Because it’s really not emphasized enough in the blogosphere, here are two pieces from the New York Times opinion pages demonstrating why the case for Islamophobia is often overstated. First, in France: Despite disagreeing with the French government’s ban on head scarves in schools, Fouad Alami, secretary general of the Union of French Islamic Organizations, recommended that students observe the ban in response to the kidnappings of French journalists in Iraq:
Major French Islamic groups and the political opposition have rallied behind the government’s defiance of Iraqi kidnappers who seized two French journalists last month and demanded that France revoke its ban on the wearing of Islamic head scarves in state schools. The display of unity was encouraging. The head-scarf ban may be ill conceived and discriminatory, but French education policy should not be set by terrorists. Islamic leaders in France are forcefully making that point, too.
This response undercuts the Iraqi militants’ attempt to divide French society and the continent’s reactionary fears about its immigrant populations. We hope it awakens French society to just how baseless the widespread anti-Muslim prejudices really are.
And here in the US, in one of the most eloquent arguments I’ve read on any topic in a long, long time, Tariq Ramadan answers his critics and explains why the State Department’s sudden, unexplained revoking of his visa to teach at Notre Dame is unfounded. Here’s a powerful passage: