Crusade against ‘Islamophobia’ is creating a blasphemy law by the back door - warnings from the UK
Our associate organisation, the Free Speech Union of the UK, has published an essay arguing that any attempt to define ‘Islamophobia’ will have a chilling effect on free speech.
While this is not yet a significant issue in South Africa, there are influential anti-Semitic Islamists influencers in this country who would probably welcome a similar narrowing of rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights in our Constitution, such as free speech and freedom of religion.
The author, Tim Dieppe, the Head of Public Policy at Christian Concern, believes that any attempt to define ‘Islamophobia’ and punish those responsible for it, would have a chilling effect on free speech.
The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims' definition is so broad that it could mean anyone disputing Hamas’s description of Israel’s military operation in Gaza as a ‘genocide’ is guilty of ‘Islamophobia’.
The APPG produced a report in 2018, fleshing out its definition, in which it claimed that “Islamophobia” also includes ‘claims of Muslims spreading Islam by the sword or subjugating minority groups under their rule’.
The problem with this is that this represents the views of some Middle Eastern rulers in the 21st century: bear in mind that there is no Muslim governed democracy in the Middle East.
As Dieppe says:
The definition of Islam we are being given is of a liberalised, westernised Islam – but Islamic civilisation is not to be defined solely by liberal, Western standards. Military conquest and the subjugation of minority groups have absolutely been features of Islamic imperialism.
We risk the ludicrous situation of being able to write without fear of prosecution about the Christian tradition of crusading or antisemitism, but not the Islamic tradition of jihad or the jizya.
As the FSU points out any newspaper reporting that the majority of those prosecuted for child sex offences in the Rotherham ‘grooming gang’ scandal are Muslims, is guilty of “Islamophobia”.
Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, has pointed out that if this definition of “Islamophobia” is universally accepted, it would create a blasphemy law via the back door.
The APPG’s definition conflates any criticism of Islam with racism. But read Richard Dawkins, in his Foreword to the essay, who argues that Islam is not a race.
There are likely to be many in the Islamic, anti-Israel lobby in this country that would love to see a similar blasphemy law introduced. And the ANC is a avowed Hamas supporter which is the definition of an imperialist organisation in the Islamist mould.
The full essay can be found at https://shorturl.at/moqL7
[Image: logo of the Muslim Brotherhood]