AT PENPOINT
There is a new spirit of Islamophobia abroad, which has made the desecration of the Holy Quran in Sweden merely one of a number of incidents, though it remains the most hurtful to Muslims, and is clearly the one motivated by Islamophobia. The others may be brushed off as violence against Muslims, which is often enough the result of Islamophobia, but need not be.
While hackles of Muslims rose at the other incidents of Islamophobia out of solidarity, and which all merely confirmed existing stereotypes, the Quran burning in Stockholm evoked a more visceral reaction, just as the blasphemous cartoons depicting the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in 2005 did. It was not just a sense of the West being unfair, but a visceral feeling of being assaulted. As believers have some sort of personal relationship with the Prophet (PBUH), there was a personal edge to the feeling.
The Holy Quran is the source of a Muslim’s faith. In many Muslim households, it may be the only book, or maybe there might be a commentary or two along with it. Burning it is not just a challenge to their beliefs, but also a reminder of the Nazi book burnings. The Quran banishes ignorance, so destroying it means taking away that light.
The complicity of the Swedish state was also noticeable. It was not total. The police had tried to stop the protest, but had been overruled by a court. However, the police had not changed the location or the timing of the protest, which coincided with the Eidul Azha congregation at the city’s central mosque.
The protester, an Iraqi Christian migrant, had acted to irritate, tearing the Quran, using the pages to wipe his shoes, wrap bacon in them, and then burn them. Clearly, this was a provocative act. It was not political, as was the burning of the Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy by a far-right politician, who was protesting Turkey’s blocking Sweden’s membership of NATO.
However, one of the problems with such acts is that they do nothing but provoke. What do they provoke to? Muslims may be angered, but they can’t very well retaliate, though there have been requests filed with the Swedish police for permission to burn the Torah. In fact, the blasphemer is to be punished, if not by the state, then by an act of private vengeance.
The reaction to Muslim migrants is not purely economic. The reaction of Western Europeans to East Europeans who had moved within the European Union was much milder than it was to migrants, very often Muslim, from former colonies. Indeed, the economic argument sounds like a bit of special pleading. Islamophobia is a manifestation of the clash between Christianity and Islam. It has a very long history, and will probably not end so long as both religions still have followers.
The whole affair seems to be an attempt to exploit Western ideals of free speech, of which Sweden is a leading exemplar, to score points in a debate occurring elsewhere. Whatever points against Muslims an Iraqi Christian wished to score, he was doing so in a country which is eone’s considered one of the most irreligious in the world, with various estimates of atheism randing between 45 percent and 85 percent
Pehaps, in a paradoxical kind of way, it is that lack of religiosity which is behind the concept that burning any sacred scripture, including the Quran, should be banned. Almost as a substitute for Christianity, humanism demands a due regard for people’s feelings. Freedom of speech has to be retrained. As the saying goes, “My freedom ends at the beginning of your nose.” The Quran (and other sacred books) must be protected from desecration because that desecration hurts someone’s feelings, not because it is what Muslims believe it is, the Word of God, the speech of the Creator.
This could be problematic. Who determines which book is indeed sacred? For example, Muslims do not believe the Bible is a sacred book, though it does contain (although distorted) Revelations made to Moses, David and Jesus. Christians believe it is Divine Revelation. Not all Christians do. Presumably not the ones who also identify as atheist. Then what is the position of the Book of Mormon, which Mormons believe is the word of God, but which other Christians do not. Why go any further than Catholics and Protestants? The latter do not accept the Books of the Apocrypha as part of the Old Testament; the latter do.`
There is an element of racism in Islamophobia, but this incident had an Iraqi commit the desecration, so that cannot be said here. The Quan burning in January was by a far-right politician, who has advocated deporting all Muslims. There is a strong element of racism in that demand, for Muslim migrants are racially different from the Swedes,
The racism evident in the riots in France came from the fact that the riots were set off by the police gunning down of an Algerian-descent teenager, Nahel Marzouk, during a traffic stop, for driving down a bus lane, and trying to run down the cop who fired. Traffic policemen in France have been allowed to shoot at traffic offenders since 2017, in which Frenchmen of colour have been disproportionately killed. These were not the first riots in France with this cause.
Then there was the assault on State Representative Maryam Khan, the Connecticut House of Representatives member Maryam Khan, the first Muslim elected to the Connecticut House, when she was leaving an Eid gathering in Hartford, the state capital, by a white man with a history of mental issues. The Islamophobia in this incident was clearly intertwined with racism.
But perhaps the most brutal example of both Islamophobia and racism was the latest attack by Israel of the Jenin refugee camp. The whole operation, at the centre of which was the Israeli military occupation of the refugee camp on July 3, took place in the background of renewed occupation of land by settlers. Jenin is at the front line of the resistance to Israel, not just physically but also in terms of the great fortitude of the fighters in Jenin.
Israel, both people and state, have been racist and Islamophobic for a long time. The real reason is their need g Palesitinto replace the Palestinians, who do not want to abandon their land. However, the origins of Zionism in the USA, have made Israel racist , and thus anti-Arab. That racism has created difficulties even for Sephardic Jews, and especially the Falashas from Eritrea, and combines with an Islamophobia that originates in that racism. One result is that there has been the first Israeli aerial bombardment of the West Bank since 2004.
The problem with Islamophobia is that it is tied to racism. Western racists have adopted Christianity as a suitable symbol of nationalism, so the overtly religious symbol of the Quran is being used to hurt Muslim feelings.
However, that has not stopped other more traditional methods of expressing racism. Such as offing blacks in France and bombing Palestinians in the West Banks. The hostility that Muslims face is both religious and racial.
Muslims along with others want access to the West. The recent incident of the deaths of so many illegal immigrants when their boat sank off the Greek coast shows this. Xenophobes object, showing it in ways that even their fellow citizens do not like. Islamophobia and racism merge in a toxic mixture. Islamophobia cannot be uprooted easily, and cannot be at all unless racism is also uprooted.
The reaction to Muslim migrants is not purely economic. The reaction of Western Europeans to East Europeans who had moved within the European Union was much milder than it was to migrants, very often Muslim, from former colonies. Indeed, the economic argument sounds like a bit of special pleading. Islamophobia is a manifestation of the clash between Christianity and Islam. It has a very long history, and will probably not end so long as both religions still have followers.
