studies and Muslim-Christian Relations
London Bible College
