It shouldn't happen to a Muslim

[Deckard]

I'd been meaning to post about this a while back when it was on TV but didn't get round to it. Some of you will recall a thread I started a year or so ago (which I now can't locate, hence why I'm starting this one) about Islamophobia in which I was arguing that the extent to which Muslims are being vilified in the press, certainly in the UK press, is deeply unsettling to me, and more widespread and virulent than many people perhaps realise. Not just terrorism-related stories, but stories that seek to amplify the social and cultural differences between Muslims and the rest of society.

There was a recent story involving a police force poster containing a dog, which got the usual front page "Outrage! Now Muslims are offended by a dog" treatment. I got into some quite heated debates on other forums, and the overwhelming reaction was one of fury at these Muslims coming into 'our' country imposing 'their' ways on 'us', "when in Rome..." etc etc (never mind that many of these Muslims are born here, and as British citizens, should share exactly the same freedom of religion, freedom of dress, freedom of speech as the rest of us ). Anyway, all sorts of assumptions were being made, and people - almost without exception - were viewing it all as "the Muslim community" being offended... and attacking "the Muslim community" accordingly.

As it turned out, it was only ONE Muslim that had complained about that poster (and even he was something of a self-publicist). Of course the police were stupid to change the poster based on that one complaint, but more interesting (and scary) to me was how the target of everyone's ire wasn't the police - no, it could be summed up in one word: "Muslims". Plural.

The newspaper in question failed to mention that it was one complaint in their report, instead reporting it as "anger in the Muslim community". Ah yes, "the Muslim community", that handy catch-all phrase.

That's just the most recent example. I have a growing record of these stories from which I intend to create a website at some point. In the meantime, I wanted to post some YouTube links to a programme that was recently screened on UK television, delving into the same subject.

The rather over-zealous presenter is Peter Oborne, a conservative political columnist for the Daily Mail. Not someone you'd expect to be taking this up as their cause celebre, to put it mildly. (And yes, he received a lot of flak from Daily Mail readers as a result of this.)








Why should these things concern me as an atheist? They concern me because all of us should remember how quickly and strikingly attitudes to out-groups can change. German Jews were reasonably well tolerated in 1920, yet within a few years, they were despised by much of the German population. Naturally I'm making no direct easy comparisons between then and now, but the way in which MAINSTREAM opinion has been steadily turning against Muslims, certainly in Britain, really is making me question where it's all destined to lead. A decade ago, it would have been unthinkable to imagine what now passes for mainstream opinion. What strikes me now is how many people seem to want to believe that Muslims are at the root of all problems - as I say, not just terror-related, but social and cultural too.