Public policy red-lines
Kenan Malik: *Blurring the
line between criticism and bigotry
fuels hatred of Muslims and Jews.*
This leads him, among other things, to reject the term "Islamophobia", for slightly different
but related reasons:
It is for this reason that I have long been a critic of the concept of
“Islamophobia”; not because bigotry or discrimination against Muslims
does not exist, but because the term conflates disapproval of ideas and
disparagement of people, making it more difficult to challenge the
latter. It is, in my view, more useful to frame such intolerance as
"anti-Muslim prejudice" or "bigotry". The issue, though, is not one of
wording; what matters is less the term employed than the meaning
attributed to it.
The term I coined is "
antimuslimism".
I reject it because of a category error: bigotry is not a phobia. A phobia is a mental
disorder; we cannot blame people for having a phobia. We can and should blame people
(including ourselves) for bigotry. Thus, paradoxically, calling bigotry "phobia" lets the
bigots off the moral hook.
I agree with his point that the choice of meaning is more important than the choice of word.
But often an article uses the word without explanation, assuming the reader knows what it
means. In those articles, the choice of word is the core of the article's communication about
the meaning intended.
Another gem from the article:
Anti-Zionism is not necessarily antisemitic; but it can be, and too
often is. The answer is not to label all expressions of anti-Zionism as
antisemitic but to call out the latter, while acknowledging the
legitimacy of the former.
I should comment that criticism (however strong) of actions of Israel
is not necessarily anti-Zionism.