'Islamophobia' is not the problem

Twenty-five years on from the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, there are few apologists for communism left in the West.  But even into the 1980s, they were not hard to find.  Rarely did they endorse communism outright, but they were sympathetic enough to its spirit to look the other way on its brutality.  Their concern was rather oddly focused not on communism, but on the (perceived) excesses of the anti-communists.  They were anti-anti-communists.  When in the 1980s the West — led by John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher — strengthened its resolve to challenge communist expansion, the anti-anti-communists faulted them for threatening the "peace" the Cold War had brought.

In the name of a false notion of peace, they preached moral equivalence: The sins of the liberal democracies of the West were inflated to be equal to the atrocities of communism.  By treating both sides equally, they failed to realize that the whole purpose of morality is to judge between good and evil, so that the former can be protected and the latter prevented.  For the moral equivalence camp, President Reagan's condemnation of the "evil empire" was the greatest outrage.  Behind the Iron Curtain, his rejection of moral equivalence was his greatest rhetorical triumph.

Now moral equivalence is coming back, updated for the 21st century.  It should no more be entertained in regard to Islamist jihadism than it was during the 20th century in regard to communism.

On the weekend Pope Francis was in Turkey to visit the leader of world Orthodoxy, Bartholomew, Patriarch of Constantinople.  Like John Paul and Benedict before him, Francis went to show his esteem for the Orthodox Church and to foster the bonds of unity.  But since Constantinople long ago fell to the Turks, this Christian meeting took place in a country that is 98% Muslim — and more to the point, in a country now led by an ambitious man, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is not above using Islamism to advance his desire to be the leader of global Islam, recapturing the influence of his Ottoman predecessors.

Erdogan took advantage of the Holy Father's visit to argue that Western leaders who seek his aid in combating jihadism need to clean up their own house first.  Erdogan urged the Pope in his welcome address to combat the "the very serious and rapid trend of growth in racism, discrimination, and hatred of others, especially Islamophobia in the West."

Drawing moral equivalence between lethal jihadism and people who say nasty things about the co-religionists of such jihadis is meant to be disabling, as was the case in the days of the anti-anti-communists.

The point was further amplified by Mehmet Görmez, the minister of religious affairs.  "We feel anxiety and concern for the future, that the Islamophobic paranoia that has already been spread among Western public opinion is being used as a pretext for massive pressures, intimidation, discrimination, alienation, and actual attacks against our Muslim brothers and sisters living in the West," he said.

Like most countries that have government departments for religious affairs, Turkey does not permit full religious liberty.  The Orthodox Patriarchate, present in Constantinople since before Islam existed, is being strangled by the state, with heavy restrictions placed on its institutions and freedom of governance.  So it is a bit much to hear from Turkey about "Islamophobia" inflaming public opinion abroad when "Christophobia" is practised by law at home.  Moreover, it is hardly phobic or paranoid for Christians on Turkey's borders in Syria and Iraq to fear the jihadism that is slaughtering their communities.

Erdogan and his ministers were offering a sort of pact: We will combat jihadism in our backyard if you condemn "Islamophobia" in yours.  It is an offer that merits firm rejection.

Drawing moral equivalence between lethal jihadism and people who say nasty things about the co-religionists of such jihadis is meant to be disabling, as was the case in the days of the anti-anti-communists.  It sows confusion by suggesting that any challenge even to Muslim pathologies is ill-motivated and illegitimate.

The obligation of Turkey and other Muslim states to combat extremist violence in the name of Islam binds independent of what is being done elsewhere.  Indeed, one might argue that reducing jihadist attacks would do more to reduce "Islamophobia" than any number of pieties about Islam being a religion of peace.

More outrageously, to juxtapose "Islamophobia" and Islamist violence ignores that the vast majority of victims of jihadism are Muslims themselves.  For every Muslim in the West anxious about "Islamophobia," there are far, far more within the house of Islam who fear for their lives.

Jihadism is a clear, present and lethal danger, for Muslims first, and it is waxing rather than waning.  It is not "phobic" to condemn it.