Juno News - March 22, 2019


The difference between anti-Muslim bigotry and ＂Islamophobia＂


Episode Stats

Length

21 minutes

Words per Minute

164.48853

Word Count

3,499

Sentence Count

224


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Joining me for another True North Talk is one of the great speakers of this fantastic event we've
00:00:09.060 been covering here, Dr. Kanta Ahmed. Dr. Ahmed, thank you so much for being here and also for
00:00:13.740 being here for this interview. We appreciate it. One of the big things that I thought people needed
00:00:19.920 to take away from your remarks, and I know you've written about it as well, is this idea of Islamophobia
00:00:25.020 and how it's been weaponized. And I was wondering if you could speak to the fact that this term is not
00:00:31.440 the morally virtuous one that it's often presented by, because from your perspective as not just an
00:00:38.320 academic and as a writer, but your perspective as a Muslim woman, I think this is very critical.
00:00:42.660 So it's a very important question, particularly now in the wake of Christchurch, where this atrocity
00:00:48.480 has occurred, which was certainly a lethal and diabolical act of anti-Muslims. In Islamophobia,
00:00:53.300 every decent person will condemn it, every democracy will prosecute it, and there will be a sentencing
00:00:59.120 of the individual perpetrator. That is anti-Muslim xenophobia. It is being portrayed and amalgamated
00:01:05.600 with the idea of Islamophobia, and that's dangerous. So Islamophobia, you will find no evidence of it
00:01:12.540 in the Quran or in any of the related literature or scriptures. It really didn't emerge in the mainstream
00:01:18.480 of Islamophobia until post-revolutionary Iran. About 10 years after the Iranian Revolution,
00:01:24.300 the first act citing Islamophobia was Ayatollah Khomeini sentencing Salman Rushdie, the author
00:01:33.540 of the satanic verses, to death. That was based on a charge of Islamophobia. He was deemed eligible
00:01:39.300 for execution, and that's why there were death threats on his life. He was in hiding for many
00:01:43.440 years. His translators were murdered, booksellers were burned, and that brought to the world
00:01:49.060 the idea of Islamophobia. Now, post-revolutionary Iran is really an Islamist pseudo-democracy.
00:01:55.280 It embraces not Islam, but a false impostor of Islam, a totalitarian, a Marxist-influenced ideology
00:02:03.760 that was really birthed in Egyptian prisons. That relies on denying any possibility of scrutinizing
00:02:10.460 its ideas, its institutions, its ideologies. Islamism shirks or shies away from any kind of
00:02:17.920 scrutiny. And what Iran has done, together with other key states in the OIC, the Organization
00:02:23.740 of the Islamic Conference, together with Iran's sphere, that's it, with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
00:02:28.800 and other states, they've been passing many, many resolutions for about 10 years, which
00:02:33.900 are non-binding in the United Nations, to deem Islamophobia a crime. Their goal is to deem
00:02:41.380 it a crime against human rights. So, effectively, having a conversation we did this afternoon,
00:02:46.220 one day becoming a human rights violation, those resolutions were stopped when Governor
00:02:53.260 Salman Tassir of Pakistan was assassinated. We're privileged to have one of his sons here
00:02:58.320 in the room today. So, Salman Tassir was considered a good way to describe it for your viewers. It's
00:03:05.260 the Rupert Murdoch of Pakistan, incredibly erudite, vain, tremendous icon of progressive ideas, beloved
00:03:15.260 by students and the public. And he was horrified at the conviction of Asya Bibi, a Christian woman
00:03:21.320 who was a peasant, unfortunately, falsely charged with blasphemy in Pakistan and would spend over
00:03:27.260 a decade in jail on false pretenses. As a Muslim and a governor of Punjab, the most powerful,
00:03:34.320 non-powerful position in Pakistan, one of those powerful, he stood up for her and said,
00:03:39.380 these blasphemy laws that you're using to convict her are false and they're un-Islamic
00:03:44.380 and they need to be repealed. He did that as a Muslim with a conscience and he was deemed
00:03:49.380 Islamophobic and he was assassinated with 27 bullets in the middle of the day after eating
00:03:54.380 lunch by his own details. His security detail right after putting him in full with bullets put
00:03:59.320 down his weapon and said, I have defended Islam and he became a national hero. At his indictment,
00:04:06.320 he was met with Pakistani lawyers who threw rose petals on him in the courtroom. That is
00:04:11.320 what Islamophobia does. It results in the death of a Muslim governor who was defending the rights
00:04:18.320 of a Christian woman on the basis of his Islamic conscience, which he knew it was unjust. But
00:04:23.320 you do not get to challenge Islamism. And it's not just Muslims who've been executed on the
00:04:28.320 basis of Islamophobia. The only Christian cabinet minister, Shahbaz Khaddi, was also executed
00:04:35.320 outside his mother's home in Pakistan for the same thing, trying to repeal blasphemy laws.
00:04:40.320 Just an aside, Islam proper, the Quran, explains that if there is such a crime as blasphemy,
00:04:47.320 it's not even clear that it is a crime, blasphemy beings who deny the existence of God, for instance,
00:04:53.320 might be one example of blasphemy. It is a crime not to be judged by walkers, but between the
00:04:59.320 maker and the human being. So it's not even a crime that human beings are supposed to prosecute.
00:05:05.320 So all those leaders, whether they're the leaders of Iran or the leaders of Pakistan or Saudi Arabia,
00:05:12.320 for instance, imprisoning Raif Badawi, whose wife is here with us this afternoon on the basis of blasphemy,
00:05:18.320 are making the ultimate criminal act in Islam. They're equating themselves to the maker.
00:05:24.320 So now, coming back to America, Americans are grief-stricken at seeing the flight in New Zealand.
00:05:30.320 Imagine, God forbid, God forbid that happened in the American class. We would all be devastated.
00:05:35.320 That is not an act of Islamophobia. Now, why does it matter words? Because those that control the words control the narrative.
00:05:44.320 And before the sun had set on these attacks in New Zealand, we had the godfather of Islamism,
00:05:51.320 Muslim Brotherhood ideology, Recep Erdogan, the President of Turkey, already campaigning with his supporters,
00:05:58.320 asking them to see the live feed of the gunmen, to know how the West treats Muslims, how the West commits genocidal acts on Muslims.
00:06:07.320 Why would he do that? Because as an Islamist, he's looking to fragment populations. He wants to separate Muslims from the secular world.
00:06:15.320 The Islamist is at war with secularism, at permanent war with secularism. This, of course, if we think about Salman Rushdie,
00:06:23.320 we come all the way to January 2015, when the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were also executed on the same basis.
00:06:30.320 I've never seen the magazine, the cartoons are obscene in my opinion, they defame Jesus, but they did not deserve the execution for it.
00:06:40.320 When we choose to live in secular pluralism, we choose to live alongside profanity. That's fine, we don't have to consume it.
00:06:46.320 But for the Islamists, this is a legitimate basis for war. And these ideas now, when I'm hearing about some kind of legislation mentioned in Canada,
00:06:58.320 these ideas, if they enter into law in the United States or in Canada or in Britain, this not only limits our freedom of speech,
00:07:07.320 which is precious to Canadians and Americans alike and British, but it runs the risk of enabling and empowering Islamist positions.
00:07:17.320 Now, it sounds very exotic. If you're a Canadian sitting on your homestead or if you're an American, you know, going to a ball game,
00:07:23.320 it sounds completely irrelevant. But we have in Canada seven parliamentarians who are Islamists already elected.
00:07:30.320 And they control the debate when, for instance, a Canadian woman refuses to lift a niqab when taking the oath for becoming a Canadian citizen.
00:07:40.320 She did not want to reveal her face. And this set a huge, enormous struggle inside parliament,
00:07:45.320 which most parliamentarians are not equipped to deal with because they don't understand the difference between Islam and Islamism.
00:07:51.320 When we amalgamate Islamophobia with anti-Muslim, xenophobia, when we amalgamate Islam with Islamism,
00:07:59.320 it benefits only Islamists, Muslim rather than Al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS. That's Islamism.
00:08:06.320 When we amalgamate those things, it only denies rights to Christians, non-Muslims, pluralist Muslims like me, minorities, atheists.
00:08:17.320 It is the most profound anti-democratic act in order to give legal teeth to the concept of Islamophobia.
00:08:25.320 So it does threaten the stability of secular plural democracy.
00:08:29.320 And when we see that motion that was passed by the Democrats in the House in the United States
00:08:33.320 and the Canadian motion you referenced, M103, which called for, quote, a whole of government approach, unquote, to combat Islamophobia.
00:08:42.320 They use the word Islamophobia, but they don't define it. These acts are presented by supporters as being benign.
00:08:49.320 And this is one of the things that we saw in Canada where the legislators were advocating this said,
00:08:54.320 Oh, no, no, it's just non-binding. It's symbolic. Well, then why is it so essential? Why is it so important?
00:08:59.320 And there's a hypocrisy there because advocates of these types of things I've seen often want to pretend that it's doing nothing.
00:09:07.320 It's just about words when, as you know, well, those words are very important.
00:09:12.320 And I'm wondering how we break through that, because the situations you describe in Pakistan and Turkey,
00:09:17.320 where Islamophobia is a very real word that has the clout of the law behind it,
00:09:24.320 whereas when it's brought up in the West, it's typically in this very detached, secular, ivy tower, liberal way of,
00:09:30.320 oh, no, no, it's just about being nice and compassionate.
00:09:33.320 And some people are well-meaning. Others are not.
00:09:35.320 Right. So this is a wonderful question, and it's not one that I've been asking before,
00:09:40.320 so I'll be thinking aloud. I think there are a few concepts that are of great concern.
00:09:45.320 First of all, I see less and less that is denied about the liberal mindset of the United States,
00:09:50.320 and I'm a registered independent. What I see is that there is a lionization of victimhood happening in the popular culture.
00:09:58.320 There was a brilliant article written in The Atlantic about victimhood chic in the wake of an actor who simulated his own hate crime
00:10:06.320 and now faces a few felony charges. So there's this inanimate of being a victim.
00:10:11.320 You might remember the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of these purported crimes,
00:10:17.320 and everyone's faces was, I believe, pristine, and that apparently is the basis of our justice system.
00:10:22.320 Total disgrace. So there's this over-emphasis on the victim.
00:10:28.320 That, I think, immediately blinds people. Not that there are not real victims, but that's very troubling.
00:10:34.320 Then, there is this false narrative projected and portrayed by Islamists in America that they are victims,
00:10:41.320 which is very hard for me to swallow because I've been in America,
00:10:44.320 I've been a Muslim in America for almost two decades at this stage,
00:10:48.320 and Muslims in America have more religious freedom, more freedom to proselytize,
00:10:53.320 more freedom to move upwardly mobiles, fastest track to becoming a six-figure income
00:10:58.320 than almost any other immigrants that come there.
00:11:00.320 So I don't know how that equates the victim by the United States.
00:11:04.320 Now I see this embrace of victim-hood sheet,
00:11:07.320 false narrative of Muslims being victims,
00:11:10.320 propagated by Islamists, embraced by the Left.
00:11:13.320 Now the Left, the Democratic Left, appears to be losing a lot of its original strengths.
00:11:20.320 I don't know out of fear or out of necessity.
00:11:23.320 They've embraced an extremely far-left bastion of up-and-coming Congress people
00:11:30.320 who have aligned with Islamists, and this is a well-known red-green alliance,
00:11:36.320 an unholy alliance between Islamists who portray themselves in the West as victims.
00:11:42.320 Well, victims is something that far-left people relate to.
00:11:46.320 They must be sheltered from God knows what,
00:11:48.320 but presumably sheltered from the secular democracy that elevated those victims
00:11:52.320 to be at a point where they have a political power or political voice,
00:11:56.320 unlike the Muslim-majority countries they come from.
00:11:58.320 So this marriage between the two now becomes very potent in the public imagination.
00:12:04.320 There are very few American independents, American conservatives,
00:12:09.320 who truly understand Islamism.
00:12:11.320 Remember, I'm immersed in this because they talk about this every week
00:12:14.320 and write about it every week.
00:12:15.320 So very few of them understand it.
00:12:17.320 They understand the hypocrisy of the Left,
00:12:19.320 and they understand victim-hood sheet.
00:12:21.320 They don't see how the Muslim Brotherhood is using this.
00:12:25.320 So coming back to the resolution that took our breath away in the United States,
00:12:30.320 I think it's resolution, House Resolution 183, I could be wrong about that.
00:12:34.320 This followed the vitriolic and explicit anti-Semitic remarks and actions
00:12:40.320 of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, which date back to at least 2012.
00:12:45.320 Even before she entered the political race, the local Jewish community
00:12:48.320 had approached her expressing concern about some of her ideas and some of her words.
00:12:53.320 She talked about her re-education there.
00:12:55.320 She gets into Congress and she immediately does it again
00:12:57.320 with horrible images that we won't repeat.
00:12:59.320 Horrible words that demonize the entire country, the country of Israel,
00:13:03.320 which, by the way, offers more religious plurality to Muslims
00:13:07.320 than any other country in the Middle East, including my home, Pakistan.
00:13:12.320 So that's one.
00:13:13.320 Number two is her actions, which have been little discussed in the mainstream media.
00:13:18.320 Fundraising for Islamic Relief, which has been sanctioned by three Muslim countries,
00:13:22.320 including Tunisia and Bangladesh,
00:13:24.320 that do not want Islamic Relief anywhere near Rohingya Muslims
00:13:28.320 in case they end up radicalised because they recognise Islamic Relief
00:13:32.320 is a vector for monies to groups like Hamas.
00:13:36.320 Sweden has also similarly sanctioned them.
00:13:39.320 She keynotes as a member of Congress.
00:13:42.320 And then what I needed to mention earlier and slipped my mind
00:13:45.320 is her affiliation with the boycott, divestment, sanction movement.
00:13:49.320 A lot of the left on American universities and American campuses,
00:13:53.320 their whole contact with the idea of Israel is through the lens of BDS,
00:13:57.320 which is nothing more than a militant anti-Semitic movement masquerading
00:14:01.320 as a human rights organisation.
00:14:04.320 Boycott, divestment, sanction isn't really seeking the boycott of Israel.
00:14:08.320 Otherwise, no one in America would be using an iPhone.
00:14:11.320 All that technology, much of it is birthed in Israel.
00:14:14.320 They are actually looking for the denormalisation, delegitimisation
00:14:18.320 and eradication of Israel.
00:14:19.320 Eradication through rights of permanent return for generational refugees.
00:14:23.320 No other refugees in the world have this right.
00:14:28.320 So if they advocate that, they are advocating for the eradication of Israel.
00:14:32.320 And she is a supporter of that.
00:14:35.320 And she is also a hypocrite because she lied to the local people of Minneapolis
00:14:40.320 that she was not and immediately went in and then was opposed to an anti-BDS bill.
00:14:45.320 This is how Islamists operate.
00:14:47.320 They gain great currency if they are appearing like a minority.
00:14:53.320 Islamists are seeking to be treated like a minority religion.
00:14:57.320 They are not a minority religion.
00:14:59.320 I have a great difficulty recognising Muslims to be a minority religion
00:15:03.320 because I am one of 1.67 billion.
00:15:05.320 That aside, most of us don't live in America so I understand that.
00:15:08.320 But there is nothing about a totalitarian ideology that privileges it as a minority religion.
00:15:15.320 Until Americans recognise that Islamists, they might be Muslim.
00:15:20.320 They might have African colouring.
00:15:22.320 They might come from a foreign country.
00:15:24.320 They might wear a headdress.
00:15:25.320 This is not about their personhood.
00:15:27.320 This is about their ideas.
00:15:29.320 If we quote Salman Rushdie, ideas are not people.
00:15:32.320 We can attack ideas and should be with other ideas.
00:15:35.320 Until we drop that veil, America is going to be at the mercy of Islamists.
00:15:40.320 We're going to corral the left narrative and then pursue all kinds of further empowerment.
00:15:47.320 Right now it's an House resolution.
00:15:49.320 Two, three steps.
00:15:50.320 Maybe they're going to enact a bill and pass a law.
00:15:52.320 And then you and I can't talk like this.
00:15:54.320 Well, and that's why the Islamophobia discussion is so important.
00:15:57.320 Because this is an idea that tries to limit the scope of ideas.
00:16:02.320 I mean, it's a push that tries to say, no, no, no, you can't say that.
00:16:06.320 And you're right that when it starts as a non-binding resolution or motion, that is always the precursor to something else down the road.
00:16:14.320 And I guess the question I'd ask is the politicians that aren't Muslims, that aren't Islamists, that genuinely want to do well.
00:16:20.320 And they're drinking that Kool-Aid of we've all got to, you know, link arms and sing John Lennon's Imagine and we've got to make the world a better place.
00:16:27.320 How do you break through to those people that are genuinely trying to fight racism and bigotry, but are falling for Islamophobia?
00:16:34.320 Because the loudest voices are from people that look like their intentions are pure.
00:16:39.320 Maybe they need more introductions to the outcomes of Islamism.
00:16:42.320 Earlier on today, unfortunately, I didn't get to speak to them.
00:16:44.320 There was a family of Yazidi survivors.
00:16:46.320 I work with Yazidi people in Kurdistan.
00:16:48.320 I'm very honored to do so.
00:16:50.320 And I encountered survivors of ISIS enslavement, ISIS marriages, women that are still kidnapped into ISIS now.
00:16:58.320 We think there are more than 3,000 or maybe 3,800 that are still missing.
00:17:02.320 Families that have paid ransom.
00:17:04.320 We can meet those.
00:17:05.320 We can meet people like Malali Yousafzai, who was attempted to be silenced by Islamists, by the Taliban, the family of Salman Tassir, the family of Raith Badawi.
00:17:16.320 These are the victims of Islamism.
00:17:19.320 These are who the Democratic Party in America and the Republican Party in America should be standing strongly with.
00:17:25.320 I think that's part of it.
00:17:26.320 And another is there has to be a degree of fearlessness.
00:17:29.320 If you look at Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and unfortunately, I've had to look at lots of things that she said.
00:17:34.320 Underneath her, there's this steeliness.
00:17:36.320 There's this complete lack of shame.
00:17:39.320 Imagine saying something anti-Semitic, which I can't to begin with.
00:17:42.320 But imagine saying it shamelessly, defending it and having no, absolutely no compunction in standing by those remarks and twisting a resolution to protect your ability to say those things again.
00:17:54.320 We have to have that kind of robustness and fearlessness to confront that.
00:17:58.320 We can't shy away because we're afraid of being called racists or xenophobes ourselves, which happens to me every day.
00:18:04.320 So, you know, I don't give up the battlefield in that regard.
00:18:08.320 And other politicians must not.
00:18:10.320 But they can seek out brilliant minds.
00:18:12.320 There are scholars, and I recommend your viewers read if you really want deep scholarship on this.
00:18:17.320 A brilliant Damascene exile living in Germany.
00:18:21.320 40 years of his work was publishing on Islamism's political science in Arabic.
00:18:26.320 Many of his books are in German and English, so they're accessible to us.
00:18:29.320 Bassem Tibi, you must read him, B-A-S-S-A-M-T-I-B-I.
00:18:34.320 You must read French philosopher Pascal Bruckner, who's written a brilliant essay on him.
00:18:39.320 There is no such thing as Islamophobia in the City Journal in New York.
00:18:42.320 And has a book which is called An Imaginary Racism, about Islamophobia, just published.
00:18:48.320 Those are great sources of deep thinkers.
00:18:51.320 When we look into Bassem Tibi's work, he has a body of work which proves Muslims dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, almost 100 years from now, have been contesting Islamism and paid the price for it.
00:19:05.320 So this is not a new discussion inside Islam.
00:19:08.320 But Islamism could never really spread its wings until it inoculates and parasitizes democracies.
00:19:15.320 And democracies are not ready.
00:19:17.320 We've not been vaccinated against these ideas.
00:19:20.320 And we're also in a time when most of the public doesn't believe in democracy anymore.
00:19:24.320 Most of them are not voting.
00:19:25.320 Most of them are not thinking where democracies become an entertainment, which is so disgraceful, but they don't realize what's at stake.
00:19:32.320 And this was an observation made by Salman Rushdie at a commencement address in Emrah, where he warned that he'd lived through a time, as everyone knows, where freedom of speech was truly curtailed.
00:19:45.320 The really, it'll come to me in a moment, Christopher Hitchens.
00:19:52.320 Yeah.
00:19:53.320 He described what happened after Salman Rushdie, the Salman Rushdie affair, as we know who he is, we don't mention his name, he remains silent, but he has pulled a chair up to the table.
00:20:06.320 And of course, he's referring to Islamism.
00:20:08.320 Well, that was in 1989, Valentine's Day 1989, when Salman Rushdie was deemed eligible.
00:20:15.320 Now, he's not only pulled up the chair to the table, the metaphorical specter of Islamism.
00:20:21.320 He is chairman of the board.
00:20:22.320 That's what we're experiencing now.
00:20:24.320 We are trying to have these debates in the United States or Canada by the rule book of the Islamists.
00:20:30.320 And I'm saying, you don't go by their rule book.
00:20:33.320 You go by the rule book of ideas and democracy.
00:20:36.320 We do not privilege totalitarian organizations or totalitarian ideas.
00:20:41.320 We would not privilege them any more than we would privilege a Nazi party or a communist party.
00:20:46.320 But right now, we're treating what is effectively a new kind of Islamofascism the way we might privilege a political party of Zoroastrians.
00:20:56.320 That is absolutely false.
00:20:58.320 And that is undemocratic.
00:20:59.320 Well, we have to start going by your rule book.
00:21:02.320 I want to thank you very much for your work on this and for your time, Dr. Kanta Ahmed.
00:21:05.320 Thank you.
00:21:06.320 My privilege.
00:21:07.320 Thank you.
00:21:08.320 Thank you.
00:21:09.320 Thank you.
00:21:10.320 Thank you.
00:21:14.320 Thank you.