Nathan Lean, author of The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims replies to the recent WSJ article by Jonathan Schanzer which characterises the term Islamophobia as “a nasty neologism”.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
On the unreliability of think tanks
Australia, in common with other “Western” countries, has something of a track record when it comes to scaremongering over the Islamist organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the threat to civilised society it supposedly represents.
University’s new centre to study rise in anti-Islam far right
A British university has established a dedicated centre to study the extremist far right, with a particular focus on the increase in violent anti-Islamic sentiment and the possibility of a lone, Anders Behring Breivik style attack.
The Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist and Post-Fascist Studies at Teesside University will be formally launched later this month at an event marking National Holocaust Memorial Day. Beginning with two academics, Professor Nigel Copsey and Dr Matthew Feldman, the centre will specialise in both the history of far-right radicalism in this country, and current trends and dangers.
CAIR protest against Pamela Geller at Maryland conservative conference
Months after a debate over controversial anti-Muslim billboards in some Metro stations erupted, the woman behind those ads appeared at an event in Annapolis.
And that controversy followed Pamela Geller to the event convened by the Maryland Conservative Action Network (MDCAN).
Protesters outside held signs with messages such as “Hate is Not an American Value.”
About that Muslims harass Christian & Jewish neighbors, police refuse to help story
Sheila Musaji responds to a ludicrous account of harassment by Muslims from a clearly unbalanced French supporter that Pamela Geller has posted on her Atlas Shrugs blog.
Islamophobia doesn’t exist, claims WSJ contributor
The Wall Street Journal has published a hostile “review” by Jonathan Schanzer of Nathan Lean’s The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims.
Schanzer doesn’t just trash Lean’s book but also attacks the concept of Islamophobia itself, which he describes as “simply a pejorative neologism designed to warn people away from criticizing any aspect of Islam”. Those on the receiving end of the anti-Muslim hysteria whipped up by the Islamophobes so effectively exposed by Lean would no doubt take a different view.
For a response to Schanzer’s article, see “Bush era neo-con schmuck Jonathan Schanzer shills for nasty Islamophobia movement”, Loonwatch, 10 January 2013
Geller’s denunciations fail to deter organiser of ‘American hijab’ design contest
Seeking to make the Muslim headscarf speak to American fashion, a Muslim woman is championing a contest to encourage designers to create an American style of hijab, to the fury of Islamophobes.
CAIR campaigns for public officials to withdraw from conference featuring hatemonger Geller
The Maryland chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MD) is calling on Marylanders to contact several public officials in that state to request that they withdraw from participation in the upcoming Maryland Conservative Action Network Conference in Annapolis because the leader of a designated anti-Muslim hate group will speak at the event.
New Jersey: Islamic Society attorney claims discrimination by planning board in mosque plan
The lawyer for a Somerset County Islamic organization believes that the township Planning Board is discriminating against his clients for wanting to build a mosque in the Liberty Corner section of Bernards.
Vincent T. Bisogno, attorney for the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge, said the board increased the parking requirement to 110 spaces despite a zoning ordinance suggesting a house of worship of this size be required to have 50 spaces. “Is it (the ordinance) only for Christians?” Bisogno asked during a board meeting Tuesday night.
New Yorkers rally against ‘climate of hostility’ that led to killing of Sunando Sen
NEW YORK — A coalition of advocacy groups and political leaders held a rally on Tuesday linking the subway pushing death of a South Asian man to a broader anti-Muslim environment in New York City – inflamed, they said, by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the New York City Police Department.
“When our own government, our own police, our own institutions, our own media continue to engage in racial profiling or painting communities as suspect, we cannot expect the results to be any different than what they are right now,” said Fahd Ahmed, legal and policy director for the South Asian advocacy group Desis Rising Up and Moving.
The Queens rally centered around the death of Sunando Sen, a Hindu immigrant from India who was crushed to his death by a subway train after 31-year-old Erika Menendez allegedly pushed him on Dec. 27. Menendez, who has a history of mental problems, told investigators she shoved Sen because she thought he was Muslim and “I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers,” police said.