Mick Hartley

Michael Deacon in the Telegraph – Rory Stewart’s opinion on Islamophobia is delusional drivel;

People who criticise Islam are racist bigots. That, at least, appears to be the judgment of Rory Stewart, the great sage of centrist podcasting.

Speaking to The New Statesman this week, he said: “I think we’ve got to be very clear that this is basically racism… All those people on social media who are talking about ‘Judeo-Christian values’, and saying, ‘I’ve got nothing against people of colour, I just don’t like Islam’, are basically racist.”

The problem, of course, is that Islam is not a race.

Stewart’s outpouring of wisdom, however, did not end there. The former Tory minister went on to explain that it’s “completely demented” to single out Islam, because people do “horrible things” in the name of other religions, too.

No doubt. The thing is, though: they don’t do terribly many of them in this country, do they? Which is probably why we don’t see “all those people on social media” fretting that Britain will suffer yet another massive terror attack by Buddhists.

Or calling for a national inquiry into Confucian grooming gangs. And, while we’re on the subject, I haven’t heard of many teachers in Batley being forced to spend the past five years in hiding after receiving death threats from militant Quakers.

When members of the public voice their fears that 21st-century Britain is falling some way short of a beautifully integrated multicultural paradise, therefore, our superiors shouldn’t be so quick to belittle them. Still, you can be sure they will. After the Government decided to draw up an official definition of Islamophobia, opponents predicted that it would lead to all criticism of Islam being dismissed as “racist”. And they’re already being proven right.

Let’s just add this (via);