A couple of points of disagreement with Hitchens

First of all, let me just say that I utterly enjoyed watching Christopher Hitchens on live feed from the recent Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney. Further to this, let me say that I thought Tony Jones’ attempts to find exception in Hitchens’ case by citing a few good things that religious people have done, was insipid. Hitchens’ argument doesn’t rely upon the religious being incapable of good deeds, nor good deeds with religious motivation.

And Hitchens’ rendition of a Monty Python classic was golden. The man’s been on form for a while now.

That being said – and this is my first objection – I can’t credit Hitchens’ objection to the term “bright”. Don’t get me wrong, I think the term stinks. I’ll never call myself a bright. The cloying triumphalism isn’t to my taste, and the neologism is too contrived and artificial.

But Hitchens’ assertion that by implication, the term renders non-brights as stupid, is wrong. Ask one of the users of the (cringeworthy) term – Daniel Dennett.

“There was also a negative response, largely objecting to the term that had been chosen [not by me]: bright, which seemed to imply that others were dim or stupid. But the term, modelled on the highly successful hijacking of the ordinary word “gay” by homosexuals, does not have to have that implication. Those who are not gays are not necessarily glum; they’re straight. Those who are not brights are not necessarily dim… Since, unlike us brights, they believe in the supernatural, perhaps they would like to call themselves supers.”

(Daniel Dennett, Breaking The Spell - pg. 21, 2006)

At least for me, this argument kills the notion that calling oneself a bright is to look down on others. I still cringe at the artificial nature of the term, but it destroys the line that Hitchens has been pushing about the word, on tour and in God Is Not Great.

Given the thinly veiled animus towards atheists in the theology of mainstream religion (“can’t be good without God” arguments, attempts to define atheism for atheists and so on), and the othering of atheists in the US, I can’t entirely discredit the argument for the word either. If someone could show me that the supposed appropriative etymology of the term “gay” was equally artificial, with the subsequent normalisation of the term I’d be forced to accept that “bright” may have a future.

In the meantime I’m still going to cringe.

And now on to my second point of contention. Hitchens’ whining about the term “islamophobia”.

Hitchens critique of the term has been to treat the implication it carries as necessarily equating a dislike of the idea of Islam, with racism. In as far as the use of the term approximates this, I agree with Hitchens. Except that the use of the term doesn’t necessarily carry the alleged implication.

I’ve seen the occasional Islamic practice that I’ve been impressed by – I’ve been flat-mate with a practising Muslim before, and it wasn’t that hard. But like Hitchens, my opinion of Islam isn’t hinging on the ability for Muslims to do good things (or not). I’ve never heard an Islamic theological argument that I’ve liked (including the appropriated Kalam cosmological argument which is doing the rounds of Christendom lately).

All up, I don’t think much of Islam. As I don’t think much of Christendom. At least in as far as they differ from humanism, and in as far as they are familiar, they are redundant.

Does this make me an islamophobe? I’ve never been called an islamophobe and the term gets thrown around quite a bit in my political circles. I use the word from time to time and I don’t consider Hitchens an islamophobe, and based on what I know of the man’s published argument, I view any allegation of Hitchens’ being islamophobic with suspicion.

To me, there’s got to be more to it than an automatic equating of a lack of respect for Islam (for which I don’t apologise), and the inferred xenophobia or racism. As Hitchens himself notes…

“Indeed. The creepy word “islamophobia” has been coined to give the idea, without actually saying so, that quarreling (sic) with Islam involves a dislike of Muslims – the majority of whom are darker skinned than I am. But that’s absurd because Islam promises to be a religion of universality. It at least does say that.” – Emphasis added.

(Christopher Hitchens in interview with Peter Brietbart, 2009)

An interesting point, that Islam doesn’t necessarily correlate with race. And Hitchens doesn’t spare the competitor religions for their racial exclusion – Hitchens singling out Islam for getting something right not being incompatible with his general logic (and if you think it is, you need to actually read him a bit more).

The part of this though that I want to single out is that Islam does correlate with cultural indicators of race – skin colour in Hitchens’ own example. Not necessarily, but incidentally. And this matters to some people. Racist people.

If I were to single out Greeks and Lebanese people for coercion, you’d see through it in an instance. If I singled out those eating vine leaves/dolmades for coercion, you’d suspect something. If I cooked up some cock and bull story about the immorality or health risk posed by eating vine leaves, you’d look to another motive.

So to it was with the old mandatory detention laws in the Northern Territory. The dubious legal ethics aside – the law also had the effect of penalising repeat crimes of necessity committed by youth, more heavily than once-off, but more severe crimes of stupidity committed by youth. The former correlating more with young Aborigines than the latter, thus providing a cover rationalisation for a policy that hit one race harder than another without direct proportion to the seriousness of the offences committed.

A convenient cause to make popular racism in the north look respectable.

As I’ve said, all up I don’t think much of Islam. But that doesn’t mean that all criticisms are created equal. Some criticisms are patently stupid.

If I told you that Islam is the greatest threat to human civilisation because they seek to pave the way for the Martian invasion, you’d think me mad. It’s not a good criticism and you’d wonder what my motives were.

The Islamic Menace^tm, is a narrative that has a huge potential to provide cover for bigots, and becomes more hyperbolic the more radical the bigger the hatred it masks. You don’t need to discount any valid criticism of Islam in order to see this.

If you want something more empirical, just look at the mileage the thugs of the BNP have got in the UK. It’s reasonable to call these people islamophobes because to them, Islam correlates with race. If you asked the BNP where it stood on refugees from the Middle East if suddenly the correlation changed – if all the Muslim immigrants changed religion – you’d not see policy change one iota. But that’s not going to happen and the two remain entangled in the psyche of the likes of Nick Griffin.

Maybe then, it’s problematic calling the BNP islamophobes given that their real beef is with darkies-from-over-there. But to follow Hitchens’ argument that calling the BNP islamophobic because it automatically connotes racism is somehow problematic, is wrong.

The BNP (and One Nation, National Action and so-on in Australia) are racist. And not everyone who uses the term islamophobic seek to infer a necessary relationship between criticism of Islam and racism – the use of a term defining its meaning. That’s how etymology works – you need humans to drive the language, the words don’t have meaning in and of themselves.

And racism aside – what about sectarian animus? To call the Pope an islamophobe isn’t to imply that he’s a racist, but it does allude to meaningful religious bigotry – an animus towards Muslims (i.e. Islamic culture and the people who make it up). The term doesn’t seem so meaningless then.

At any rate, I think there is a fringe benefit to having the word islamophobia in circulation, if Hitchens’ response is anything to go by. I wouldn’t accuse Hitchens of wanting to enable racism, even if his rhetoric has provided cover for a few unsavoury sorts. Having Hitchens criticise the term islamophobia, explicitly disentangles racist motivations from religious criticism, stripping cover away from the likes of the BNP. The more the term provokes Hitchens, the more he defines himself away from the creeps who try to hitch a ride on his credibility.

~ Bruce