Within a week of this new school year, fellow Muslim friends and I had already experienced a couple instances of Islamophobia. Both were derogatory slurs yelled from a moving vehicle, ensuring anonymity and suggesting cowardice....

Many of my Muslim friends can relay stories of name-calling and crude looks—and from fellow members of the Queen’s community too. Yet there is a Muslim ethos of making excuses, so these stories rarely make it out of friend circles. And although most of the cases of Islamophobia on campus have been petty, it’s important these things are acknowledged and discussed, especially if it’s going to persist.

It is thus important that opinions about a religion or religious peoples are addressed head-on so sound discussion can take place. University is not a place for censorship, but rather a place for expression and the healthy exchange of ideas and opinions. As members of this community, we are not required to agree with the customs and beliefs of others; critical thinking is, in fact, encouraged. However, mutual respect is mandatory in order for everyone to have a positive learning experience in an environment that they feel safe in. Yelling something offensive and driving away is too easy an escape. It’s time to own up to prejudices.

And the onus falls upon us, the students. We can pretend discrimination doesn’t exist, especially at an institution of higher learning. Surely everyone knows better than to associate anyone who wears a headscarf with the Taliban. Islamophobia, just like all other types of discrimination, is a thing of the past, at least for the more civilized amongst us. Unfortunate as it is though, these are real views that a minority of people on campus do indeed hold....

And although such incidents are more trivial in nature, the fact remains that there are people who feel it’s necessary to express stronger views. This past weekend, a [Muslim student organization] sign was defaced with comments that called for the death of Muslims. I can only hope incidents like this help to open our collective eyes to the larger problem. [Link]

Now that Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama have become the presumptive presidential nominees for the Republicans and Democrats, they should address how all bigotry, including Islamophobia, hurts America. [Link]

A fear of Islam grips non-Muslims in America and around the world, fueled by inadequate information and the media's proclivity for unbalanced reporting, says a University of California, Berkeley, professor who is bringing together experts to analyze Islamophobia.

"Talk radio continues to heap insults on Islam and Muslims without any discussion of what the consequences could be," said Hatem Bazian, who teaches at UC Berkeley and at the East Bay's Zaytuna Institute.

"The media are collapsing us into a one-shoe-fits-all category — the hostile, angry, cartoon images. (Radio personality) Michael Savage has made a career of it. Osama bin Laden is Muslim, therefore every Muslim is Osama bin Laden."

Bazian spent five months putting together a conference in which 23 university experts will consider media images, civil rights and what he sees as the failure of academia to scrutinize adequately the schism between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.

The "Deconstructing Islamophobia" conference at UC Berkeley is free and open to the public.

An analysis of conservative and liberal publications shows each lean toward a similar coverage of American Muslims, said a UC Davis professor.

"We spent several years looking at key papers — we looked at The New York Times as the leading liberal newspaper, the Wall Street Journal the leading conservative — looking for patterns of repetition," Suad Joseph said. "We are finding a lot of similarities."

The words that crop up have to do with criminality and policing, she said.

Ideally, researchers will compare the key words that appear in news stories about Muslims with coverage of other ethnic groups — Irish or Italian Americans, for instance.

"If there is a different pattern, that's the key," she said. "My hunch and my hypothesis is that there is a significant difference."

Muslims are suffering the fate that has bedeviled other groups in the nation's past, including violence and discrimination, she said. [Link]

A European human rights watchdog says Islamophobia is gaining ground in the Netherlands, with Muslim minorities facing increasing violence and discrimination. A report released on Tuesday by the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) not only says that Islamophobia has increased, but it also decries the tone of the debate about ethnic minorities in general within Dutch politics and media.

The report is not totally negative. The ECRI concedes that progress has been made in a number of the fields highlighted in its previous report in December 2000. The Netherlands has become party to several international instruments that are relevant to combating racism and racial discrimination. Work is underway for the establishment of a network of professional local anti-discrimination bureaus throughout the country.

Efforts have been intensified to record and counter discrimination within the criminal justice system. Independent research to monitor racism and racial discrimination nationwide has been commissioned and will be carried out regularly. Attention has also been given to the disadvantaged position of members of ethnic minorities on the labour market, and measures have been taken to tackle racial discrimination in access to places of entertainment. [Link]

A United Nations expert on racism on Friday branded the defamation of religions - in particular, critical portrayals of Islam in the West - a threat to world peace.

"Islamophobia today is the most serious form of religious defamation," Doudou Diene told the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is holding a three-week session in Geneva.

Diene cited a caricature of the Muslim prophet Mohammed in a Swedish newspaper, a protest by far-right groups in Belgium on Tuesday against the "Islamization of Europe" and campaigns against the construction of mosques in Germany and Switzerland as evidence of an "ever increasing trend" of anti-Islamic actions in Europe.

"We see the initiatives and activities of many groups and organizations which are working hard to bring about a war of civilizations," he said, adding that right-wing groups are trying to equate Islam with violence and terrorism. [Link]

The leader of a major Arab-American advocacy group said yesterday that there was a "rising tide of Islamaphobia" in America and that more Muslim-Americans are being targeted and threatened now than immediately after 9/11.
Salam Al-Marayati and FBI officials here spoke with reporters yesterday after a federal civil-rights charge was lodged against a Philadelphia woman for sending a threatening note to her Arab-American boss.

Al-Marayati and FBI agent Brian Lynch said the case was unusual because of the cooperation among the Arab-American community, the FBI and the victim.

Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said most Muslim-American victims of hate crimes are reluctant to alert authorities because they don't trust the government.

But he said the victim in this case, a hotel manager, "broke through the fear and barrier of engaging" with community organizations and the FBI.

Lynch said that the feds want victims of hate crimes to come forward but that the FBI can investigate them only if they involve the threat of force; are motivated by bias involving race, religion or ethnicity, and interfere with a person's civil rights.

Al-Marayati said if Muslim-Americans don't report hate-crime incidents, they will be forced to live in "psychological, if not physical, ghettoization."

There were 37 such incidents reported in Philadelphia in 2005, up from 20 in 2004, according to the FBI.

It's unclear how many involved violations of federal law or resulted in charges. [Link]

The scapegoating of the Muslim community has become the stock in trade of politicians, the Conservatives recently accusing the Muslim Council of Britain of separatist tendencies, and New Labour all too frequently indulging in the same kind of refrain - notably during the most disgraceful period of its domestic rule last autumn, when cabinet ministers were falling over themselves to make disparaging remarks about the Muslim community.

The argument typically starts from the global terrorist threat and ends up by suggesting the Muslim community nurtures and sustains such a terrorist mentality by its failure to integrate. Jack Straw squirmed about the veil, Ruth Kelly inveighed against imams, Alan Johnson proposed that faith schools admit up to 25% not of the same faith (patently directed against the Muslim community), and John Reid warned a Muslim audience of "fanatics looking to groom and brainwash [your] children ... for suicide bombing". Amid this panic-inducing rhetoric, there was little acknowledgment that Muslims suffer more discrimination than any other section of society, no recognition that every attack on their community can only intensify that prejudice. Imagine what it feels like to be a Muslim, stalked by a constant sense of distrust and suspicion? As a society we may condemn racism, but when it comes to Muslims, it seems to be somehow acceptable, from the cabinet downwards.

And what is to blame for this failure to integrate? Prejudice, perhaps? Discrimination? Racism? No, according to David Cameron, Ruth Kelly and many others, the cause would appear to be multiculturalism. Pause for a moment and spot the slippage in the argument. It is no longer only about Muslims but all our ethnic minorities. For enshrined in the principle of multiculturalism is the idea that the white community does not insist on the assimilation of ethnic minorities but recognises the importance of pluralism. It is not about separatism but a respect for difference - from colour and dress to customs and religion. The attack on multiculturalism is the thin end of the racism wedge. It seeks to narrow the acceptable boundaries of difference at a time when Britain is becoming ever more diverse and heterogeneous.

None of this is to deny the importance of finding ways of integrating the Muslim community. It is hardly surprising, though, that many young Muslims feel alienated. They face worse discrimination in education and employment than any other ethnic minority, Anglo-American policy in the Middle East has had the effect of demonising the Muslim world, and the Muslim community here finds itself the victim of a barrage of hostile propaganda. A major assault on discrimination involving the government, the media and the Muslim community is long overdue. But while British foreign policy so profoundly discriminates against the Muslim world, and New Labour remains in denial about the connection between domestic Muslim attitudes and its foreign policy, there seems little prospect of making a new start. [Link]