# Islamophobia follows from observing Islam-majority nations
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 7, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229 "2017-02-07T15:05:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Jefferson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jefferson)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/21 "2017-02-07T17:29:15Z")
We really should stop using the silly term “Islamophobic”. A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike of something. There is nothing irrational about disliking Islam and the culture that usually goes with it.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/22 "2017-02-07T17:32:32Z")
> [@Jefferson](#):
>
> We really should stop using the silly term “Islamophobic”. A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike of something. There is nothing irrational about disliking Islam and the culture that usually goes with it.
Yes, David Duke, Frank Gaffney, and Pam Gellar are certainly rational and reasonable in their opinions about Islam. No one could possibly be actually bigoted against Muslims. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/23 "2017-02-07T17:33:30Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#):
>
> Not so. If people feel that what they see happening in majority Muslim countries is sufficient cause for concern regardless of whatever polls, then there’s no reason to assume they’re missing out on anything.
Feelings are demonstrably unreliable. That’s why we collect and analyze data. So we don’t reach conclusions and enforce policy based on feelings alone.
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### Author:  [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/24 "2017-02-07T17:52:55Z")
I didn’t mean feel in the sense of “emotion”, as you seem to be interpreting it. The word “feel” is commonly used in English to mean believe/hold/maintain. But sorry if this was confusing.
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### Author:  [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/25 "2017-02-07T18:00:00Z")
> [@Jefferson](#):
>
> We really should stop using the silly term “Islamophobic”. A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike of something. There is nothing irrational about disliking Islam and the culture that usually goes with it.
That’s the whole point of calling it Islamophobia, to derail any discussion about the issue. You take umbrage at, say, the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia? why you are just an Islamophobe only fit to be pilloried… usually by the same people that otherwise wear their great concerns about the rights of women on their sleeves. Go figure.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/26 "2017-02-07T18:03:51Z")
> [@Ale](#):
>
> That’s the whole point of calling it Islamophobia, to derail any discussion about the issue. You take umbrage at, say, the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia? why you are just an Islamophobe only fit to be pilloried… usually by the same people that otherwise wear their great concerns about the rights of women on their sleeves. Go figure.
‘Accusations of Islamophobia are thrown around to cavalierly’ is very different than ‘Islamophobia doesn’t exist’. Sometimes Muslim Americans (or Muslim Canadians) get their property vandalized, or are harassed, beaten up, or even murdered. This is not a constantly occurring thing, but it happens enough that it seems reasonable to have a word for it.
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### Author:  [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/27 "2017-02-07T18:10:53Z")
> [@Ale](#):
>
> You take umbrage at, say, the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia? why you are just an Islamophobe only fit to be pilloried… usually by the same people that otherwise wear their great concerns about the rights of women on their sleeves. Go figure.
Do you have any examples of this actually happening? It’s a popular right-wing talking point, but seems vanishingly rare in reality.
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/28 "2017-02-07T18:12:22Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#):
>
> Wherever Muslims have a majority within a nation, that nation has a cultural theme, specific laws, and defacto practices which which are broadly antithetical to western culture, laws and practices.
Might I ask what the cultural schemes, specific laws and de facto practices that are broadly antithetical to western culture, law and practices are in Albania and Bosnia?
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/29 "2017-02-07T18:14:57Z")
People _leaving_ muslim-majority nations to live in a mostly secular/Christian nation might be presumed to be the least fundamentalist. However there does seem to be serious problems with unassimilated enclaves in European countries.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/30 "2017-02-07T18:19:12Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#):
>
> Might I ask what the cultural schemes, specific laws and de facto practices that are broadly antithetical to western culture, law and practices are in Albania and Bosnia?
Yes, there is a certain amount of “no kidding” in the statement that non-Western countries don’t have Western values. One wonders how the situation in the OP differs from China- also a country with non-Western values. And yet we don’t seem to fear Chinese immigration.
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### Author:  [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/31 "2017-02-07T18:32:11Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#):
>
> Wherever Muslims have a majority within a nation, that nation has a cultural theme, specific laws, and defacto practices which which are broadly antithetical to western culture, laws and practices.
>
> This is the root of Islamophobia.
>
> Whatever technical defense might be mounted about the core principles of Islam; whatever statistics might be leveraged about how many Muslims are actually going to kill innocent Westerners; whatever support might be advanced for worthy individuals–it does not outweigh the obvious. Islam-majority nations are radically different from western democratic nations, and they are different in a qualitative way that is at odds with democratic nations.
>
> Suspicion against Muslim immigrants does not derive from some sort of irrational, unfair bias against “Muslims.” Indeed, democratic nations have a reasonably good track record of permitting kooks of any persuasion to remain kooks–as long as they keep their silly Shaker tenets from supplanting the laws we’ve stumbled upon more collectively.
>
> The most substantial barrier that needs to be overcome if Muslims want to be more readily welcomed into other nations is that, where they have been a majority, that country’s approach to law and culture is antithetical to the ideals of the democratic nation to which they hope to emigrate.
>
> The western world is reluctant to accept blindly that Muslims who want to immigrate here reject whatever it is about Islam which so consistently creates the environment of Islam-majority nations. Indeed; such a litmus test would be hard to define because it would be perilously close to a request for rejection of Islam itself as a governing ideology for the Muslim. The refugee fleeing “Communist Russia” can be readily welcomed because he is rejecting the foundational “communist” paradigm from which he is fleeing. Not so for a Muslim, who is not rejecting Islam.
>
> There is no confidence by westerners that Muslim candidates for immigration wholeheartedly reject whatever it is about Islam that has resulted in so consistent a pattern of broad governance and culture where the majority of the populace are Muslims.
>
> Islamophobia results from a perception that the pattern in Islam-majority countries is a direct consequence of Islam itself, since that pattern is so universal within Islam-majority nations.
I am always confused why people form perceptions about a group of individuals based on their political climate or the observer’s (often mistaken) perception of their political climate. When you see photos from Iranians, Iraqis, etc. about everyday life in those countries, they are on the whole indistinguishable from ours save for obvious differences in skin color, cultural garb, etc. We can no more judge the people of their countries by their mass media portrayals or politics than they can judge the people of our country by our mass media portrayals and politics.
Thus I see Islamophobia as completely unjustified based on your criteria.
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### Author:  [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/32 "2017-02-07T18:36:07Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> People _leaving_ muslim-majority nations to live in a mostly secular/Christian nation might be presumed to be the least fundamentalist. However there does seem to be serious problems with unassimilated enclaves in European countries.
There are problems with unrecognized severe discrimination against the 2nd, the 3rd generations.
The chance of getting the job interview is documented at 50% less if you have the wrong name in the France, that is the not christian european sounding one, or your CV picture - a requirement - shows you to not be white as needed.
It is not any wonder that the urban youth, seeing this not addressed in two decades of repeated confirmatoin by private and research study begin to reject an assimilation as they see themselves rejected and called "immigrant"no matter they can not speak their parents or their grand parents language and have only the French language and the French culture in the end.
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### Author:  [@Jefferson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jefferson)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/33 "2017-02-07T18:36:14Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> Yes, David Duke, Frank Gaffney, and Pam Gellar are certainly rational and reasonable in their opinions about Islam. No one could possibly be actually bigoted against Muslims. :rolleyes:
What do they say? Similar to Bill Maher and friends? 🆒
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### Author:  [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/34 "2017-02-07T18:39:26Z")
in any case it is interesting to see so rapidly the Trump effect of the legitimization and opening up of the bigotry, with the discourse and the language echoing to same things said about the Jewish in the 1920s, 1930s, the non assimilability of the dirty eastern jew, the great danger of them, the inherent defects of their religion, the dangers of the terrorists (then it was the jewish bolshevik terror or the jewish anarachist terror)…
Too many of the Western world learned not one real thing, except to lie to itself about its own practice.
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### Author:  [@Jefferson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jefferson)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/35 "2017-02-07T18:41:05Z")
> [@Ale](#):
>
> That’s the whole point of calling it Islamophobia, to derail any discussion about the issue. You take umbrage at, say, the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia? why you are just an Islamophobe only fit to be pilloried… usually by the same people that otherwise wear their great concerns about the rights of women on their sleeves. Go figure.
I often wonder with “liberals” if they are just ignorant, in denial, or being dishonest.
Another worrying thing - the number of British Muslims who think the 9/11 attacks and the London bombings were nothing to do with Muslims (they claim it was the Governments or the Jews).
Not healthy at all.
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### Author:  [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/36 "2017-02-07T18:41:35Z")
> [@Ramira](#):
>
> There are problems with unrecognized severe discrimination against the 2nd, the 3rd generations.
>
> The chance of getting the job interview is documented at 50% less if you have the wrong name in the France, that is the not christian european sounding one, or your CV picture - a requirement - shows you to not be white as needed.
>
> It is not any wonder that the urban youth, seeing this not addressed in two decades of repeated confirmatoin by private and research study begin to reject an assimilation as they see themselves rejected and called "immigrant"no matter they can not speak their parents or their grand parents language and have only the French language and the French culture in the end.
What’s the difference what the cause is? Bottom line that the cause - whatever it is - exists, and the problem exists too.
Unless you think that since you’ve identified this cause you can now snap your fingers and make it all go away. But if the cause you’ve identified is also hard to undo, then the problem will continue to exist. Therefore people are right to be concerned about this issue.
IOW, even if you’re completely correct that the entire problem with enclaves in Europe is discrimination and such, if it’s easier to stop immigration than it is to uproot discrimination, then the former would be a more practical solution and is a valid position for someone concerned about the issue.
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### Author:  [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/37 "2017-02-07T19:02:06Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#):
>
> What’s the difference what the cause is?
The difference is huge, and it is shocking that such a question is posed.
The active discrimination against the religious minority or the ethnic minority that goes untreated and ignored by the State for decade after decade produce defeat of assimilatoin and this is a treatable thing by addressing
> [@](#):
>
> Unless you think that since you’ve identified this cause you can now snap your fingers and make it all go away. But if the cause you’ve identified is also hard to undo, then the problem will continue to exist. Therefore people are right to be concerned about this issue.
this is a bizarre response.
Just like in the other cases of discrimination, the practical actions to track and to punish the discrimination are not something that is unknown or not feasible.
But it is truly a wonder to use the bigotry and the discrimination as it’s own self justification…
> [@](#):
>
> IOW, even if you’re completely correct that the entire problem with enclaves in Europe is discrimination and such, if it’s easier to stop immigration than it is to uproot discrimination, then the former would be a more practical solution and is a valid position for someone concerned about the issue.
So because the State refuses to take the simple actions to punish the active discrimination effectively, it is “easier” to demonize and to stop the immigration, rather than taking of any simple actions like having as in the United state the legal enforcemnets against gross and obvious discrimination in the housing, in the access to employment by the gender or the race…
It is not something strange and uknown, these actions.
But the French hide behind pious philosophical discourse.
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### Author:  [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/38 "2017-02-07T19:14:08Z")
> [@Ramira](#):
>
> Just like in the other cases of discrimination, the practical actions to track and to punish the discrimination are not something that is unknown or not feasible.
>
> […]
>
> So because the State refuses to take the simple actions to punish the active discrimination effectively, it is “easier” to demonize and to stop the immigration, rather than taking of any simple actions like having as in the United state the legal enforcemnets against gross and obvious discrimination in the housing, in the access to employment by the gender or the race…
>
> It is not something strange and uknown, these actions.
The notion that these various “simple actions” would eliminate discrimination and whatever is pushing these people to feel outside of society is speculative at best, and has no real basis.
I’m not aware of many societies which have minorities in which the minorities don’t feel discriminated against, and if there are any they are the exceptions rather than the rule. It’s ironic that you hold up the US as the model for the French to emulate, since - as you may have noticed - there are quite a lot of minorities in the US who feel very persecuted indeed.
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### Author:  [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/39 "2017-02-07T19:27:40Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#):
>
> The notion that these various “simple actions” would eliminate discrimination
Since I have no used the word “eliminate”, it is only amusing this huge distorting straw man.
The evidence of the reduction to less toxic levels of the discrimination by the direct actions to punish it is ample.
> [@](#):
>
> and whatever is pushing these people to feel outside of society is speculative at best, and has no real basis.
No it is not at all, there are indeed many of the sociological studies that demostrate very clearly that the sense of the exclusion in society is very tied to the youth sense of the ability to access the jobs market, to access the education and then the jobs and have the sense of dignity.
this is not at all speculative, it is simply ignorance on your part to claim that.
> [@](#):
>
> It’s ironic that you hold up the US as the model for the French to emulate, since - as you may have noticed - there are quite a lot of minorities in the US who feel very persecuted indeed.
no it is not at all ironic.
the Us example of the active action o address and to sensitize and the progress your country made since active work since the 1960s does not mean that there is perfection or that all problems are resolved.
You are engaging in the pure fallacy.
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### Author:  [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2017, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamophobia-follows-from-observing-islam-majority-nations/779229/40 "2017-02-07T19:35:33Z")
> [@Ramira](#):
>
> Since I have no used the word “eliminate”, it is only amusing this huge distorting straw man.
>
> The evidence of the reduction to less toxic levels of the discrimination by the direct actions to punish it is ample.
It’s not a strawman. Because if you’re conceding that you don’t think discrimination and bigotry can be eliminated, then your suggestion that concern about immigration is unwarranted because the root cause of the problems associated with it is discrimination is then even shakier and more speculative than ever. What’s to say that the level of discrimination reduction that can/will be reasonably achieved will reduce the feelings you describe to the point where the danger is at an acceptable level?
> [@](#):
>
> this is not at all speculative, it is simply ignorance on your part to claim that.
What percentage of your 2,500 posts to this board have not involved you accusing other people of ignorance and/or bigotry?
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