Islamophilia: A Neurotic Reaction Against Truth
Pamela Geller recently reported on the murders of 120 Christians in Nigeria since February of this year. This is the tip of the iceberg of attacks on churches and Christians throughout the world by Islamists who are crying for the blood of Christian martyrs. Many leftwing atheists then call those who vigorously protest this bloodshed “Islamophobes.” In effect, they are allowing and even encouraging the militant Islamists to continue their violent acting out.
The sympathy with Islamic jihadists is the necessary perverse outcome of a deep mental illness which I diagnose and call Islamophilia. This is the exaggerated love of Islam and of followers of Islam based upon a desire to bring death and destruction to Christians, Jews, and even those secularists who remain loyal to Judeo-Christian morality. It is an overidentification with the mindset that wishes to destroy Anglo/American liberty based on natural rights, and with the deep, Western attachment to personal autonomy and private property. The natural [and inalienable] rights of our Anglo-American civilization are, according to our Declaration of Independence, endowed by our Creator. These rights are Biblical rights found in Scripture, and moved forward by God’s holy providence into the natural realm of human governance.
In short, the leftist brigades of our culture are sublimating their vendetta of hate for natural rights and for Christian faith (deeply tied to Old Testament teachings and faith) through vicarious identification with the violent Islamic jihadist machinations against non-Islamic societies, cultural subgroups, and governments.
Islamophilia, not Islamophobia, is the greatest threat to the peace and tranquility of western civilization. Like many of the other “-philias,” it is a deeply irrational disturbance which functions by exaggerating the merits of a class of beings (Islam) in order to distract from a realistic assessment of that class or aggregate. Pedophilia, for example, is an irrational and perverse sexual attraction of adults to children. Pedophilia is defined as “a psychiatric disorder” involving adult sexual fantasies and activities with children. Another more detailed definition states that pedophilia is “…legally defined as sexual child abuse.” Therefore, we can say that disorder, deviance, and abuse are the defining characteristics of the term Islamophilia that is being advanced in this article.
Another perverse “-philia” is necrophilia. Necrophilia is defined as “A morbid fondness for being in the presence of dead bodies. [and] The impulse to have sexual contact, or the act of such contact, with a dead body, usually of men with female corpses.” Sex in these cases means that there is no reciprocal passion. The necrophiliac expresses erotic desires toward the dead, and the dead, being dead, express nothing back. They are, well, dead… Now we have five working concepts for understanding Islamophilia: disorder, deviance, abuse, morbidity, and perversity.
Douglas Murray, Deputy Editor of the Spectator in the United Kingdom, has coined the term Islamophilia. But he uses criteria to define the term which treats the Islamophiles of the press and of the left as though they were only expressing a form of wrongheadedness, but does not draw us into this “-philia” as being a neurotic manifestation of some deep pathologies.
For example, he states that Islamophilia is a “disproportionate adoration of Islam.” In making this statement, he fails to call the reader’s attention to the perversity of this “disproportion.” After 1400 years of attacks on the West, both Europe and the USA, as well as attacks on non-Islamics in many other Christian and non-Christian countries, we see that enjoyment of worship of Allah is not uppermost in their minds. Rather, religious/political conquest of all other peoples is the driving motive of Islam and wedded to their beliefs.
All other world religions make some significant peace claims, but Islam fails to do so. Failure to acknowledge this historical reality means that the Islamophile’s defensive response in support of Islam is not only disproportionate, but is deviant and disordered. Its main goal is to harass the Christians and to disabuse the West of the idea that its Christian and Jewish foundation is valid. Experiencing Christianity as a form of cultural abuse, they wish, in turn, to abuse Christians. Islam is intended as the instrument of that abuse by the non-Islamic Islamophiles.
Murray also states, “But when it comes to Christianity, it appears that you cannot uphold its doctrines without immediately being accused of obscurantism or bigotry. This results from a profound disdain in intellectual circles towards the religions underpinning the West, and a corresponding exaggerated respect for what are presumed to be the cultures of the underdeveloped world.” This observation is certainly true, as the negative response to Christianity in all its manifestations (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant) produces an adoration of Islam not founded on respect for its principles, but on antipathy towards Christian faith and the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth and all that resides therein. Christ is hated by Islamophiles. Thus, the Islamophile is perverse insofar as his or her attraction to Islam is a pseudo-attraction based more upon hatred of Christianity than love and respect for the Islamics.
Additionally, Murray notes, “The media… could never broadcast, or print… an article explaining from the Christian -- or any other -- point of view why Islam’s founding story simply doesn’t stack up… Let any scholar loose on the materials and they could do it. Biblical or Torah scholars using the tools of criticism could use them on the Koran and have a wonderful and fascinating time of it.” Thus, he rightly sees the unwillingness of the MSM to run in the public square critiques of Islam from the point of view of other religions to thereby help the public see the issues. In fact, writers like Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Raymond Ibrahim, Daniel Pipes, Jamie Glazov, Daniel Greenfield, David Horowitz, Martin Sherman, Mordecai Kedar, and Steve Emerson are marginalized to the highest degree possible. The Islamophiles thus want to remain in ignorance of both Christianity and of Islam. In so doing, they are promoting their own ignorance along with public ignorance. They are thereby encouraging morbid thoughts of hatred founded not on knowledge but upon continuing ignorance.
“Islamophiles” have been using the term Islamophobia to slander those who want to defend our culture from the false, non-Christian religion of Islam bent on conquest of the West and of all other cultures. From now on, those using the term Islamophobia must immediately be addressed as neurotic Islamophiles. Public use of terminology to indict false positions is essential in the culture wars. The left often has been successful in stigmatizing the views of patriots who oppose them. New initiatives need to be taken so the left will experience the shoe on the other foot. Conservatives must not only express opposition, but create opposition. Just as the left hopes to stigmatize those with whom they disagree by using the term Islamophobia, they should be stigmatized by use of the term Islamophilia.