ISLAMOPHOBIA, essentially the irrational fear of a religion that many people confuse with the very rational fear of extreme violence, is peaking right now throughout the Western world.
Possibly even more fashionable this month than peg-pants or criticising Love Actually, Islamophobia conveniently gives racists, xenophobes and anyone who wants people off their lawn the rare opportunity to, ideologically speaking, cut sick.
It works like this: people who read the news at a primary school level decide that because some terrorists are Muslims, all Muslims are bad. It’s funny — they’re reading the same news as non-Islamophobes, but interpreting it differently.
What news is this guy reading? A supporter of the far right anti-Islam group Reclaim Australia holds an extremely offensive sign in Brisbane on the weekend. Picture: AAP Image/Dan PeledSource:AAP
Much the same way that some people read a religious text and are nice to humans, while others read the same religious text and want to kill people. It’s not the religion that’s at fault, it’s the punch-lusting idiots who are just looking for an excuse.
Islamophobia is basically the logical equivalent of wanting to set fire to all fruit shops because you once had a bad grape.
The thing is, most Muslims aren’t violent, and most violent people aren’t Muslims. If you’re looking for someone to publicly wail on, make it the people who are violent, not the hundreds of millions of people who happen to share the same broad religious label as a clutch of bloodthirsty extremists.
Since when was the Government planning on introducing Sharia law? That’s new to us. Picture: AAP Image/Tracey NearmySource:AAP
In fact, there are countless humans who deserve your wrath more than Muslims, if you simply must squirt your bile at something.
Humans who do bad stuff, not just people who believe in a god you don’t. These are people who are guilty of things far, far more heinous than simply ‘being Muslim’:
EIGHT TYPES OF PEOPLE YOU COULD CONCENTRATE ON HATING INSTEAD
1. People who eat tuna on the train. Or listen to music without headphones on the train. Or man-spread across two and a half seats on the train. Or talk loudly on the phone about their confidential yet very boring business deal on the train. But not that guy who dances in the vestibule. He is a true delight.
2. People who can’t wait to give you spoilers of that episode you haven’t watched yet. “I’m not telling you what happens at the wedding in episode nine. Just don’t get too fond of these three specific characters or any of their unborn babies, if you get my, ‘they’re-stabbed’, drift”.
3. People who actively campaign against vaccination. I get that, despite countless sources of reliable information, the message regarding the realistic risk-levels of vaccination can become a bit blurred. There are people who intentionally do the blurring, and they are okay with children getting measles and whooping cough to prove their point.
4. People who are rude to waiters. It’s great that you think you’re so much better than a person bringing you things to eat and drink but probably isn’t paid enough. Ironically you probably also think you’re too good to eat a meal with a waiter’s spit in it. Interesting.
5. People who don’t use their indicators. That little lever that you use to let others know which way your one-and-a-half-ton death machine is heading is so INCONVENIENT and BORING isn’t it?
6. People who say ‘literally’ when they mean ‘figuratively’. This is so annoying that it LITERALLY makes my head explode.
7. Mosquitoes. Okay, they’re not technically people, but come on.
8. People who perpetuate Islamophobia.
I don’t really understand the point of fearmongering or pitchfork-waving at a time when everybody, regardless of their religion or age or broader demographic, agrees that the people with the bombs are the bad guys.
If you believe that people generally have the right to stay alive, you’re on the same team as the rest of us.
Go, team.
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