Crying Islamophobia is tyranny

Diversity, multiculturalism would have been impossible without liberty

Finally an article with some depth, uncharacteristic of The New York Times. Twenty years ago, I was sipping coffee in Beirut with novelist Elias Khoury and political scientist Gilles Kepel, author of the bestseller book on Islam, Jihad. Kepel now thinks crying Islamophobia is a “prohibition in universities to think about the phenomenon of political Islam in the name of a leftist ideology that considers it the religion of the underprivileged.’’ I totally agree with him.

Apart from being a populist slogan, Islamophobia is not a comprehensible concept. Islam is neither a race nor a monolithic culture. It is a faith endorsed by over a billion people who hail from different ethnicities and cultures, and who speak different languages and practice Islam in different ways.

Another interesting point in the article is this: France has long laid claim to a national identity, based on a common culture, fundamental rights and core values like equality and liberty, rejecting diversity and multiculturalism. The French often see the United States as a fractious society at war with itself.

What the woke left does not seem to understand is that diversity and multiculturalism would have been inconceivable had liberty not given citizens space to think for themselves and express their identities. Once they did, they organized their identities into blocs and thus bounced back to primordial tribal identity. These now demand coexistence between blocs instead of equality between individuals. I'm with equality.

Culture can be preserved anytime, anywhere, and is incumbent on personal initiative (passing on language, traditions, social habits to offsprings), and does not require political organization or demanding recognition in the form of affirmative action.