Posted on 04/03/2008 8:37:44 AM PDT by Alouette
Winning hearts and minds -- the Bush administration, foreign policy wonks, even the U.S. military agree that this is the key to any victory over global terrorism. Yet our public diplomacy program has made little progress on improving America's image. Few seem to recognize that American ignorance of Islam and Muslims has been the fatal flaw.
How much do Americans know about the views and beliefs of Muslims around the world? According to polls, not much. Perhaps not surprising, the majority of Americans (66%) admit to having at least some prejudice against Muslims; one in five say they have "a great deal" of prejudice. Almost half do not believe American Muslims are "loyal" to this country, and one in four do not want a Muslim as a neighbor.
Why should such anti-Muslim bias concern us? First, it undermines the war on terrorism: Situations are misdiagnosed, root causes are misidentified and bad prescriptions do more harm than good. Second, it makes our public diplomacy sound like double-talk. U.S. diplomats are trying to convince Muslims around the world that the United States respects them and that the war on terrorism is not out to destroy Islam. Their task is made infinitely more difficult by the frequent airing of anti-Muslim sentiment on right-wing call-in radio, which is then heard around the world on the Internet.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Enough to know that Al Reuters and other wire services lumped all muslims together when it came to telling us that Islam has more followers than Catholicism.
We are told that the radical antisemite terrorists are a minority representation of the "false" muslims. But they were included in the world count of all muslims. So how different are they?
Since a phobia is an unreasoned fear or panic disorder involving an unnatural or illogical functioning of the brain, the term Islamophobia is both inaccurate and misleading. Some people do indeed suffer phobias, demostrated as excessive fear of spiders, snakes, dogs of a particular colour, or many other possible fixations, even when no presence or threat from such objects is imminent or possible. There is little evidence of any widespread exhibition to the presence of old women entering a passenger airliner and shouting Allah Akbar! or simultaneously bowing toward Mecca, suddenly praying in a foreign language, or lighting fuses extending from their bootheels. Similarly there's been no widespread panic involving busty Nordic foreign students, or middle-aged Japanese businessmen- though some international air travelling orientals did indeed face closer scrutiny after three of their Japanese Red Army countrymen shot up Tel Aviv's Lod airport in 1972.
It's only after groups of muslums of mostly Middle-Eastern descent or appearance were involved in several incidents in which passenger aircraft were hijacked or destroyed that such concerns were evidenced, replacing concerns of earlier air passengers of several decades previously that they their flights to their destinations might be delayed by an unscheduled stop in Havana.
No, concern about islumist and muslum people and their characteristic disrespect for human life, to include the taking of their own to accomplish the deaths of others as a religious act that offers entry to a future paradise is more accurately described as Islamomisophia, though there's room to consider such details as spelling and wheether it deserves upper-case capitalization. Derived again from the description of the particular recipients of that sentiment, plus the more accurate word derived from the Greek -misos from which we have the words misanthrope for one who dislikes or distrusts humanity, or misogynist for one whose disdain is for one of a different sex, one who is Islamomisophic shows contempt for or disdain for those if islumic appearance or activity, whether deservedly or not.
But to be so accurate would remove the negative connotation from the term, smearing the accused with a mental disorder, and would be less politically useful. Which is why the terrorist murdererrs and their supporters refer to their enemise as Islamophobics in public- and, in private, by other, darker terms.
None of that changes the fact that Muslims and Dhimmis will continue to call us what they will. I want to make it clear what they mean when they say Islamophobia: rejection of Islam and it adherents. They want want everyone either subjugated or dead. Say it clear and loud.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.