Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression Read Free

Arab. The fact that the Arab bears no outward sign of belonging to the Muslim faith changes nothing. Yet what does the anti-Islamophobia activist do? He charges religious discrimination instead of decrying racism.
    I recall here the relevant section of the Penal Code:
    Discrimination comprises any distinction applied between natural persons by reason of their origin, sex, family situation, pregnancy, physical appearance or patronymic, place of residence, state of health, handicap, genetic characteristics, sexual morals or orientation, age, political opinions, union activities, or their membership or non-membership, true or supposed, of a given ethnic group, nation, race or religion. 2
    Social discrimination, while the subject of much less debate than religious discrimination because it is manifested more insidiously and discreetly, is nevertheless far more predominant in France. Managers choose their future employees less on the basis of their religious membership, true or supposed, than, for instance, on their place of residence. Between the Mouloud who lives in upscale Neuilly-sur-Seine and the Mouloud who lives in the down-at-heel banlieue of Argenteuil, which of the two, assuming they are of equal competence, is more likely to get the job? Yet who ever talks about this kind of discrimination? People are massively discriminated against based on their social class, but since a large proportion of the poor—whom no one wants hanging around their place of work, their neighborhood, or their building—is made up of people of foreign descent and, among these, a great many of Muslim origin, the Islamic activist will claim that the problem is Islamophobia.
    Let’s take a look at the example of Mouloud and Abdelkader. Both are Muslims, both are of foreign descent, both are darker-skinned than Gérard. Mouloud is flat broke; Abdelkader is a millionaire. Which of the two will be rejected for the apartment? The Muslim Mouloud or the millionaire Abdelkader?
      
    While we may need to reject the terms “Islamophobia” or “Christianophobia,” which I will return to later, what about the equally novel concepts of “homophobia” or “negrophobia”? The simple fact is that neither of these terms is ambiguous, even if the fashion of adding “-phobia” to the end of every other word is perfectly ludicrous. “Homophobia” and “negrophobia” are used to describe the hatred people may feel not toward an ideology or a religion, but toward human beings, pure and simple. Homophobia should be condemned not because it implies criticism of homosexuality, but because it expresses hatred of homosexuals. Likewise, when we speak of negrophobia, we are clearly speaking about the hatred that some express against black people, against individuals.
    1 Nicolas Sarkozy (born 1955), President of France from 2007 to 2012
    2 Article 225-1, http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr

Faith is submission
    To believe is, above all, to fear
    According to the dictionary, “Islam” means “submission” in Arabic. A Muslim is someone who is submissive to God. Why does he submit? Because his God is the best, the brawniest, the nattiest, but most of all because, if he says anything to the contrary, he will burn in hell until well after the end of the world. The believer is thus encouraged not to screw around with God under penalty of something worse than death for all eternity. So shouldn’t we prosecute all the imams, rabbis, and priests who exhort their flocks to fear the Lord? Do these devoted servants of their Lord not contribute to a sort of theophobia?
    It’s easy to see how a certain kind of impressionable fuckwit believer, having attended the weekly sermon, might head home in a cold sweat, convinced his every movement is under divine scrutiny. God is a super-surveillance camera that no one seriously objects to. And yet, it was installed without input from a single elected official or voter. But I digress.
      
    One day, just for fun, I will have to