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Michael Mohr's avatar

Yeah, I mean, anything with the ending "phobia" has been grotesquely misused by the Left to the point that it has mostly lost all meaning.

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Frederick Alexander's avatar

True, and 'phobia' suggests an *irrational* fear, but it's often perfectly rational to fear the things we're told to embrace.

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Koso's avatar
Oct 30Edited

Wonderful piece. I remember my first pang of political homelessness watching Maryam Namazie try to give a talk at Goldsmith’s University. She was standing up for women and fellow Muslims suffering under theocrats only to be viciously heckled by a group of theocratic thugs(all men). The student org then took the side of thugs and called her a racist. And yet, the groupthink prevails.

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Frederick Alexander's avatar

That's awful, sickening. The likes of Maryam Namazie should be the first person a university defends. These institutions are led by cowards and morons.

Thanks for reading.

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Michael Southon's avatar

A great essay, thank you. The term itself is an exercise in gaslighting. There are so many things in Islam that we in the West should be genuinely worried about, and not for irrational reasons.

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Frederick Alexander's avatar

Absolutely right.

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Alice Smith's avatar

Brilliant. More people need to understand what's going on here.

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Tenaciously Terfin's avatar

Excellent piece. Any ideology which refuses to accept criticism or debate of any kind can only be described as totalitarian. The fact that we are kow towing to Islamist authoritarians and their useful idiots on the left, is terrifying and is a result of the moral cowardice of people in authority that you describe in your piece about JK Rowling. And that left/islamist alliance worked out well for the Marxists in Iran didn’t it. The useful idiots of the left would do well to study a little history.

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Andy's avatar

Substitute “Islamophobia” with “science denier” and the template is revealed.

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Frederick Alexander's avatar

🎯🎯🎯

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The Golden Pill's avatar

If Christianity or Hinduism or Judaism had violent doctrines currently in practice allowing for terror attacks on random civilians, there would be no "phobia" about it. Everyone would rightfully condemn it without self muzzling. Our task ahead will be to all learn how to say "anti jihadism is not Islamophobia" without flinching, and yes I also mean that for civilizational jihad.

https://thegoldenpill.substack.com/p/anti-jihadism-is-not-islamophobia

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The Learning Lads's avatar

I believe this speaks to a much deeper misuse of empathy going on around the world. Nearly every topic the political left has decided to die upon is against their own interests (transgenders in bathrooms goes against feminism, mass immigration goes against workers and families within the country, etc.). It is extremely strange to see such care given to people halfway around the world instead of halfway around the block.

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Keith Richardson's avatar

Nailed it

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Gary Friedman's avatar

Fredrick, your manuscript is well-crafted. Thank you. It contextualizes the parallel rise of the term "islamophobia" and the surrender of peoples to fears of (i) isolated terrorist events committed by "lone wolves" and (ii) an imams fatwas. Younger generations in western democracies without EITHER compulsory military service OR self-defense training OR situational awareness training are now easily intimidated by Muslims, the Principles of Islam, and the moral equivalence foisted upon them by CAIR & DAWN. They feel more comfortable joining the "moral equivalence police" than standing up for Judeo-Christian values which they eschew every chance they get.

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Luke Lea's avatar

Why not own the term?

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