HOARE, Marko Attila 2007. Between Islamophobia and Islamofascism. In_ Greater Surbiton, 13.11.2007.

8/10/2019 HOARE, Marko Attila 2007. Between Islamophobia and Islamofascism. In_ Greater Surbiton, 13.11.2007.

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Greater Surbiton

The perfect is the enemy of the good

Between Islamophobia and Islamofascism

In a well known Bosnian joke, the Bosnian MuslimSuljo is walking in the hills around Sarajevo, when he comes upon his neighbour Mujo and his wifeFata. He is puzzled to note that Fata is walking several paces in front of Mujo.

My dear neighbour Mujo, why is your wife walking in front of you ?, Suljo asks, Surely, theHoly Koran commands that a wife walk behind her husband, not in front ?

My dear neighbour Suljo, replies Mujo, When the Holy Koran was wrien, there werent anylandmines.

This is a joke thought up by Muslims, about Muslims. It humorously illustrates the essential truthabout Islam and other religions: that they are interpreted by different individuals andgenerations to suit their own particular needs. The fictional Mujo could be described either as anIslamic conservative or as a progressive, upholding the Korans message about the subordination ofwomen to men, but accepting that the precise rules needed to be modified to suit modern purposes.Mujos interpretation of Islam is no more or less valid than anyone elses; with the Prophet dead,nobody can say for sure exactly how the Koran should be interpreted, or what God really wanted.Yet there are plenty of individuals, on opposite sides of the contemporary debate about Islam, whoassume the mantle of the Prophet, and try to tell the rest of us that their own version of Islam isthe only valid one. The irony is that apparently bier political enemies Islamophobes and

Islamofascists have an identical interpretation of true Islam. Islamophobia and Islamofascismfeed off each other they are two sides of the same coin.

In her brilliant autobiography, Infidel (hp://www.amazon.co.uk/Infidel-Life-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/074329503X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/202-1625720-7939058?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194817369&sr=8-1),

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the Somali intellectual and Muslim apostate Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues that Osama bin Laden, inhis murderous injunctions about slaughtering Jews and other infidels, is simply interpreting theKoran correctly. She writes that the fallacy has arisen that Islam is peaceful and tolerant, while inreality: True Islam, as a rigid belief system and a moral framework, leads to cruelty. The inhumanact of those nineteen hijackers was the logical outcome of this detailed system for regulating human

behaviour. (Infidel (hp://www.amazon.co.uk/Infidel-Life-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/074329503X/ref=sr_1_1/202-1625720-7939058?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194898218&sr=8-1), p. 272). Shestrongly implies that Islam is inherently more problematic than other religions such as Christianityor Judaism. Hirsi Ali has got into a lot of trouble because of these and other observations. She has

been denounced as an Enlightenment fundamentalist (hp://www.signandsight.com/features/1146.html#a2)and become a bee in the bonnet of various representatives of wishy-washyleft-liberalism. And she has been portrayed as an Islamophobe (hp://www.islamophobia-watch.com/islamophobia-watch/2006/5/21/more-on-ayaan-hirsi-ali.html).

Hirsi Ali is not an Islamophobe. A phobia is defined by the New Oxford Dictionary of English asan extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something. There is no evidence to suggest thatHirsi Ali is afraid of Islam; indeed, all the evidence suggests that she is much less afraid of it thanthe vast majority of Western intellectuals. Nor is her opposition to Islam an aversion or irrational;we are not talking here about an instinct or emotion that wells up from her subconscious, nor of a

blind and ignorant prejudice, but of an entirely calm and rational position born of extensivescholarly research and reflection. There is nothing extreme about Hirsi Alis position; she does notargue that Islam should be banned, nor that its followers be persecuted. She simply sees it as aproblem, and wants to free Muslim women from the abuse inflicted upon them in the name ofIslam. So Hirsi Ali does not qualify as an Islamophobe on any count.

Contrary to myth, Hirsi Ali is very well aware that there is nothing in the Koran that sanctionsgenital mutilation; she simply points out that the name of Islam, as interpreted by traditionalsocieties, is upheld to justify such abuses. And the Koran really does appear to sanction other

abuses such as wife-beating: Men have authority over women because Allah has made the onesuperior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women areobedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whomyou fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them (The Koran,4:34). In pointing this out, Hirsi Ali is simply indicating a very real problem: that the abuse ofwomen in Islamic societies is underpinned by religion. Hirsi Ali is a principled and courageousindividual who deserves full solidarity in her campaign against the abuse of women and againstthose who would silence her. Nevertheless, she goes slightly too far.

Of all the countries in Nazi-occupied Europe, the single best record in the rescuing of Jews from the

Nazis was achieved by Muslim-majority Albania (with the possible and I stress the wordpossible exception of Denmark). In the words of Mordechai Paldiel (hp://www.bonkm.com/com_reader.php?c=9656), Director of the Department for the Righteous at Israels Yad Vashem(hp://www.yadvashem.org/):

The story of the Albanian rescuers is unique in several ways. Firstly, in that the persons saved weremostly not Albanian citizens, but Jews who had fled to that country when it was ruled by theItalians, and now found themselves in danger of deportation to concentration camps when theGermans took over, in September 1943. Secondly, the rescuers who were overwhelmingly of theIslamic faith felt a religious obligation to assist and save those who had sought refuge in their

country and were unjustly persecuted; in other words, it was a behaviour motivated by the Islamicreligion, as wisely interpreted by the rescuers.

In Bosnia-Hercegovina during World War II, when the Croat fascists, or Ustashas, began agenocidal persecution of Orthodox Serbs, Jews and gypsies, they were opposed by Islamic religious


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figures across the country. One Muslim proclamation, whose list of signatories was headed by fiveimams, opposed the crimes of the Ustashas on the grounds that For hundreds of years the BosnianMuslims have lived in unity and love with all Bosnians regardless of religion, just as exalted Islamcommands. The proclamation appealed to the Bosnian people: Let religion not divide us, let itrather unite us by acting beneficially upon all of us to be, above all, people who do not permit thatthey be ruled by the awaked animal instincts of killing and plundering, which a cultured personshould restrain. This and other similar appeals inspired by Islamic and other sentiments weremade, it should be remembered, under a genocidal dictatorship that was entirely ready to anddid murder Muslims for acts of disobedience.

Nobody should suggest that these Albanian and Bosnian Muslim heroes were not proper Muslims,and that the real Islam is represented by Osama bin Laden. To do so would be wrong both inprinciple and in practice. In principle, because everyone is free to interpret what Islam reallymeans, and nobody has any God-given authority to insist that theirs is the one true version. Andin practice, because opponents of Islamism would thereby be making propaganda on al-Qaedas

behalf. If one tells young Muslims that the Koran, correctly interpreted, does indeed commandthem to slaughter Jews and other infidels, it is unlikely to persuade them to become atheists. It is atleast as likely to persuade them to become jihadis.

Muslim Albanians have been staunch allies to Britain and the US in the War on Terror. BosniasMuslims have been victims of genocide at the hands of genuinely Islamophobic Christians, buthave nevertheless entirely resisted joining the international Islamist-terrorist movement. Themoderate-Islamic Justice and Development Party in Turkey has promoted democracy whilefighting fundamentalism and pursuing EU membership. So it is simply untrue that belief in Islammakes people automatically fundamentalists or fascists. Anyone who has spent any time in citieslike London, Sarajevo or Istanbul, where large numbers of secularised Muslims live, knows verywell that this is nonsense. It would be extremely stupid to alienate decent, moderate Muslims bydemonising them and equating them with the fundamentalist minority do we really want more

Muslim enemies ?

It has been argued that Islam is uniquely aggressive and expansionist. We could perhaps draw up ascore sheet comparing the crimes of Muslim and Christian conquerors: the great massacres ofTimur; the expansionism of the Ooman Empire and its violence against its subject peoples,culminating in the religiously catalysed Armenian Genocide; set against the Christian enslavementand extermination of the native Americans; the massacres of Muslims and Jews by the crusaders;and so on. The Christians would undoubtedly come out as the quantitatively worse offenders,simply because they occupied a larger portion of the globe. But only a truly self-hating guiltyliberal genuinely believes that Islam = good Christianity = bad; the point is that these religions

are fundamentally similar. So too is Judaism when the Jews finally got their own modern nation-state, they behaved exactly the same as most Christian and Muslim nations do which is to say, notvery well. As Benjamin Lieberman shows in his book Terrible Fate: Ethnic cleansing and themaking of modern Europe (hp://www.amazon.co.uk/Terrible-Fate-Ethnic-Cleansing-Making/dp/1566636469/ref=sr_1_1/202-1625720-7939058?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194901897&sr=8-1), intheir propensity to carry out atrocities, Christians, Muslims and Jews resemble nothing so much aseach other.

Christopher Hitchens (hp://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_urbanities-steyn.html) correctlypoints out that the term Islamophobia has been used to stifle criticism of Islam. He is absolutely

right to draw aention to the indiscriminate use of the term by paranoid, self-pitying Muslims andguilt-ridden, self-hating Western liberals. But he is wrong to describe the term Islamophobia itselfas a stupid neologism. Islamophobes exist they are people who have an extreme or irrationalfear of or aversion to Islam. They view with suspicion, fear and revulsion even ordinaryexpressions of piety on the part of practising, non-fundamentalist Muslims. They see even such


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moderate Muslims as dangerous and unwelcome. This form of bigotry is arguably not quite thesame as bigotry directed against someone because of their ethnicity or skin colour. Yet if it results inviolence against innocent individuals, it is in the last resort just as bad. Anyone who doubts wherethis can lead should visit the city of Banja Luka, in Bosnias Serb Republic, and try to find the

beautiful Ferhadija mosque that once dominated the city centre. The destruction of mosques acrossBosnia, by both Serb and Croat Christian fascists, was directed against a Muslim community that,as indicated above, had provided many brave, religiously inspired opponents of genocide andfascism in World War II.

As an atheist, I sympathise with the view of the Marquis de Sade (on this question, at least), whowrote that One must first have lost ones mind to be able to acknowledge a God, and to have gonecompletely mad to worship such a thing. I consider the idea of a God an affront to my intelligence,and the idea that one should worship a God simply beyond comprehension. The point is, whilereligion is ultimately ridiculous from an intellectual standpoint, it is not necessarily evil. In apluralistic society, we are all free to hold ridiculous beliefs. Muslims and Christians are equally freeto consider atheism ridiculous if they so wish, which they presumably do; we are free to ridiculetheir beliefs, and they ours. The division is not between Muslims and non-Muslims, but betweenthose who respect diversity of belief and freedom of expression and those who do not.Islamophobes do not respect Muslim freedom of conscience; Islamofascists do not respect thefreedoms of non-Muslims, or indeed of anybody; less extreme Muslim bigots are not fascists, butnevertheless feel their religion should be above criticism. But moderate Muslims are the naturalallies of moderate Christians, Jews, Hindus and others in the struggle against the fundamentalistsof all creeds.

Tuesday, 13 November 2007 - Posted by Marko Aila Hoare | Islam, Political correctness

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About

A blog devoted to political commentary and analysis, with a particular focus on South EastEurope. Born in 1972, I have been studying the history of the former Yugoslavia since 1993, and amintimately acquainted with, and emotionally aached to, the lands and peoples of Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbia. In the summer of 1995, I acted as translator for the aid convoy to the

Bosnian town of Tuzla, organised by Workers Aid, a movement of solidarity in support of theBosnian people. In 1997-1998 I lived and worked in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina. In 1998-2001 Ilived and worked in Belgrade, Serbia, and was resident there during the Kosovo War of 1999. As a

journalist, I covered the fall of Milosevic in 2000. I worked as a Research Officer for theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2001, and participated in the draftingof the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic.

I received my BA from the University of Cambridge in 1994 and my PhD from Yale University in2000. I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the British Academy in 2001-2004, a member of theFaculty of History of the University of Cambridge in 2001-2006, and am currently an Associate

Professor at Kingston University, London. I live in Surbiton in the UK.

I am the author of four books: The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War: A History (Hurstand Oxford University Press, London and New York, 2013), The History of Bosnia: From theMiddle Ages to the Present Day (Saqi, London, 2007), Genocide and Resistance in Hitlers Bosnia:


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HOARE, Marko Attila 2007. Between Islamophobia and Islamofascism. In_ Greater Surbiton, 13.11.2007.

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