Be Aware (Beware)

Not all Islamophobes are fanatics. Most, on the contrary, are decent people who just want to live in peace. Islamophobia forms only part of their identity. They grew up fearing Islam, and they still worry about it from time to time, especially during holidays and on certain anniversaries; but many would confess to doubt about just how Islamophobic they feel deep down inside. They may find themselves wondering, for example, if the Koran is really that much more bloodthirsty than the Jewish scriptures (Joshua 6 is plenty murderous) or the Christian (Matthew 10:34 is not exactly comforting).

Unfortunately a handful of troublemakers thrive among them, parasitically. They spew out hatred through Web sites. They seek to silence their critics, and to recruit impressionable young people. Perhaps it is unfair to confuse matters through calling the moderates and the militants by the same name. It would be more fitting to say that the latter are really Islamophobofascists.

Some might find the expression offensive. That is too bad. If we don’t resist Islamophobofascism now, its intolerance can only spread. And we all know who benefits from that. One name in particular comes to mind. It belongs to a fellow who is now presumably living in a cave, drawing up long-term plans for a clash of civilizations.....

Maybe I had better trim the satirical sails before going totally out to sea. As neologisms go, “Islamophobofascism” probably sounds even more stupid than the term it mocks. But there is a point to it.

“Islamofascism” is a noxious and counterproductive term -- a bludgeon disguised as an idea. Its use comes at a cost, even beyond the obvious one that goes with making people dumber. “Islamofascism” is the preferred term of those who don’t see any distinction between Al Qaeda, the Iranian mullahs, and the Baathists. Guess what? They are different, which might just have been worth understanding a few years ago. (Better late than never, maybe; but not a whole lot better.)

The more serious consequence, over the long term, is that of offering deliberate insult to those Muslims who would be put to the sword under the reign of Jihadi fundamentalists. Disgust for cheap stunts done in the name of “Islamofascism awareness” is not a matter of doubting that the jihadis mean what they say. On the contrary, it goes with taking them seriously as enemies.

It should not be necessary to qualify that last point. Somebody who wants to kill you is your enemy, whether you care to think in such terms or not; and the followers of Bin Laden, while subtle on some matters, have a least not been shy about letting us know what methods they consider permissible in pursuit of their ends. The jihadis mean it. Recognizing this is not a matter of Islamophobia; it is a matter of paying attention.

And paying attention means, in this case, recognizing that most Muslims are not our enemies. It is disgraceful to have to spell that out. But let’s be clear about something: The jihadis are not our only problem. As anyone from abroad who likes and respects Americans will probably tell you, we tend to be our own worst enemy.

There is a strain of nativism, xenophobia, and small-mindedness in American life that is always there -- often subdued, but never too far out of earshot. To call this our fascist streak would be absurdly melodramatic. Fascism proper was, above all, purposeful and orderly, while fear and loathing towards the “un-American” is often enough the woolliest form of baffled resentment: the effect of comfortable ignorance turning sour at any demand on its meager resources of attention and sympathy.

This quality can subsist for long periods in a dormant or distracted state -- expressing itself in muttering or small-scale acts of hostility, but nothing large-scale. Perhaps it is restrained by the better angels of our nature.

But it means that the unscrupulous and the obtuse have a ready supply of raw material to mold into something vile when the occasion becomes available, or if there is some profit in it. H.L. Mencken explained that a demagogue is “one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." The problem with this definition, of course, is that it is the product of a simpler era and so not nearly cynical enough. For a demagogue now, truth and knowledge have nothing to do with it.

For the really suave expression of Islamophobofascism, however, no local sideshow can compete with an interview that the British novelist Martin Amis gave last year. At the highest stages of cosmopolitan literary influence, it seems, one may express ideas worthy of a manic loon phoning a radio talk-show and get them published in the London Times.

“There’s a definite urge -- don’t you have it? -- to say, ‘The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order,’ ” Amis said. “What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation -- further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan.… Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.”

The cultural theorist Terry Eagleton issued a response to Amis in the preface to a new edition of his book “Ideology: An Introduction” -- first published in 1991 by Verso, which reissued it a few weeks ago. It stirred up a tiny tempest in the British press, which reduced the argument to the dimensions of a clash between two “bad boys” (albeit ones grown quite long in the tooth).

Quickly mounting to impressive heights of inanity, the coverage and commentary managed somehow to ignore the actual substance of the dispute: what Amis said (his explicit call to persecute all Muslims until they acted right) and how Eagleton responded.

“Joseph Stalin seems not to be Amis’s favorite historical character,” wrote Eagleton, alluding to the novelist’s Koba the Dread, a venture into Soviet political history published a while back. “Yet there is a good dose of Stalinism in the current right-wing notion that a spot of rough stuff may be justified by the end in view. Not just roughing up actual or intending criminals, mind, but the calculated harassment of a whole population. Amis is not recommending such tactics for criminals or suspects only; he is recommending them as a way of humiliating and insulting certain kinds of men and women at random, so they will return home and teach their children to be nice to the White Man. There seems to be something mildly defective about this logic.”

Eagleton’s introduction doesn’t underestimate the virulence of the jihadists. But his remarks do at least have the good sense to acknowledge that humiliation is a weapon that will not work in the long run. (As an aside, let me note that some of us don't have the luxury of either ignoring terrorism or regarding it as something that will be abated by a more aggressive posture in the world. Life in Washington, D.C., for the past several years has meant rarely getting on the subway without wondering if this might be the day. The "surge" did not reduce the faint background radiation of dread one little bit. Funny how these thing work out, or don't.)

Anybody with an ounce of brains and responsibility can tell that fostering an environment of hysteria is useful only to one side of this conflict.“The best way to preserve one’s values,” writes Eagleton, “is to practice them.” Well said; and worth keeping in mind whenever the Islamophobofascists start to rush about, trying to drum up some business.

We shouldn't regard them as just nuisances. They are something much more dangerous. Determined to turn the whole world against us, they act as sleeper cells of malice and stupidity. There are sober ways to respond to danger, and insane ways. It is the demagogue’s stock in trade to blur the distinction.