One of the recurring themes of Islamophobia is the idea that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim or that there are as many and varied strands of thinking amongst Muslims as there is with the rest of humanity. The mere fact of being a Muslim is enough to make you a supporter of suicide bombings, an anti-semite, a threat to “Western Civilisation” and of course a potential terrorist.
When the racists and Islamophobes come across Muslims who are not sword wielding Mad Mullahs out to establish a world caliphate their reaction is not to temper and refine their own views but instead to attack, smear, denigrate and falsify in order to portray their target as being a reflection of their own caricature of Muslims.
We have seen this repeatedly in the past 2 years in relation to Yusuf al-Qaradawi and even Tariq Ramadan.
Inayat Bunglawala is Media Secretary for the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and is an extremely eloquent and intelligent spokesman for that organisation.
An intelligent and articulate Muslim? Now there’s a thing to get the Islamophobes ranting and foaming at the mouth.
Inayat is now 36 years old and the best that the right wing press can offer as proof of his extremism is an article he wrote for a Muslim youth magazine 14 years ago in 1992 when he was 22 years old. I don’t know about anybody else but I held some views when I was 22 that I’d wish to refine somewhat in the cold light of 14 years more experience of the world.
The fact that Inayat contributes to the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ website clearly infuriates the racists and Islamophobes and an absurd attempt to smear Inayat developed in the comments section of hislatest posting.
Regular readers of Islamophobia Watch will be aware of the vile “little green footballs” blog and it was through this site that an absurd allegation regarding a death threat Inayat is supposed to have made to that site was published.
Apparently the threat came from someone with a Reuters account and because Inayat works in the media, ipso facto it was him. Absolute hysterical nonsense of course but ludicrous claims and smear attempts are par for the course for the Islamophobes, as they have once again proved.
