Hath not a Muslim eyes?

Paul Goodman, the editor of Conservative Home, has an excellent piece on the site called "Hath not a Muslim eyes?" which is, of course, an oblique reference to the speech in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" in which his character Shylock reminds us that Jews are human beings.

The article is a response to attempts by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims to put forward a working definition of prejudice against Muslims which might perform the same function as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of Anti-Semitism.

As Paul says, it is to the credit of the all-party group that they have not attempted to silence criticism of religion as opposed to prejudice against the human beings who believe in that religion. He writes:

Criticism of religion is a fundamental right in an open society and is enshrined in our commitment to freedom of speech,” it says in its report, Islamophobia Defined, which proposes the definition.  But if people are to be free to be phobic about Islam – or Judaism, or Christianity, or atheism, or any other form of belief – would it really make sense for public policy to target something called Islamophobia, any more than it might target, say, Judaeophobia, Christianopobia or Atheismopobia?  Wouldn’t government do better to take aim at anti-Muslim hatred and prejudice?"

I think we do need a definition of prejudice against Muslims. I'm not sure that "Islamophobia" is the best name for it since we are talking about how to reduce prejudice against a group of human beings rather than suggesting that it is racist to disagree with a religion.

You can read the full article here.

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