Islamophobia: It Ain't What It Used To Be

UK Equalities Chief Who Popularised The Term ‘Islamophobia’ Admits: ‘I Thought Muslims Would Blend into Britain… I Should Have Known Better’

As the great Mark Steyn put it:

When it comes to querying the benefits to the west of semi-Islamization, Trevor Phillips packs more of a punch than most of us. First, he's black, which shouldn't matter but does. Second, he's the former head of Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission, one of those identity-group grievance bodies which made such considerations matter (as did the Commission for Racial Equality, which Mr Phillips previously chaired). Third, he's the guy who introduced the word "Islamophobia" into the English language, in a celebrated report on "discrimination" two decades ago.

Now, in a new Channel 4 documentary with an accompanying poll of British Muslim attitudes, he has issued a mea sorta culpa:

For a long time, I too thought that Europe's Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain's diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.

"Islamophobic", like other pejorative labels tossed around by the left, is used not to facilitate debate, but to end it. We are rational, discriminating creatures; the left uses language to get around this. There is a difference between, say, the Muslim faith and the Amish. These differences should be brought out into the open.