Quote:
Originally Posted by Bunk
I agree with almost everything you say. However, I think distinctions of actual hateful "islamophobia" and criticisms of the doctrine or islamic societies isn't so cut and dry in day-to-day life right now.
Would you consider Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher "islamophobic"? When Sam Harris calls Islam "the motherload of bad ideas" is that islamophobic? Do they hate muslims, or are they simply some of the harshest critics of the doctrine? Many argue that they in no way hateful or islamophobic because of these (harsh) criticisms, but lots of other people do actually call them "islamophobic", or that their criticism must be rooted in bigotry, disguised in criticism of ideas. They argue that the term islamophobia is deployed to shut down even criticism of the doctrine by lumping any criticism into the bucket of anti-religious bigotry or racism.
Now, I don't know if a non-binding motion like this, well intentioned I think, would have any impact on that. I doubt it. And while I think various conservatives are rather needlessly hysterical about it, I don't think it's as simple a discussion around the term islamophobia and how it is used, as some believe.
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That's a valid point, and actually islamophobia is a really problematic term in general (as are a lot of cultural phobia labels) as they tend to make a mess out of the literal, phobia (fear) definition and a hate-based definition; it does become a catch-all for all manner of negative reactions, but it shouldn't. Criticism is not necessarily Islamophobia, and Islamophobia is not necessarily hate speech. Exactly how we define Islamophobia doesn't seem that important to me unless our definitions of criticism and our definitions of hate speech overlap. And I don't see that as even a remote threat; the laws in Canada expressly exclude legitimate (either true, good faith, or public interest) criticism from being hate speech.
We have a clear word for hate-speech and activity toward Jews in anti-semitism (which is itself problematic in how semitic and Jewish are not equivalent terms but at least it has a commonly-accepted definition). I don't think anyone would have a problem with parliament condemning anti-semitism, would they? It would certainly be handy if we had a similar word for hate-speech and action towards Muslims, but we don't so we need to make due with the language we have. A symbolic measure in which you can't even bring yourself to give a name to the problem fails to have much symbolism.