Wednesday 31 August 2016

Burkini bias

LETTER TO THE BBC:
You just had on your World Service the French outfit "Collective Against Islamophobia" (CCIF), decrying French attempts to ban the burkini sur les plages de la France.
How about someone speaking in *support* of the ban? Instead of featuring only the anti-ban crowd, including the victimhood mongers of the CCIF.
There is a case -- even a liberal case -- for a burka and burkini ban. Why don't we hear that case from the BBC?
Speak to professor Gad Saad for example.
Also: you ought to drop the term "Islamophobia" and don't speak to outfits with that term in their name. It's a crock.
Promote instead the term "Anti-Muslim bigotry".
The reason is that we ought to able to criticise the *ideas* of Islam, without being called Islamophobes. The problem is bigotry to individual Muslims as people. That's unacceptable, and needs to be called out with the accurate term of "anti-Muslim bigotry".
For example: we should be able to critique the *idea* of religious garb of whichever religion without being called a "whichever-phobe". But if we're rude to someone wearing religious garb, then that's anti-whichever bigotry.
Yours Sincerely,
Peter Forsythe
Hong Kong
+852 9308 0799

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