I’ve never really been taken in by the whole ‘men in dresses, beard and Kalashnikov” combo. The same goes for the awe and fear the image inspires in certain quarters.
Then again, I’m no Salman Rushdie. I’ve been known to don the occasional burqa — but only for festive purposes, and not on pain of death.
Despite my opinions on the fashion sense, habits and methods of the Muslim religious zealot, I have not truly felt their sting.
Yet one has to wonder just how seriously to take the idea of this ‘global Islamic resurgence” that has for years been on everyone’s lips and against which we are constantly warned.
Just when everyone is quaking in their boots at the thought of a billion-strong amorphous mass with swords, bent on forcing the world into servitude — along comes a moment with the potential to throw all received wisdom into confusion; the sort of moment that might lead any thinking person to conclude that there isn’t really anything to worry about at all.
Just ask the unlucky manufacturer whose consignment of footballs arrived in Bangladesh this week. That is, if you can find him in the wake of a government ban on his footballs, which have been declared unfit to use in this predominantly Muslim nation. This is thanks to them being inscribed with sacred verses used by Muslims in their daily prayers.
Calling this massive faux pas ‘an outrageous and contemptuous act”, the Bangladeshi government is currently investigating how the offending equipment got into the country in the first place.
So there you have it. It isn’t the threat of the ‘war on terror” or bombs raining down from the sky which really gets Muslims’ goat — but balls.
The nameless and faceless entrepreneur, who one hopes possesses more business sense than what he clearly lacks in common sense, could take a leaf or two out of a ‘counter-terrorism phrasebook” released this week by the British government
It is designed, we are told, to make Muslims feel less ‘threatened” by the War on Terror.
Gordon Brown’s government, apparently, has decided that ‘aggressive rhetoric”, like the use of words such as ‘Islamic extremism” or ‘jihadi”, just isn’t cricket anymore, and must be abandoned. This self-styled guide for civil servants advises the use of more generalised terms, like ‘criminal murderers” or ‘thugs” to describe those who kill and maim in the name of Islam. This is an apparently serious attempt to avoid Muslims feeling they are ‘specifically to blame”.
All of this going out of one’s way to avoid ‘offending Muslims” has become something of a cottage industry. The very phrase ‘For Fear of Offending Muslims’ (FFOOM) should be entered into the lexicons, dictionaries and annals of popular culture — given the frequency of its use.
‘Australian flag banned for fear of offending Muslims.” ‘Three Little Pigs CD banned for fear of offending Muslims.” ‘Mozart performance cancelled for fear of offending Muslims”.
Then there was a story doing the rounds last year — ‘Bob Woolmer murdered for offending Muslims?” — in which a BBC documentary wondered if the Pakistani cricket captain hadn’t perhaps been offed because he felt his players were praying too much, instead of keeping an eye on the ball, as it were.
Not doing things ‘for fear of offending Muslims” has become the new mantra. Literary and ‘cultural” journals are awash with lengthy pieces by journalists and other ‘defenders of freedom” who warn of a world steeped in self-censorship for fear of that old chestnut, ‘the Islamic threat”. Which may in reality be no more threatening than an old chestnut.
With the notable exception of the ‘cartoon jihads” a couple of years back, one seldom gets to hear from these so-called ‘offended Muslims”. One might even wonder if they really exist. By the same token, how true it is that one-billion adherents of a centuries-old faith are as thin-skinned as we are led to believe?
If what one reads about these weepy, sentimental Muslims is true, perhaps we should be relieved. Perhaps beneath the tough talk, and what we see on CNN, ‘Muslims” are really just a bunch of softies, overly sensitive to the tiniest slight, and prone to a fit of tears in the schoolyard should the local bully come close. Phew!
Speaking about its new euphemism-laced style guide, the British Home Office said this week that it shouldn’t be seen engaging in mollycoddling doublespeak appeasement.
‘This is not about political correctness, but effectiveness — evidence shows that people stop listening if they think you are attacking them,” it opined.
And here we were thinking it was them attacking us —