Scott Allan’s World

According to Fox News during the Pope’s visit to Turkey:

Turkey’s chief Islamic cleric [Ali Bardakoglu, chief of Turkey's Religious Affairs Directories] said at a joint appearance that growing “Islamophobia” hurts all Muslims.

Something about this quote really struck me as ironic. After all, the “Islamophobia” he is referring to is caused by the terrible violence of Extreme Radical Islamists, a.k.a Islamo-Fascists, in the name of Allah and Islam. I’m not sure how much sympathy I can have for them being “hurt”. The Pope rightfully challenged Muslims to denounce violence in the name of Islam. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but if they ever do, it would go a long way toward improving their public relations problem.

Dictionary.com defines Islamophobia as “prejudice against Muslims”. I don’t think that is an accurate description. First of all, “phobia” technically means “fear” which is more closely related to the word “terror” than “prejudice”. Most phobias are used to describe “irrational fears”. If anything, I don’t think we don’t fully understand the reality of the threat. Also, there is not a fear of ALL Muslims, just the ones that might want to kill us. How do we know who is who until it is too late?

There is nothing irrational about being afraid that a fanatical Muslim (just so we are clear that does not mean all Muslims) may try to blow up the plane we are on. It has actually happened many times already. Why did they do it? They claim it was in the name of Allah and Islam. Sounds Muslim to me. I don’t remember the last time a Christian, Bhuddist, Jew, or Atheist strapped a bomb on their chest and blew up a school bus, or drove a car bomb into a marketplace, or slit someone’s throat on the Internet. Why shouldn’t we be afraid? That is their stated goal after all, to terrorize us into submission. These terrorists WANT us to be Islamophobes. They are being judged by their actions and words, not by some irrational paranoia.

“Thanatophobia” would be more accurate which is a fear of dying. I don’t think it matters to most Americans which religion or ethnicity a person belongs to when they are trying to kill us. I don’t recall our grandparents contemplating the political correctness of whether we were “prejudiced against” or “irrationally afraid of” the Germans or the Japanese. Quite frankly we did not care if they were the least bit offended, BECAUSE THEY WERE TRYING TO KILL US!

It is safe to say that most third-world Muslims are probably more sympathetic with the extremists, than with the civilized world. If they want someone to blame for “Islamophobia” they should take a good look themselves and ask why they do not condemn the terrorists and call for a stop to the violence. I keep hearing that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful. Well where the hell are they?? If there are so many of them, they could stop this all by themselves by not tolerating this behavior from their brothers and sisters. Where are their flower children singing Kumbaya and placing daisies in the barrels of guns?

Fear can paralyze us or it can unite us into defeating our enemies. I often wonder if we are the next great empire to fall because we have lost our resolve. We cannot be bullied into silence and not protecting ourselves because someone’s feelings got hurt.

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