Re-inventing Islam

The word Islamophobia was coined in the late 1980s but its use in print is traced to February 1991 in an American periodical (The Runnymede Trust, Islamophobia a challenge for us all, 1997, p.1) The word carried a derogatory connotation and projected Islam as a phobia and Muslims as aliens, barbaric, violent, fundamentalist, and culturally inferior and male dominant, rather unfair to women. Conceptually, it reflected deep bias, hatred, discrimination and exclusion of Muslims. The selling point was oppression against women by enforcing on them both face and head coverings, making them absent from economic and financial activities, confining them to the home and segregating them in social life. The Afghan War and, much before that, the self-defence of the Palestinians in response to the illegal occupation of Palestine by the Israeli infiltrators, was projected globally as an act of terror. On the other hand, so-called human rights groups and the global media kept their eyes shut on erasure of the whole city of Deir Yassin by death squads led by Menachem Begin. Moreover, every act of terror by the Israeli forces is justified and all blame is placed on the already oppressed Palestinians. The Palestinian scarf was projected as a terrorist symbol globally.